Beauty sector to be regulated

Star: PETALING JAYA: The proposed Health Ministry guidelines to regulate the beauty industry will make it easier for the ministry to clamp down on beauty salons offering procedures that are out of their scope of expertise.
The guidelines will list the procedures that are only allowed to be performed by registered medical doctors trained in aesthetic procedures, said Health Minister Datuk Seri Liow Tiong Lai.
“At the moment, it is still unclear what a beautician can or cannot do. But with these new guidelines, it will be clearer and local governments or the police will know that beauty salons are not supposed to perform certain procedures,” said Liow.
He added that if the ministry found out about a beauty salon offering services that were not allowed, it could take immediate action and work with the appropriate licensing body to withdraw their licences and stop their operations.
Liow was responding to The Star's front-page report yesterday on the increase in complaints against beauty salons.
“We have always had this problem with beauty salons. We have told them that they should not perform any invasive treatments, like botox injections or thermal (heat) treatments, (but they still do it),” he told reporters after opening the third Asia Pacific Conference of Public Health here yesterday.
“With stricter rules in the new guidelines, even doctors must go through a specific course to be allowed to carry out beauty treatments in the future,” Liow said.
He said the ministry was working with the Malaysian Society of Aesthetic Medicine on a compulsory syllabus for doctors who wished to perform such procedures.
At the moment, the beauty industry is largely unregulated as there is no specific Act or guideline that spells out the do's and don'ts.
“We can only regulate doctors who perform beauty procedures under the Medical Act 1971.
“But if a beautician performs them, the ministry cannot take action against them under this Act as he or she is not a medical doctor unless there is a complaint,” said Liow.
He also said that with the new guidelines, the ministry could also do random checks on beauty salons, even when there were no complaints.