This story is jointly published by nonprofits Amplify Utah and The Salt Lake Tribune to elevate diverse perspectives in local media through student journalism.
Eight women — thin or pregnant, in their 20s or early 30s, and sporting waist-length curls and long eyelashes — dance around a beige hotel room in matching black sweats to Justin Timberlake’s “SexyBack” and blow kisses with full lips playfully at the camera.
It’s a common scene among the hundreds of videos posted by the social media influencers behind “MomTok,” which started to go viral in 2020 and has drawn international fascination, fueled by some of the women starring on Hulu’s reality show “The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives.”
Other Utah-based reality TV shows, such as Bravo’s Salt Lake City edition of the “Real Housewives” franchise, frequently spotlight medical spas, with its stars checking in for treatments. From Botox parties featured on the shows to “Real Housewives” cast member Heather Gay’s two Beauty Lab + Laser locations in Murray and Riverton, these procedures are often prominently promoted on-air.
For Brookelyn McAllister, 23, seeing these nonsurgical cosmetic procedures on television helps normalize the trend, she said.
“When you know someone who’s done it, it makes it less daunting,” said McAllister, who graduated from Utah Valley University in 2023.
Utah reality TV stars and social influencers, many boasting followers in the hundreds of thousands on their social media accounts, frequently promote their procedures, blending on-screen appearances with online endorsements.
Rise of the med spa
Pioneered in the late 1990s, medical spas combine more traditional spa treatments, like facials and chemical peels, with noninvasive aesthetic procedures, such as laser hair removal and injections. Today, billboards with slogans like “Freeze Your Fat For Good” and “Love Thy Selfie” from these clinics are common along Utah’s highways.
“When I was living in Pennsylvania or different states, [I didn’t] see plastic surgery billboards like you do here,” said McAllister.
The commonness of the ads helps create a sense of normalcy, said McAllister, who has had lip filler and underwent a labiaplasty, a cosmetic surgery to resize the labia.
This procedure, familiar to those who watched the first season of “The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives” in September 2024, was featured when one of its stars, Jessi Ngatikaura, underwent the surgery. She celebrated the occasion with a “mommy makeover” party, celebrating alongside her castmates, who gathered around Ngatikaura’s bed and examined the blurred-out results on air.
“After getting my labiaplasty, I was a lot more confident,” McAllister said. “That was a major insecurity of mine for a really long time.”
Seeing and hearing about other women getting other procedures, however, makes her question whether she’d like to do more treatments as well, she said.
“I think, ‘OK, well, I have done some stuff. If I do [more], is it going to make me happy? Or am I going to be like, I need to fix something else? It’s just a cycle,” she said.
(Rick Egan | The Salt Lake Tribune) Beauty Lab + Laser, owned by Heather Gay, one of the "Real Housewives of SLC," has frequently been featured on the show.
The social influence
Plastic surgery has become increasingly popular with younger people. According to the American Society of Plastic and Reconstructive Surgeons, nearly 230,000 cosmetic surgeries and nearly 140,000 noninvasive cosmetic procedures were performed on people under age 19 in 2020.
Stephanie Godfrey, a certified aesthetic nurse practitioner who specializes in cosmetic injectables at Aesthetica Medical Spa in Pleasant Grove, said she’s seen an increase in younger people visiting her spa, as social platforms like TikTok have grown.
“Injections have become extremely popular over the years, especially with younger people,” she said. “I wish … social media didn’t give young people this biased view of what they should look like.”
This phenomenon is especially noticeable in Utah, which has more plastic surgeons per capita than the Los Angeles metropolitan area, according to a 2017 study by researchers at Utah State University.
Courtney Grow, a Utahn whose fashion posts on Instagram have amassed a following of more than 170,000 people, said influencers have expanded their reach beyond traditional celebrity culture.
“[They] have kind of taken this celebrity tier and expanded it,” she said. “We used to only have celebrities, … but now there are so many people we have parasocial relationships with online.”
Grow said she has also noticed her influencer peers promoting plastic surgery procedures more frequently.
“I feel like I’ve seen a shift where it’s like, ‘Come with me to get Botox’ or … something like that,” she said. “[It’s] being incorporated into content.”
(Bravo) Heather Gay, a cast member on "The Real Housewives of Salt Lake City" and owner of Beauty Lab + Laser, sits in a "salt cave" at Purify Wellness Center in Pleasant Grove, in a 2024 episode of her reality show. The Himalayan salt lining the walls, a guide told Gay and Lisa Barlow during the visit, has "a negative ion healing effect."
The ‘Utah’ look
While reality TV has attracted audiences drawn to Utah’s unique culture, often revolving around The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, the state’s beauty standards have also attracted attention online. The TikTok suggested search “Every Utah Girl Looks The Same” showcases women with similar looks to that of the state’s reality stars and have drawn over 1 million views.
Godfrey said this shift is also reflected in medical practices across Utah.
“Influencers are huge in Utah, and they really do set the standards for beauty in the state,” she said.
As an increased focus on “preventative Botox” has extended to people in their 20s and younger nationwide, Godfrey said she feels an obligation to educate younger patients on anti-aging procedures.
“You don’t need to start until your 30s,” she said. “The way I treat is more of a natural approach.”
The medical aesthetics industry has seen steady growth over the past 15 years, with the number of spa locations increasing from 8,899 in 2022 to 10,488 in 2023, according to the American Med Spa Association. This growth reflects ongoing consumer demand for aesthetic treatments and suggests that the market remains far from saturated, according to the association’s 2024 state-of-the-industry report.
With a second season of “The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives” confirmed for spring 2025, Godfrey said she expects interest in med spa procedures to continue as well.
“With ‘Mormon Wives,’ everyone wants to know what they do,” she said.
Georgia Metcalf wrote this story as a journalism student at the University of Utah. It is published as part of a new collaborative including nonprofits Amplify Utah and The Salt Lake Tribune.
