CRI听力:Inside China's Mini-plastic Surgery Industry

Miss Zhang's nightmare began after she saw a WeChat promotion last year which advertised a "lipo-dissolve treatment."

This is a cosmetic injection which claims to be able to slim down a person's face, as well as help them lose weight.

"Two weeks after my first injection, my cheeks started to swell up. Then after several days, puss-filled boils began appearing on my face, and started getting bigger. They were hard. Three days later, more began appearing. The injections have caused permanent damage to my face. I am basically disfigured. Of course, it has affected my life and work."

Miss Zhang is just one of a growing number of Chinese women who have used cosmetic injections, or as they're known in China, mini-plastic surgeries.
However, this has also led to more and more women being left with physical and emotional scars after failed procedures.

Another area of concern is the so-called medical cosmetology training schools.

They promise students fast-fortunes through their courses.

The "Deli School" in Beijing requires students to pay nearly 9-thousand yuan, or around 14-hundred US dollars, to take a 4-day course.

As part of it many of the students will undergo the cosmetic procedures themselves.

Instructors at the school make students, who most-often have no medical training, give injections to one-another.

At the same time, the instructors also give lessons on how to dupe their clients.

"In the summer, you should tell the customers to avoid too much sun and carry an umbrella when going out. A month after you put them through the whitening injections, even if the effect isn't obvious, the customer's skin will still be lighter, simply because you tell them to protect themselves from the sun. It's only you who will know the effect is not from the injections. It's all subliminal marketing."

Here in China, the Internet is full of products targeting people who want to look younger.

Often times the websites will claim the products they're selling are imported from abroad.

In some cases, they'll even arrange appointments with so-called "doctors" from the mainland, Taiwan or South Korea.

Doctor Chen Huanran, senior plastic surgeon with Peking Union Medical College, says its claims like this which authorities should be cracking-down on.

"Food and medical products are part of people's lives. I think anyone found operating an illegal clinic should be blacklisted and banned from the cosmetic surgery business. Performing cosmetic procedures without a license is is illegal. I also believe licensed medical personnel who are found side-lining in unlicensed clinics should have their medical licenses pulled for half-a-year to several years."

China is now the 3rd largest market in the world for cosmetic surgery behind the United States and Brazil.

Independent research is suggesting people in China are going to spend as much as 9-billion US dollars on cosmetic surgery a year in the next 3-years.