Victoria Nelson’s TikTok Story That Shook the Med Spa World

We've all trusted someone with our skin and hoped for the best. But what happens when that trust becomes a $30,000 nightmare you wear on your face forever?

Victoria Nelson went viral on TikTok for all the wrong reasons. She walked into a Hollywood spa for acne treatment and left with permanent scars from a chemical peel gone horribly wrong.

The alleged practitioner?

Sonya Dakar, a self-proclaimed "Skin Ninja" who treated celebrities and built a skincare empire. As a physician who's seen my share of complications, what shocked me most wasn't the burn itself. It was everything that came after and the pattern of behavior that made this tragedy inevitable.

When "Light Peel" Means Something Else Entirely

"She dropped an acid peel directly using a dropper onto Victoria's skin, which immediately started to burn. Once a burn is done, it's done." — Dr. Kate Dee, Med Spa Confidential

Victoria trusted Sonya for two years. Her acne cleared up, and she was thrilled. Then during a routine appointment in 2021, Sonya suggested a peel. No big deal, she said. Light, easy, no downtime.

Except it wasn't light. The moment the acid hit Victoria's skin, it turned white and started burning. No eye protection. No consent form. No medical supervision. Sonya wiped it off and reassured her it would heal fine.

It didn't. Victoria's face scabbed, peeled, and left behind geographic scarring and depigmentation that's still visible today.

For anyone keeping score, medium-depth chemical peels aren't within an esthetician's scope of practice in California or anywhere else. They're medical procedures that require proper training, oversight, and emergency protocols. Sonya had none of that. She had a license from the Board of Barbering and Cosmetology, and she was operating way outside its limits.

The $30,000 Cover-Up

"She was doing that illegally, but she was charging her thousands and thousands of dollars to fix a complication that she herself created." — Dr. Kate Dee, Med Spa Confidential

After burning Victoria's face, Sonya didn't refer her to a dermatologist or plastic surgeon. Instead, she promised to fix it herself with microneedling.

Let me be clear: microneedling is also a medical procedure. It punctures the skin barrier, which makes it medicine, not skincare. Sonya performed over 16 sessions on Victoria, charging her more than $30,000 to "repair" damage she caused.

Victoria didn't see an actual doctor until over a year later. By then, the scarring was permanent.

This doesn’t just appear to be negligence, but a calculated business model. Keep your client dependent, keep them paying, and never let them realize they need real medical care.

For professionals reading this: imagine if this happened in your practice. The liability alone should keep you up at night. For consumers: if someone injures you during a treatment and offers to fix it themselves instead of sending you to a specialist, run.

The Pattern Behind the Headlines

Since Victoria's story went viral, former employees and clients have come forward with their own accounts. The pattern is stunning: free Instagram facials that turn into high-pressure sales, products rung up without permission, hours-long appointments where clients are left alone in treatment rooms, and refund requests that go ignored.

Sonya's Yelp page has over 150 reviews averaging two stars. Her business history includes bankruptcy, discrimination lawsuits, and an arrest for physically assaulting a state inspector who tried to remove her expired license from the wall.

Celebrity endorsements don't mean safety. They mean good marketing. Gwyneth Paltrow's facialist can still be practicing illegally, still be reckless, and still be putting people in danger.

You deserve to know who's touching your face and whether they're allowed to do what they're doing.

Before Your Next Appointment

If this story made you second-guess where you book your next facial or filler appointment, good. That's how we stay safe. Education isn't paranoia, it's power.

Listen to the full episode of Med Spa Confidential to hear the red flags Victoria missed, the legal lines Sonya crossed, and the simple checklist that can protect you from predatory practitioners hiding behind celebrity client lists.

The transcript

Speaker 24: [00:00:00] I was immediately enthralled. She was so intelligent and so convinced that we could be able to like clear my acne, which if anyone's been through that, that's the dream.

She also called me family, ~so our sessions were kind of this like half skincare, half therapy, like~ I really felt like I was hanging out with and getting advice from my mom.

I opened the front facing camera on my phone to use as mirror ~as any millennial woman probably would, ~and saw what I thought looked like a white cream or a white lotion, but pretty quickly realized that that was actually my skin just burned.

Dr. Kate Dee: Hi, I'm Dr. Kate d and welcome back to the podcast. Today I'm gonna share with you the story of Victoria Nelson. She's a young woman in California whose story has gone viral over the last month or so. She went to a celebrity esthetician in LA and ended up getting scarred for life. I'm gonna tell you her story and give you my take on it and, and give you some background on the esthetician who, did this to her. So [00:01:00] first of all, Victoria Nelson posted this about a month ago on TikTok,

Speaker 24: I started seeing Sonya in late 2019. I was 26 and was insecure about having acne that's not really that far outta the realm of normal for a lot of people.

Dr. Kate Dee: she, uh, went to see a pretty famous esthetician in,~ uh,~ the Hollywood area called Sonya Dekar. Maybe some of you have heard of her. She has called herself the Skin Ninja and has marketed herself to all the famous celebrities in Hollywood.

