Tracking a ‘bogus’ beautician — collapsed salons in Turkey to ‘botched lips' in SA

Turkish “medical aesthetic expert” Sinem Çekinmez, who apparently left that country last year while owing several suppliers money, surfaced in Cape Town, where she was recently offering treatments.

But controversy now also marks her time in that city.

At first, Çekinmez seemed confident, advertising her local services online, including on social media.

But this stopped.

Now it appears she may have left South Africa – that is what she told a Cape Town business owner, from whom, until recently, she was renting a room to see clients.

Broader problem

Daily Maverick has established that Çekinmez was not registered with the Health Professions Council of South Africa.

As of this week, while the council has not received complaints against her, the Aesthetic and Anti-Aging Medicine Society of South Africa is in contact with the council’s inspectorate over how to deal with the matter and broader issues.

The society said someone operating without proper qualifications or Health Professions Council of SA registration was considered a “bogus practitioner”.

Daily Maverick has established that there is growing concern about them in the beauty and aesthetics field.

While authorities have been alerted to some, there are many more who have yet to be officially flagged.

Those in the industry have warned that counterfeit substances like fillers can cause nerve damage, infection and permanent scarring.

Incorrectly administered injections can even lead to blindness and tissue death.

‘Botched lip injection’ report

Rapport published an article on 15 February 2026, saying Çekinmez had injected a Cape Town client with lip filler, but that there were complications and the client experienced severe swelling, discolouration, and a “skewed” face.

It also quoted a local medical doctor, Hilla Raubenheimer, who is interested in aesthetic medicine, as saying that she had explained to Çekinmez that she needed to be qualified to provide such injections, which Çekinmez was apparently not.

Raubenheimer said Çekinmez told clients who wanted to confront her that she was suffering from kidney stones and that her mother-in-law was ill in Turkey, which meant she may have to return there. (Daily Maverick was unable to get a comment from Raubenheimer.)

Rapport had unsuccessfully tried to reach Çekinmez for comment.

It seems the last time she was at her rented practice space was a couple of days after the Rapport article was published.

Daily Maverick’s attempts to contact Çekinmez, via cellphone message, call and email, were unsuccessful. An email sent to an address listed for her business in Turkey was not delivered. A WhatsApp message to a contact number that she appeared to use seemed to go through on Wednesday, 18 February, but messages on Thursday and Friday did not.

Calls to that number went unanswered.

Çekinmez’s version of events is therefore not clear.

Turkey salon chain collapse

Before she arrived in Cape Town, she ran three Bellapais Beauty Centre salons in Adana, a city in Turkey. Some of the services it offered, according to the website, included permanent make-up and “medical” skincare.

A video shared on social media, probably from last year, although the date is unclear, appears to show Çekinmez explaining that her team had worked hard daily for more than 23 years. (She spoke in Turkish, which Daily Maverick translated to English using an online service.)

In the video, she said they relied on turnover to pay expenses and that she needed her supporters.

It appears that Çekinmez left Turkey (some media reports there say “fled”) in April 2025 after struggling to pay suppliers and workers.

At the time, it was reported that when those to whom she owed money realised what had happened, some went to the Bellapais salons and tried to take whatever had been left there, including furniture.

The police intervened. (Daily Maverick tried to corroborate this with two police divisions in Adana, but was unsuccessful.)

Videos posted to social media show some of that.

A Türkiye Today article, dated 12 January, said that around the time of the Bellapais saga, Çekinmez had sent messages to employees saying “she left the country because she could not find a way out of financial distress. She stated that she planned to sell company assets to repay debts, but said branch interiors were looted before she could act.”

Cropping up in Cape Town

The Türkiye Today article said that as of January this year, Çekinmez was operating in Cape Town.

“New reports now show her working openly in Cape Town, where she recently announced the opening of a new high-end beauty clinic,” it said. “The developments have renewed public anger in Türkiye, where former clients, employees, and guarantors continue to face financial losses linked to her business collapse.”

Other reports from Turkey said that Çekinmez got married there in 2022. (Adana’s mayor was involved in the ceremony – he did not reply to email queries about her and the Bellapais saga.)

