The “Perfect Peach” Ads Selling a Life-Threatening BBL Procedure

Beauty marketing has a habit of moving the goalposts. For years the pressure was waist size. Then it shifted to butt size. The standard changes shape, but the comparison stays.

In April 2025, the UK Advertising Standards Authority banned a cluster of social media ads promoting “liquid Brazilian Butt Lifts” (BBLs), a non-surgical butt lift involving injections of dermal filler. The rulings covered ads from Beautyjenics Ltd, Bomb Doll Aesthetics, CCskinLondonDubai, EME Aesthetics & Beauty Academy Ltd, NKD Medical Ltd (trading as Dr Ducu London), and Rejuvenate Academy Ltd (trading as Rejuvenate Clinics). (ASA)

The ads followed the same pattern: glamorous body shots, casual language, and urgency tactics that made a high-risk procedure feel like a quick purchase. One of the phrases flagged in reporting was “perfect peachy look”, paired with time-limited offers and price-led prompts to book. (The Guardian)

This matters because a BBLs are not in the same category as other beauty filler treatments. Despite its relative non-invasiveness compared to surgery, is a serious procedure with serious risk. People have suffered severe complications, including infections and sepsis, and deaths have been linked to liquid BBLs in the UK. (The Times)

The Trick Behind The "Confidence" Pitch

Ads create insecurity by setting a new reference point, then making it feel like the baseline. They present one exaggerated body shape as the route to confidence and desirability, then repeat it until it starts to register as “normal”. Once that reference point is in place, comparison kicks in automatically. The viewer is no longer just seeing an advert. They’re measuring themselves against a standard the advert has just installed.

This is contingent self-worth in plain English. Self-esteem becomes conditional on meeting an appearance rule. When worth is tied to a measurement, the mind keeps checking. Comparison becomes more frequent. The body becomes more salient in everyday life. That shift can show up as thoughts like “I don’t count with this shape” or “I won’t be wanted unless I change it.” The thoughts feel personal, but the trigger is environmental and repeated.

Objectification is part of the mechanism too. When the message reduces confidence to one body part, we are trained to view ourselves as parts to be assessed. Self-surveillance follows. More checking. More comparing. More body shame. Exposure does not require aspiration to create this. It only requires repetition and a narrow standard presented as normal.

The ASA’s rulings focused heavily on pressure tactics, and this is where the psychology and the safety risk collide. Time limits and discounts shift the decision from “is this safe and right for me?” to “am I missing out?” Urgency narrows attention. It speeds up commitment. It makes risk easier to minimise because the brain is busy trying to resolve the pressure in front of it. That shift is useful when you’re selling trainers. It is reckless when you’re selling injections into the body. When a clinic frames a liquid BBL as a deal, the advert is not only selling the procedure. It’s selling a faster mindset around a decision that should be slow, informed, and medically grounded.

Why “Confidence” Is The Wrong Promise

Some people choose cosmetic procedures and feel satisfied with the results. We're not here to judge those choices; we're here to condemn advertising claims that confidence is something to be purchased by changing a body part.

That promise makes confidence fragile. If confidence depends on matching a trend, it has to be maintained. It has to keep up with the next ideal. The standard shifts, and the chase starts again. Marketing often treats that cycle as normal, because ongoing dissatisfaction is commercially useful.

This is why the “confidence” framing is so effective. It turns a social pressure into an individual task. Instead of noticing how the standard is being set and sold, we can start treating our bodies as the problem that needs solving. That pattern can intensify anxiety, low mood, and body dissatisfaction over time. For people already vulnerable to eating disorders or body dysmorphia, repeated messaging that equates worth with a narrow body ideal can reinforce existing compulsions and checking behaviours.

There is also a quieter harm: exclusion. When one exaggerated shape is presented as the default for feeling attractive, everyone outside that narrow look is positioned as “before.” That message lands even when the advert is upbeat, colourful, or framed as empowerment.

Why This Matters Beyond One BBL Ad

Liquid BBLs have been described as part of an under-regulated cosmetic space, with serious reported harms. Shockingly, the clinics behind the banned BBL ads pushed back on the idea that their marketing caused harm. The ASA ban shows something bigger than one campaign. Harmful ideas can pass through creative teams, compliance checks, and media buying, then reach the public before accountability arrives.

Index:MH exists to set measurable standards for marketing tactics like this, based on mental health impact. That includes how clinics frame medical risk, how they use urgency, and how they position one body type as the price of confidence. The bar is straightforward: no selling insecurity as strategy, no minimising surgical risk, and no treating one narrow shape as the definition of “normal.”

This is the pattern Index:MH is built to stop: medical risk framed as low-stakes, urgency used to rush decisions, and one exaggerated body shape sold as the route to confidence.