6 Overhyped Aesthetic Treatments You Should Not Try (No Matter What Your Favorite Influencer Says)
Aesthetic medicine has entered a strange new era: treatments go viral before they’re proven. A single Instagram reel can create demand faster than years of clinical study. Suddenly everyone is an expert on collagen stimulation, “regenerative injectables,” skin boosters, and “biohacking” the face.
And the marketing is almost always the same: natural, effortless, no downtime, science-backed, better than filler, better than surgery.
Here’s the truth: science does not care about aesthetics marketing. Your face is not a trend canvas. And “popular” is not the same as safe, effective, or predictable.
Innovation matters — but it has to be real innovation. The gold standard isn’t what looks good on camera. It’s what works in real human faces long-term, with controlled technique, reproducible outcomes, and known complication profiles.
Below are six treatments being heavily promoted right now that I consider massively overhyped — and in some cases, simply not worth the risk.
1) Salmon Sperm Facials (“Salmon DNA” / “Salmon Skin” injections)
This trend is designed to go viral. The name is intentionally provocative, and the implication is seductive: if it’s derived from something “biologic,” it must be regenerative, restorative, and better than traditional injectables.
But medicine doesn’t work that way.
“Natural” is not a safety category. Biologic does not automatically mean effective. And a treatment being trendy does not mean it’s supported by high-quality long-term data.
The bigger issue is this: the average patient has no idea what they’re actually getting.
You’ll see vague language about “DNA fragments,” “cell signaling,” and “repair.” But what matters in practice is far more specific: product purity, sterility, manufacturing oversight, dosing, injection depth, patient selection, and how it behaves over time in living tissue.
If a treatment needs shock value to sell itself, that should immediately raise suspicion. Truly high-performing aesthetic treatments don’t need gimmicks.
2) PBM / “PBRM” (Photobiomodulation / red light-style devices)
Let’s be clear: photobiomodulation is not nonsense. Light-based therapies can have real benefits in medicine — especially in wound healing and inflammation reduction.
But the current aesthetic PBM trend has become absurdly inflated.
Social media has turned red-light devices into a kind of skincare religion: “Fixes collagen,” “reverses aging,” “erases wrinkles,” “tightens skin,” “rebuilds the dermis.”
That’s not reality.
At best, PBM is a supportive tool. It may reduce inflammation, improve recovery, or give mild improvements in skin tone and redness for the right person. But it is not a facelift. It is not a substitute for eyelid surgery. And it will not meaningfully correct laxity, deep wrinkles, or structural aging.
If you want a simple filter: if a treatment would need to create dramatic change to justify the hype — and it doesn’t — then it’s overhyped.
PBM is fine. The marketing is not.
3) PRF (Platelet-Rich Fibrin)
PRF is one of the most misunderstood treatments in aesthetics because it sits in a gray zone between “legit biologic approach” and “social media miracle.”
Yes: PRF is autologous (comes from your blood). Yes: it can have regenerative properties. Yes: it may have a role in improving texture and supporting the under-eye area in select patients.
But here’s what’s missing from the conversation online: PRF outcomes are wildly variable.
Why?
Because results depend on:
PRF is often pitched as “filler without filler” — as if it can replace structural volume or surgical correction.
It cannot.
If someone has significant under-eye hollowing, skin laxity, or herniated fat pads, PRF will not deliver the kind of transformation they’ve been promised. And repeated sessions chasing a result can become expensive, frustrating, and still underwhelming.
PRF can be a nice adjunct. It is not magic. And it is frequently oversold.
4) Easy Gel
This one falls into a category I call aesthetic improvisation: treatments that sound convenient, trend fast, and have nowhere near the long-term safety track record required for faces.
Easy Gel is often framed as a “natural filler alternative,” or a “better, safer option,” typically bundled with vague claims about regenerative effects.
Here’s the problem: the face is not a place for casual experimentation.
Anything injected must be evaluated by:
biocompatibility
inflammatory potential
migration risk
reversibility (or lack thereof)
longevity and breakdown behavior
risk of nodules, granulomas, irregularity
interaction with future surgeries, lasers, and fillers
The truth is that the “easy” part is marketing. There is nothing easy about complications from unknown gels or poorly characterized injectable materials.
Predictability is luxury in aesthetics. If the material is not predictable, it’s not a luxury treatment — it’s a liability.
5) Heat-Based Energy Devices on the Face
This includes the entire world of heat-based tightening treatments — radiofrequency, ultrasound, and energy devices marketed for lifting, tightening, and collagen stimulation.
Yes, energy devices can work. Yes, they have a place.
But the way they’re being used now is often aggressive, repetitive, and misguided — especially for younger patients, lean faces, or anyone vulnerable to volume loss.
Here’s what patients aren’t told enough:
Heat does not only tighten skin. Heat can also damage fat.
When facial fat is compromised, the result is not “snatched.” It’s hollow, harsh, and prematurely aged — especially around the temples, cheeks, and perioral area.
Once you lose volume in the face, you don’t look younger. You look older.
And no, the answer is not always “just add filler.” Replacing natural fat loss is possible, but it’s not as simple as reversing a mistake.
In the wrong patient, heat devices trade the glow of short-term tightening for long-term facial deflation. That trade is unacceptable.
6) Injected Peptides
Peptides have become the trendiest word in the biohacking-to-aesthetics pipeline.
They are marketed like futuristic medicine: “signals your body to regenerate,” “stimulates collagen,” “reverses aging,” “heals tissue,” “like stem cells but better.”
What’s usually missing: credible long-term data, safety oversight, and transparency.
A peptide may be effective in a lab setting. That does not mean it is safe or appropriate to inject into human faces — especially outside a robust regulatory framework.
The injection trend is being driven by internet culture, not clinical standards.
And injected peptides introduce a massive risk-to-reward mismatch:
unknown dosing and formulation standards
unknown contamination risk
unpredictable immune response
unknown long-term tissue behavior
no reliable reversal mechanism if something goes wrong
The face is not the place for experimental wellness culture.
If something goes wrong, you don’t “detox.” You end up managing an inflammatory complication in the most delicate tissue on the body — and that’s not something anyone should gamble on.
The Big Idea: Choose Predictability Over Hype
Most patients don’t want “the newest thing.”
They want:
The best aesthetic outcomes are built on fundamentals:
anatomy
restraint
meticulous technique
proven tools
and a long-term plan
If a treatment feels like it’s being sold through internet excitement rather than real clinical rigor, trust your instincts.
Your face deserves predictability — not hype.
