A woman whose botched thread lift left her looking like a 'Halloween character' is warning others about unsafe aesthetic clinics and wants people to do their own research before undergoing cosmetic procedures. Milly Powell, 27, was left unrecognizable after getting a thread lift at a clinic in Greater Manchester. Milly, who works in marketing, intended to get the procedure done to fill a dimple on the left side of her face. Milly initially went to her local clinic for a PDO facelift but she said she was pressured into getting a PDO thread lift by three members of staff. A thread lift is described as a procedure that uses surgical threads to lift sagging skin on the mid-face. PDO stands for Polydioxanone and refers to the material used to make the threads used in the lifting procedure The procedure lasted 15 minutes and cost "around £850" but that quarter of an hour has resulted in a year-long battle trying to rectify the damage, which is still ongoing. Milly, who works in marketing JOB?, took to social media one year after the procedure and went viral after imploring other women to do their research before getting a PDO lift. The procedure consists of making two incisions a few centimetres above her hairline before a fish hook-like instrument is inserted to pull the face up using a thread then a knot is tied to keep it in place. Milly then had filler injected into her jaw lips and cheeks. After the procedure, Milly, who is from Cheshire, said she "looked like a Halloween character" and eventually lost feeling in her nose after five days. The other side effects she suffered were sleepless nights, an inability to eat solid foods and headaches. Since the ordeal, Millie had to see another surgeon to resolve the issues. She has spent £1,200 to get the fillers dissolved and spent £65 per radio frequency treatment, which is used in an attempt to break down the filler, on top of earnings being lost due to taking days off work. Powell told SWNS: "I went to get my dimple filled, so essentially what they do is they inject filler into your face and it fills out the dimple. "When I got there they said to me 'oh no, we've got a different procedure, it's way more natural than filler and what we do is we put threads in your face and pull back the skin and the dimple will be gone'. "I was like, these [people] are professionals so I'm going to listen and I was lying on the bed and they make two incisions in your scalp about two centimetres above your hairline. "They then insert a really thin metal rod and attached to that rod is a thread that acts like barbed wire with bits on it that get stuck in your tissue and they pull it back really tight and tie it. "They completely numb your face first so I could only feel tugging and stuff."