Story By: Gheorghi Caraseni, Sub Editor: Joseph Golder, Agency: Central European News
This footage shows the fake Russian “plastic surgeon” who started the “devil lips” craze celebrating his birthday party with several female friends and a live leopard during lockdown.
Pictures of women who have had the devil lips modification that involves giving them a bizarre wavy shape widely shared on the Internet in 2017, with international media revealing it was a technique that had been pioneered by “plastic surgeon” Emelyan Braude.
But he was later exposed as being in reality Yan Silis, who set up his own cosmetic school without any relevant medical educational background. The school’s curriculum included lectures on how to carry out сheiloplasty, also known as lip augmentation and correction.
When challenged about the procedure, and asked how he could claim to be a cosmetologist, specialising in the application of beauty treatments, he admitted he was not qualified, but added: “I am an expert”.
He then said: “You don’t need to be qualified to give an injection anywhere you want, you can even give an injection at a railway station, it is not forbidden by law.”
Russian media said that among his followers was fake Russian plastic surgeon Alena Verdi, 37, whose real name is Antonina Gorbunova, who is being prosecuted after causing severe damage to patients by carrying out surgical procedures without any medical background.
Despite the fact that Russia is on lockdown, Braude used the opportunity to invite partygoers including several women who can be seen inflating condoms while the birthday boy himself crouches down and plays with a leopard with a crown on his head.
It currently remains unknown how and when he created his school, yet local media report that since December, 2017, he started giving various seminars for cosmetologists on how to better perform сheiloplasty, using alleged ‘secret methods’.
Asked by journalists from the Russian city of Krasnodar if he has a medical background to perform such seminars or plastic surgeries, he answered: “I do not. I am not a cosmetologist, I am an expert.”
There have been no reports that police are investigating him over his 37th birthday party, or indeed whether he faces an investigation over his cosmetic work.
His “devil” lips procedure involved injections along the lip line to create a look similar to a scallop shell.
Skin and beauty expert Nilam Holmes said she thought it was a Halloween joke when she first spotted the photos online.
She said: “Please don’t be naive and follow silly trends like this. You will not be able to reverse it easily and go back to your natural lips easily, if at all. Your lip border will be distorted and it won’t wear off evenly so you will have frilly lips for years to come.”
And cosmetic dental surgeon and facial aesthetician Dr Krystyna Wilczynski said: “You can sharpen and contour by enhancing the vermilion border, but these ‘devil lips’ are unnatural. Filler injected inappropriately could end up in a blood vessel, causing blockages and leading to necrosis (death) of the tissue. The vessels are around the lips, so using filler inappropriately is what can cause this.”
