ASA Adjudication on Sisa Beauty Clinic
Sisa Beauty Clinic
30 Stoke Newington High Street
Stoke Newington
London
N16 7PL
Date:
10 October 2012
Media:
Internet (on own site)
Sector:
Health and beauty
Number of complaints:
1
Complaint Ref:
A12-202812
Ad
A website for beauty services www.sisabeautyclinic.co.uk included a page entitled "Laser Hair Removal" where text stated "Our Ellipse hair removal treatment offers clinically-proven, safe and effective long-term removal of unwanted hair .... Well controlled pulses of light penetrate the upper skin layer ... the visible light produced by the Ellipse Flex and Ellipse Light systems are carefully controlled".
Issue
The complainant challenged whether the claim "Laser Hair Removal" was misleading because he understood the service being offered was Intense Pulsed Light (IPL).
CAP Code (Edition 12)
Response
Sisa Beauty Clinic (Sisa) did not respond to the ASA's enquiries.
Assessment
Upheld
The ASA was concerned by Sisa's lack of response and apparent disregard for the Code, which was a breach of CAP Code (Edition 12) rule 1.7 (Unreasonable delay). We reminded them of their responsibility to respond promptly to our enquiries and told them to do so in future.
Because Sisa had not provided evidence to demonstrate that term "Laser Hair Removal" had been accurately used in relation to the product we concluded that the ad was misleading.
The ad breached CAP Code (Edition 12) rules 3.1, 3.3 (Misleading advertising) and 3.7 (Substantiation).
Action
The ad must not appear again in its current form. We referred the matter to the CAP Compliance team.
