Is That Filler Legit, or Was It Boughton Alibaba?

Counterfeit injectables, fraudulent credentials, lumpy lips, and droopy eyes— inside the underregulated world of American med spas.

- BY SARAH TRELEAVEN ILLUSTRATIONS BY VANESSA SABA

In September 2022, a woman went looking for lip filler and found herself at a Skin Beauté medical spa in Randolph, a suburb about 15 miles south of Boston. There, she encountered Rebecca Fadanelli, the glamorous 30-something owner, who told her she was a nurse. According to court documents, the woman asked what substance was being injected into her lips, but Fadanelli didn’t answer directly— she simply said that she had purchased the products from Brazil and China. Then Fadanelli also injected filler in between her eyebrows, allegedly without her permission.

Soon, bumps started to form in the woman’s lips, and she experienced tingling on her forehead where she had been injected. The client asked Fadanelli for a copy of the prescription, but Fadanelli never provided one. Suspicious, she searched for Fadanelli’s nursing license on Mass.gov, but learned she wasn’t registered. Her next call was to the Food and Drug Administration (FDA): a single complaint that would help uncover a raft of shocking claims about the med spa’s practices—and highlight serious concerns about the entire industry.

When clients happened upon Fadanelli’s two Boston-area Skin Beauté locations, the spas looked luxe and legit. They were spacious, with chairs and couches covered in blue velvet, glittering chandeliers hanging overhead, and tidy skin care product displays, including some from Fadanelli’s eponymous line. On social media—tagline: “Beauty is not in the face, beauty is a light in the heart!”—Fadanelli, whose vibe was more Miami than Massachusetts, with the long blonde hair, deep bronze tan, and exaggerated trout pout of an influencer, presented an enviable life, driving a white Range Rover, and often posing in a white lab coat, giving her a veneer of expertise. In one video, she sampled her own offerings, filming as a clinician massaged a micropigmentation pen over her ample lips.