Has bragged publicly and privately to her other clients that she has treated. Gwyneth Paltrow and Drew Barrymore and other famous people. And ~um, ~so she has been around a really long time. She launched a skincare product. Line back in the seventies. And,~ um,~ she is an esthetician in California. She is licensed [00:02:00] by the,~ uh,~ board of barbering and cosmetology in California, which has pretty strict rules.

But this is what happened to Victoria. ~Uh, ~she started seeing this esthetician in 2019 for acne and the esthetician. Promised that she would get rid of her acne, and she did, and she charged a lot of money for her services. ~But, uh, she really, the, the, the per, the patient,~ Victoria was really happy with Sonya's treatments for about two years.

And then she went in for a routine facial in April of 2021. And at the end of that facial. ~Um, ~Sonya Dekar recommended appeal and said it was no big deal. It was a light peel, um, no downtime or irritation. And Victoria trusted her, loved her, and went ahead with the peel. Well, uh, there was no eye protection used and Sonya.

Dropped an acid peel directly using a dropper onto, [00:03:00] uh, Victoria's skin, which immediately started to burn. So she dropped a whole bunch on one cheek, the other cheek and the forehead, and immediately her skin turned to white mush and it burned, and it was really painful, and she complained right away. So Sonya did wipe it away immediately,~ um,~ and rinsed it off, but that once a burn is done.

It's done. She reassured Victoria, oh, don't worry. We can take care of this in a month. It'll be perfect. Victoria leaves the spa,~ um,~ and. Sonya charges her for this facial where she has burned her patient, her, her client, I should say. ~Um, ~but she promised Victoria she would make it right, and when Victoria went through all the process, so her skin scabbed up and sloughed off and was left with divots in her skin and de pigmented areas, that's what happens with the burn very commonly.

Sonya Dekar promised [00:04:00] her, we can fix this, it'll just require a lot of microneedling. And she did first a set of 10 microneedling sessions, and then I believe another set of, of six more. ~Um, ~and overall charged her another $30,000 for treatments to treat the scarring and the burn that she had just caused.

Okay. Never sent Victoria to a specialist or a doctor. ~Um, ~so this went on for over a year. Finally, over a year later, July of 22, Victoria finally went to see a dermatologist, and the dermatologist was dumbfounded. Okay, why didn't she send you to a doctor immediately or sooner? ~Um, ~so the dermatologist then recommended further laser treatments, which,~ uh,~ caused her.

Another $10,000. ~this doctor suggested to her that, um, a couple of things. Now I'm just gonna, I'm just get rid of that. Um, ~and I'll just tell you right now, okay? Aestheticians. ~Um, ~anywhere cannot do [00:05:00] medical procedures and a medium depth chemical peel, which this has to have been.

Okay. This was not a light peel, this was a very strong acid peel. My guess it was either a TC, a peel or a phenol. I'm, I'm not really sure, and actually to this day, as far as I know,~ uh,~ Sonya never did tell. Victoria, what kind of pill it was. In any event, this was way out of the scope of practice for an esthetician in California, really in any state,~ um,~ but especially in California, is very strict about what an esthetician can and can't do.

The other thing that was totally out of the scope of her practice was microneedling. ~Um, ~microneedling is a medical procedure. We put little tiny needles where they go into the dermis and anything that passes. Through the epidermis into your body, into the skin is considered a medical procedure. And so not only was she doing that illegally, but she was charging her thousands and thousands of dollars to fix [00:06:00] a complication that she herself created and never referred her away to a specialist to treat these burns. So as far as I know, there's probably some legal action. I don't know that, uh, Sonya still has her license or not. I believe that the board of barbering and cosmetology in California has not yet acted on this matter. ~Um, ~I'm sure there's probably a legal case out there. We will include links to see what the scarring looks like.

~Um, ~to this day, there are multiple, ~uh. ~Updates and videos, but in the video. So this all happened, uh, originally in 2021. And you can still see the scarring on her face. It's quite geographic. It's one side of her cheek, looks like a pee. ~so since Victoria's uh, films have gone viral, ~since Victoria's videos have gone viral, there have been many other people, both employees and former clients coming out of the woodwork to post videos about their [00:07:00] own terrible experience. So let me tell you what this woman's Mo has been. Okay? I'm just gonna summarize.

What these other people have said. So first of all, this is a common thing that she would do, is reach out to young,~ um,~ burgeoning influencers on Instagram, and she would message them saying, Hey, come to my spa. I'm a esthetician to the rich and famous. I will give you a free facial as long as you post about it on your Instagram channel.

Okay, so, ~um, ~lots of these women would come in and get this free facial. Multiple accounts have been where the facial took much longer than expected. Many hours, there were many gaps where the client was left alone in the room. They generally suspected that she was working multiple rooms at a time. So she was going into a room doing something and leaving someone else alone.

And I re I [00:08:00] bring this up because these are people who are working, had other jobs, had other things to go to and she routinely kind of just treated them like they had nothing better to do than to be seeing Sonya. So. The standard practice was the entire time she was doing the facial. It was an upsell to get them to buy her products, and she was very heavy handed in.

