No. In Australia you cannot advertise Botox to the public at all, and that includes the word itself. Not the brand name, not a photograph of the box, not "Botox from $12 a unit", not "tox", not "baby botox", and not a hashtag. This is not a cautious agency position. It is the Therapeutic Goods Act, and it applies to every clinic, every practitioner and every social account in the country.

The reason it surprises people is that the rule is not really about Botox. It is about a category.

Why the ban exists

Botulinum toxin products are Schedule 4 medicines - prescription only. Australian law prohibits advertising any prescription medicine to the general public. Not restricts. Prohibits. The logic is that a medicine requiring a prescriber's judgement should not be marketed directly to the person who will receive it, because advertising creates demand for a decision that is supposed to be clinical.

That single fact answers most of the questions clinics ask. If a treatment is a Schedule 4 medicine, it cannot be advertised, and every downstream question - can I show the price, can I run a special, can I put it on my menu - has the same answer, because you cannot advertise something you cannot advertise.

What counts as advertising it

This is where good clinics get caught. The prohibition covers indirect references, not just the brand name. The TGA has been explicit that it counts brand names, acronyms, abbreviations, colloquial names, nicknames and hashtags, and specifically "terms that can act as substitutes for direct references to prescription medicines".

In practice that means all of the following are the same offence:

  • The brand name, in any spelling or deliberate misspelling
  • The generic phrases - "anti-wrinkle injections", "anti-wrinkle treatment", "wrinkle relaxers", "muscle relaxant"
  • Pharmacology words used as a workaround - "neuromodulator", "botulinum"
  • Slang and emoji substitutes
  • A syringe or injection image next to a face, which the TGA treats as a promotional visual cue
  • A price list line that only makes sense if the reader knows what is being priced

The euphemism strategy does not work, and it is worth being blunt about why: the whole point of a code word is that the audience understands it. If your reader knows what you mean, so does a regulator.

What this actually costs

The penalties are not theoretical, and the sector has recent, public examples.

  • Peptide Clinics Pty Ltd was fined $10 million in the Federal Court in July 2019 for advertising Schedule 4 substances on a website and social media. The court treated each day the advertising appeared as a contravention.
  • Mode Medical Pty Ltd (trading as Drip IV Australia) received 20 infringement notices totalling $159,840 in January 2023. Notably, $26,640 of that was payable by an executive officer personally.
  • Elixir Centre for Wellness was issued three notices totalling $59,400 in August 2025 for advertising an intravenous iron infusion product on its website.

For a registered practitioner there is a second exposure that a corporate advertiser does not carry. Alongside the therapeutic goods legislation, the National Law applies, and section 133 penalties run to $60,000 for an individual and $120,000 for a body corporate. A nurse or doctor is risking registration as well as money.

The part nobody tells you: what you absolutely can do

Most clinics over-correct here, and it costs them more than the rule does. Being unable to name one category does not mean you cannot market. It means you market the concern rather than the medicine.

You can say all of this freely:

  • Name the concern. Fine lines, volume loss, facial balance, skin laxity, jaw tension. Patients search for problems, not product names.
  • Describe the consultation. What happens, how long it takes, what you assess, what you will tell them honestly.
  • Say who you are. Registered nurse, years in practice, where you trained, your AHPRA registration number.
  • Name and price everything that is not a Schedule 4 medicine. Peels, skin needling, LED, microdermabrasion, hydrafacials, laser and IPL are all nameable and priceable. So are PRP and PRF, which are prepared from the patient's own blood, and PDO threads, which are ARTG-listed devices rather than scheduled medicines.
  • Publish a consultation fee, or say the consultation is complimentary.

The strongest injectable clinic websites in Australia read as though they are about skin, not about products - because legally they have to be, and commercially it turns out to be better anyway. A page that explains a concern properly and invites a consultation converts a reader who was never going to buy a brand name. They were going to buy a judgement.

The practical test. Read a page as though you know nothing about aesthetics. If you can still work out which prescription medicine is being sold, the page is advertising it. If all you can tell is which concern the clinic treats and who would assess you, the page is inside the rules and probably converts better.

Where clinics most often slip

Four places, in the order we find them:

  1. The booking system. A public online menu listing services by their generic injectable name is advertising, even though it feels internal. This is the single most common breach we see, because nobody thinks of the booking page as marketing.
  2. Instagram captions and hashtags. Social is advertising. A hashtag is a direct reference.
  3. Old blog posts. Written before the allowance closed, still indexed, still live.
  4. Third-party listing sites where the clinic filled in a services field years ago and forgot.

The fix is rarely a rewrite. It is usually renaming a handful of services, deleting a price column, and replacing four photographs.

Common questions

Can I say Botox if I do not mention a price?

No. The prohibition is on advertising the medicine to the public at all, not on advertising its price. Naming it without a price is still naming it.

Can I use the phrase anti-wrinkle injections instead?

No. That allowance is closed. The TGA treats generic injectable phrasing as an indirect reference to the same Schedule 4 medicines, and the sector was told so directly.

What about on my own booking page, where only patients see it?

A publicly reachable online booking menu is advertising. If someone can find the service list without logging in, it is public. This is the most common breach we find.

Can I answer if a patient asks me directly by message?

Yes. A private clinical conversation with an individual patient is not advertising. The line is publication to the public, not discussion with a person who has asked.

Does this apply to dermal fillers as well?

Yes. Dermal fillers sold as prescription products fall the same way, and the generic phrase is closed for the same reason as the anti-wrinkle phrasing.

So what can go on my website instead?

Concerns, consultations, your credentials and AHPRA number, and every non-scheduled service by name and price - peels, needling, LED, laser, IPL, PRP and PRF, and ARTG-listed devices such as PDO threads.

This is guidance, not legal advice. It reflects the Therapeutic Goods Act, the Health Practitioner Regulation National Law and the AHPRA advertising guidelines as they stand in September 2026, and the way we apply them across the clinics we run marketing for. Rules change and individual circumstances differ. Where a decision carries real risk to a registration, take your own advice.