Cosmetic surgery? Only if you rely on qualified professionals. the warning from “El País”, while the global liposculpture market booms

Touch-ups? Yes, but only if carried out by qualified professionals and reputable clinics. Cosmetic surgery is no game, and the warning about the dangers of superficiality — amplified by social media and aggressive beauty marketing — comes from the prestigious Spanish newspaper El País. According to the publication, low-cost clinics and promotional campaigns that promise “miracle” transformations are fostering a “superficial perception of the implications of these operations”. Many people now think “going to a cosmetic surgeon is like going to the hairdresser”, without understanding the potential complications.

For this reason, it is crucial to entrust one’s beauty and well-being only to experienced, certified specialists. A poorly executed procedure can have lifelong consequences.

The El País dossier also outlines current trends in Europe. The most requested procedures include breast augmentation, rhinoplasty, botox and liposuction. Globally, liposculpture alone represents a 2-billion-dollar market; injectable fillers account for 2.7 billion; breast implants 1.3 billion; and botox 2.1 billion.

The real issue, the newspaper stresses, is that in many low-cost clinics, the people providing information to patients — 85% of whom are women — are salespeople with no medical training, while the surgeon meets the patient only briefly before the operation. This leads to a superficial, risky approach that fails to adequately protect the patient.

The Spanish Association of Aesthetic and Plastic Surgery (AECEP) is increasingly concerned about a booming business driven by profit rather than patient well-being. Operating-room incidents are rising due to the proliferation of low-cost clinics where procedures are often performed by doctors without proper training or specialization in plastic surgery.

The issue has sparked significant debate in Spain. Following the summer, the PSOE proposed a parliamentary resolution aiming to regulate the sector through three key measures: mandatory qualified surgeons for all procedures, stricter advertising rules and an informed consent form that clearly states the surgeon’s specialization.

Cosmetic surgery is now a widespread trend across Europe and the US. In Spain, the number of procedures nearly doubled in a decade, rising from 119,637 in 2010 to 221,935 in 2019, and reaching 397,512 in 2020 according to ISAPS. In 2020 — the pandemic year — numbers dropped to 165,906, but projections suggest a return to previous levels and continued growth.

With these figures, Spain ranks as the 11th country worldwide for total number of cosmetic procedures, while the United States, Brazil and Germany lead the global ranking.