Daily Maverick established that a company was registered in Cape Town in July last year – three months after Bellapais folded in Turkey – in the same name as the man identified in the reports as her husband.

It also appeared that Çekinmez was running an outfit in Cape Town known as Synact Aesthe. But an entry detailing the business on a local website used for booking “self-care services” had been deleted.

So, Daily Maverick used an online tool to access archived sites.

This showed details about Synact Aesthe, including that an individual, Syna Wise, had been in the medical aesthetics field for 23 years and brought that expertise from Turkey to Cape Town.

An image accompanying the Synact Aestha details, which Daily Maverick also managed to access, showed a woman who looks like Çekinmez.

Tracking via social media clues

Meanwhile, a social media video, the source account of which is no longer clear (as the account may now be deleted or deactivated), was widely shared. It shows Çekinmez talking into a cellphone camera.

A translation of what she says in Turkish includes that she is a medical aesthetic expert and the owner of the biggest beauty clinics in Turkey. She also says she is in Cape Town, where she is continuing her work and where her family has been living for a decade.

Çekinmez said she moved to the city because she had a grandchild.

The background in this video includes part of a face brick wall and images of big blue flowers against a white backdrop.

Daily Maverick established that this background matches what is visible in photographs, accessible online, of the inside of a business, Azura Health and Beauty, based in Westlake, Cape Town. (It has a second venue in another suburb.)

Synact Aesthe, the outfit that Çekinmez seemed to run in Cape Town, had an address listed in Westlake.

Daily Maverick therefore established that Çekinmez had been operating from Azura Health and Beauty.

‘I trusted her’

On Thursday, 19 February, Daily Maverick contacted the business, hoping to speak to Çekinmez.

She was not there.

Azura’s owner, Ursula Lessing, confirmed to Daily Maverick that Çekinmez had rented a room from her (in Westlake) for approximately two months, and that Çekinmez’s treatments had nothing to do with her business.

Lessing said she had trusted Çekinmez, who appeared to have a solid client base and happy customers in terms of the results of their treatments, but that this “was a completely separate operation to me”.

About a week ago, Çekinmez, whom Lessing said had been interested in taking over the entire salon, apparently left South Africa for Turkey.

Lessing was putting the saga behind her and said: “I trusted her and now I’m getting back to business, feeling motivated to elevate and boost the business to new levels.”

‘Not registered’

The Aesthetic and Anti-Aging Medicine Society of SA, responding to Daily Maverick questions this week, said that it was aware of “the individual concerned” – Çekinmez.

It said all medical practitioners practising in the country, even if not from South Africa, were legally required to be registered with the Health Professions Council of SA.

According to the society, Çekinmez’s registration could not be verified on the council’s online register. (Daily Maverick also checked the names “Sinem Çekinmez” and “Syna Wise”, but could not find these on the register.)

“[The Aesthetic and Anti-Aging Medicine Society of SA] is in contact with the Health Professions Council of SA Inspectorate regarding the appropriate way to address this matter and related issues.”

On Friday, the council’s Priscilla Sekhonyana issued a response to Daily Maverick questions saying: “This is to confirm that Ms Çekinmez is not registered with the Health Professions Council of SA.

“Currently, there are no complaints against Ms Çekinmez.”

The response did not say whether any action was being taken against her.

However, the Health Professions Council of SA stated: “To offer treatments such as lip fillers and other injectable aesthetic procedures, a practitioner must be appropriately qualified and registered with the Health Professions Council of SA in a recognised health profession category that permits such procedures within their approved scope of practice.”

The Aesthetic and Anti-Aging Medicine Society of SA also said this and explained that products used for lip fillers and botox (botulinum toxin) needed to be registered with the SA Health Products Regulatory Authority.

“Our advice to the public is to always verify the medical practitioner before undergoing any aesthetic procedure or any medical treatment,” the society said.

The Health Professions Council of SA echoed this, saying that before receiving treatment or services, “members of the public are encouraged to verify that a health practitioner is registered” with it. DM

Update: Daily Maverick removed an image from this article on 20 February 2026 after a query about its relevance. Its removal has no impact on the content of the story.