The ASA enforcement tracker.
Advertising rulings, MHRA notices and enforcement pushes in UK aesthetics, kept current so you learn the rules from other people’s mistakes instead of your own.
Most practitioners learn advertising law the expensive way, one ruling at a time. This page keeps the score instead: the rules that matter, the enforcement actions we can verify, and the exact wording mistakes that keep getting clinics and academies sanctioned. It is reviewed quarterly, alongside our full advertising guide.
The rule that decides everything
Botulinum toxin is a prescription-only medicine, and CAP Code rule 12.12 prohibits advertising POMs to the public entirely. That includes brand names (Botox, Bocouture and the rest), it includes hashtags (#botox on a public post is an advert), and it includes euphemisms that a reader would understand as the drug. Dermal fillers are not POMs and may be advertised, but the misleadingness, social-responsibility and under-18 rules still apply with teeth. The ASA has cascaded these rules directly to the sector, contacting more than 60 training academies about their advertising (CAP guidance).
The enforcement record
| Year | Action | What happened | The lesson |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2023 | LIFT Aesthetics ruling (upheld) | Celebrity-fronted promotion involving a prescription-only medicine | Influencer reach does not launder a POM advert; it amplifies it |
| 2024 | Dr Bunny Aesthetics ruling (upheld) | “Anti-wrinkle” and “anti-ageing toxin” wording held to be advertising the POM | Euphemisms fail; if the public reads it as the drug, it is the drug |
| 2024 | MHRA enforcement sweep | 47 enforcement notices issued to aesthetic businesses over illegal POM advertising (MHRA, 2024) | The medicines regulator enforces alongside the ASA, and moves in volume |
| 2024 | Local-authority BBL guidance (October) | Enforcement guidance for authorised officers on buttock augmentation and body contouring | Councils now have a written playbook for the highest-risk procedures |
| 2025–26 | “No ifs, no butts” enforcement push | ASA/CAP targeted campaign on liquid BBL advertising; JCCP welcomed a court injunction against a BBL injector | High-risk procedures attract coordinated enforcement before any licence exists |
Full rulings are published on the ASA website; our enforcement analysis covers the BBL front in detail.
The wording that survives
The compliant pattern is structural, not clever: advertise the consultation and the practitioner, never the medicine. “Consultations for frown lines and facial ageing, from £150” survives. “Botox from £150” does not, and neither does “anti-wrinkle injections £150” once a ruling has read it as the POM by another name. Fillers may be named, but price-led urgency (“£99 lips this week only”) walks into the social-responsibility rules. The advertising guide carries the full sanctionable-versus-compliant table and a pre-publish checklist.
What we expect next
Enforcement is running ahead of licensing. Expect continued BBL actions, more MHRA volume on POM promotion (weight-loss injections included, where the same POM rules apply), and closer attention to training providers’ own marketing, which the ASA has already signalled by writing to academies directly. When England’s licensing scheme arrives, advertising compliance history is exactly the kind of evidence a licensing authority can ask about. Clean copy now is cheap insurance.
This tracker is editorial information, not legal advice. Actions listed are as published by the ASA, CAP, MHRA and JCCP; verify the current position on their sites before relying on it. Reviewed 11 July 2026.