This made them feel like they absolutely needed it made them feel that their skin was terrible, that they really, really needed her. That ~um, ~she was basically their skin savior. And then when the,~ uh,~ client would be done with the facial, finally. We'd go to the front desk and there were already hundreds of dollars worth of products that were already rung up and for her to take, for that client to take home.

several of these clients reported that they didn't wanna buy the products, but it was already charged. And they took them home and they realized, oh my God, I don't want these products. Tried to return them. And then [00:09:00] Sonya's,~ uh,~ office would not. Refund them. In one case they said they would refund partly, but then they charged her again and, uh, still they never got the money back.

So it's kind of this really incredible like arrogant idea that I'm gonna save your skin, I'm gonna fix you, and then charge them lots and lots of money. ~Um, ~and at best. You know, maybe cured their acne, which was great. I mean, acne is hard to, to treat and, and we cure acne all the time. That's important. But scamming these people along the way and taking their money and then.

Again, harming them, risking their skin, risking these scars, and then actually scarring people for life and then charging them money for the bad procedure itself, and then also for multiple procedures to fix it. I mean, that's just unconscionable. there were also multiple reports from former employees.

She's actually been sued for, uh, discrimination. [00:10:00] As a racist homophobe. ~Um, ~she has an anti-religion bent. She has,~ um,~ anyway, that lawsuit was actually settled. We don't know the outcome. Presumably,~ uh,~ the people who, the former employees probably had to sign an NDA because there's no further information about that.

So there are also. Some crazy history that Sonya,~ um,~ has lived through. It's kind of fascinating. If you look back, you can Google her, Sonya Dakar, D-A-K-A-R. Uh, the very first,~ uh,~ set of ~um, ~lawsuits were back in the two thousands when she,~ uh,~ divorced her husband and her ex-husband and son sued her. They had a big family.

Lawsuit about the, who owns the trademark. ~Um, ~and then in 2008, Sonya was actually arrested when the board of Barbering and cosmetology came in and inspected her [00:11:00] place and what her license that was on the wall was expired. And when the inspector went to take down the expired license, she literally grabbed the inspector and.

Tried to bite her. So she was arrested and released on $20,000 bail. There are also many, many,~ uh,~ better Business Bureau complaints against her. Um, she has declared bankruptcy at least once, that I can tell back in 2012. And if you look at her Yelp reviews. She has 188 Yelp reviews and a two star average.

Okay. That's actually hard to do. Okay. So if you go and read them and, and mind you, Yelp reviews can be fake, but also the good ones can be fake, and the bad ones can be fake. It's hard to tell, right? But it is very, very hard to end up with a two star [00:12:00] average. ~Um. ~Even with a lot of fake reviews. I think what's happened though is I, I will say that a couple of the videos on social media of her former employees and of her former clients specifically say the bad reviews are real.

~Um, ~this exact scenario happened to me. Okay. I will say that when I reviewed the Yelp reviews. It looks like there are several people who've gone on, ~um, ~watched Victoria's, uh, video and then filed a Yelp review saying this is the kind of thing that she did. Those people, I don't know whether they actually ever saw Sonya, but it's clear that many of them are talking about their personal experience.

So take reviews with a grain of salt. Okay. It is, it is a game and a lot of people can,~ uh,~ file fake reviews. So, but according to one of the testimonials on social media, uh, one of her former employees said that. [00:13:00] Sonya actually required her employees to write false positive reviews on Yelp to make up for some of the negative reviews on there.

So you never know. You have to kind of actually read them. Okay. ~Um, ~and,~ um,~ there is actually, uh, if you wanna read about,~ uh,~ Victoria's experience. The New York Post ran an entire,~ um,~ article about her. In on September 11th in 2025. We'll probably post that in our show notes as well. So, ~um, ~I wanna leave you all with,~ uh,~ some advice and that is absolutely read reviews.

Keep in mind, yes, some of them may be fake and every place have at least a few one star reviews of someone who is disgruntled over something. You know, and sometimes it's really even about their credit card. It might not even have to do with the spa or the person itself, but read those reviews and you can tell when somebody's had a personal [00:14:00] experience and they've been, they've been harmed.

~Um, ~and the other thing is really do not, if someone approaches you on Instagram and says, Hey, here's a free facial. I'm just gonna tell you,~ uh,~ there is no such thing as a free lunch. There's always some catch. So, ~um, ~I encourage you all to do your own Googling and,~ um,~ read reviews and ask the questions because this person, uh, you know, obviously was practicing medicine without a license, was practicing way out of the scope of her license was endangering.

~Uh, ~people's skin and their beauty and,~ um,~ really risking,~ um,~ really permanent harm. And clearly that's happened to at least one person. again, ask the right questions and stay tuned. We will be back next week with more Med Spa Confidential.

Thanks for listening. If you found this helpful, do me a favor and share it with a friend who's considering any aesthetic treatments. Subscribe so you don't miss [00:15:00] the next one and drop a comment telling me your biggest takeaway. I actually read them all. Let's keep each other safe and elevate the standards in the MedSpa industry.