Beauty therapist fined €6,000 for illegally administering Botox treatments

A beauty therapist, based in Ireland, who illegally performed Botox treatments on her clients has been fined €6,000 despite being warned she was breaking the law.

Viktoriya Bulankova, who owns Visona Beauty in Dublin, faced 19 charges of unlawfully importing, advertising, and administering the anti-wrinkle drug between May 2013 and May 2014.

Bulankova had had some medical training in Russia, but her qualifications are not recognised by the Health Products Regulatory Authority (HPRA), formerly the Irish Medicines Board.

HPRA enforcement officer Brenda Kirby visited Bulankova on May 14, 2013 in relation to her advertising the prescription-only medicine. At the time, she admitted she administered Botox on a number of clients over a period of time.

In May, this year, Kirby received another complaint that a woman had suffered an allergic reaction from a Botox injection she received from Bulankova.

Kirby went to visit Bulankova the next day, where she admitted she had continued to import and administer Botox.

On Monday, September 1, Judge O’Neill at Dublin District Count imposed fines of €1,000 on six of the charges while the remaining 13, which she also pleaded guilty to, were taken into consideration.