Leslie Ash was once a tabloid sweetheart and named the ultimate girl next door. But, when she opted for a lip-filler to combat the signs of aging the results were disastrous and she was branded the ‘comedy blonde’, ‘old trout’ and ‘fish face’ by the press.

Now, for the first time, Leslie talks on camera about her experience and investigates what went wrong with her face, why it was allowed to happen and discovers if there’s anything that can be done to fix it.

In Leslie Ash: Face to Face, the actress examines the rapidly growing cosmetic beauty industry and highlights a lack of regulation which she believes should serve as a warning to anyone considering treatment.

She visits old friend Toyah Willcox to talk about the surgery she has had – will it tempt Leslie to consider going under the knife again herself?

And she witnesses a patient having the next big thing in injectable cosmetic beauty – the injectable boob job.

Leslie tells the programme: “I’ve been called names and I’ve been dragged through the British press. Since I had ‘that’ lip job I’ve been held up as the poster girl for all that’s wrong with the cosmetic beauty industry – and there’s lots wrong with it. I think if I could do something about it, then I’d like to.”

The programme follows Leslie at home as she looks back over her career as a model and actress. She talks candidly about the pressure she felt to maintain her looks and her decision to opt for what she thought was going to be a simple cosmetic lip plump when she felt the signs of aging taking their toll on her.

She says: “What I wanted was a simple cosmetic lip plump, what I got was, well, you all know how it ended. They had used a cocktail of something and injected into somewhere they hadn’t before. It just had a very bad reaction and went hard.”

Leslie visits a plastic surgeon who examines MRI scans of Leslie’s face and explains what he thinks went wrong. He says he suspects a material similar to silicone was injected into her lips and permeated through the thickness of the lip so that it is now underneath the skin, within the muscles and close to the inner-lining of the mouth as well.

Leslie admits that she wishes she had done more research before she had the procedure and wants to make other women aware that doing your homework is imperative.

The Government has been accused of failing to tighten regulations surrounding the UK cosmetic injection industry. Despite the potential dangers of cosmetic fillers, they are not classed as requiring a prescription, which means anybody can inject them.

In Leslie Ash: Face to Face, she visits the man offering training to beauty therapists – not doctors or other medical professionals – to carry out botox injections. In just one day beauticians are trained to inject people and if they also have a NVQ level three certificate in beauty therapy they can get the insurance they need to carry out the injections.

The Independent Health Care Advisory Service have been appointed by the Government to draw up standards on how the cosmetic injectable industry should operate.

Sally Taber, of the Independent Health Care Advisory Service, tells the programme: “With these standards it’s not advised that beauty therapists carry out injectables. They don’t have the right background. It’s fine, you can teach somebody to give an injection but if something goes wrong then I think it is the doctors, registered nurses and dentists that have that required training.”

Leslie also meets the man who ended up needing a skin graft after his nasal tissue was eaten away when an injected filler left him with an infection.

Plus, she witnesses the next big thing in lunch-hour surgery – injectable boob jobs. She watches as a woman has macrolane injected into her breasts to increase them by a cup size. The procedure takes a matter of minutes and the effects last 18 months – but Leslie tells the programme she is concerned by it.

She says: “Macrolane is a filler which means you don’t have to have a prescription for it, it may be tightly controlled at the moment and being used by good doctors but it concerns me that there are people out there who could abuse it.”

The programme also follows Leslie as she jets to LA where she discovers regulations are tighter than in Britain, requiring practitioners to be medically qualified to inject someone in most states.

Leslie also opts to watch a woman with a botched lip filler job like her own undergo reconstructive surgery, looking on as the doctor peels the filler from the inside of the patient’s lips.

Later, Leslie consults a surgeon to see if the same procedure would be an option for her, but she is told that as the filler has gone through so many layers of her tissue it could permanently damage her mouth.

In spite of this news, Leslie explains to the programme that she still thinks cosmetic surgery is an individual’s choice.

She says: “I just want to look good. I want to live my life looking in a mirror and being happy with what I see.”

She visits Toyah Willcox who has had several procedures and talks openly about them, describing to Leslie the facelift and neck-lift she had, as well as a lower-lift to take out her jowls.

Tuesday, 23 September 2008, 9:00PM – 10:00PM, ITV1