Before-and-after photos sell aesthetic treatments. In New Jersey, nobody checks whether they are honest.

Walk into any med spa consultation and you will be shown before-and-after photos. For most patients, those images are the single biggest factor in deciding whether to go ahead with a treatment like a Botox brow lift, filler or laser resurfacing.

There is currently no rule in New Jersey requiring those photos to be accurate.

That means a clinic can legally show you:

• A "before" photo shot under harsh overhead light and an "after" shot under flattering light
• Different camera angles, distances or lenses between the two images
• Smoothing filters or editing applied to the "after" image
• Photos taken at peak swelling or peak result, without saying which
• Stock photography or another clinic's results presented as their own
• No indication of how many units were used, how many sessions, or how much time passed

Patients cannot detect any of this. They simply see a result and assume it is what they will get.

This matters more than it sounds.

Aesthetic results vary enormously between patients. A Botox brow lift raises the brow by roughly one to three millimetres. A photo edited to suggest more than that is not marketing — it is a false expectation, and the patient pays for it.

New Jersey has no regulations governing medical spas at all. According to the American Medical Association, only twelve states have any med spa rules, and New Jersey is not among them. Nationally, 70% of medical spas have no affiliation with a physician practice.

WHAT WE ARE ASKING FOR

We call on the New Jersey Division of Consumer Affairs and the New Jersey Board of Medical Examiners to set minimum standards for before-and-after imagery used in aesthetic advertising:

1. No editing — before-and-after images must be unretouched. No filters, smoothing, reshaping or colour correction applied to one image and not the other.

2. Consistent conditions — matching lighting, angle, distance and expression in both photographs.

3. Disclosed treatment details — the number of sessions, approximate product used, and the time elapsed between the two photographs.

4. Own results only — clinics may only display results produced at their own facility, by their own providers, with documented patient consent.

5. Clear labelling of illustrative images — any stock or illustrative image must be labelled as such, not presented as a patient outcome.

This costs clinics nothing but honesty. Any practice already photographing results properly is unaffected.

WHO IS BEHIND THIS PETITION

This petition is supported by Evolve Med Spa, an award-winning medical spa group operating 15 licensed locations across New Jersey, New York, Maryland and Pennsylvania. Our before-and-after photographs are taken in consistent conditions, unedited, with treatment details disclosed. Learn more at https://evolvemedspa.com

We are asking for a standard that applies to us as much as anyone else — because a patient deciding on a treatment deserves to see what actually happened, not what looked best.

If you have ever chosen a treatment based on a before-and-after photo, please sign.