IT’S Friday night and Serena, 27, has invited eight of her friends around to her Melbourne apartment for a drink.

At 6pm, they pop a bottle of champagne. At 7pm, they light up a joint. At 8pm, a doctor and a nurse knock on her door and over the next hour, Serena and her friends are injected with Botox and fillers in her bedroom. The products have been purchased online from overseas providers. Some of these women have been “doing” Botulinum toxin, sold in Australia as Botox, Dysport or Xeomin, for a decade, while others are first timers.

They all sign a legal waiver absolving the doctor and nurse of responsibility if anything goes wrong.

The alcohol means inhibitions are lost. “Beforehand, the girls will say ‘I’m just going to get a tiny bit between my eyebrows’ or ‘I’m only spending $50’,” Serena said. “By the end of the night they’d been Botoxed all over their faces.”