A woman is accusing a celebrity facialist of permanently scarring her face.

On Tuesday, Aug. 26, Victoria Nelson took to TikTok to share her experience as a client of Beverly Hills Calif.-based esthetician Sonya Dakar and the treatment that she claims left her “disfigured.” Dakar’s celebrity clients have included Gwyneth Paltrow, Cameron Diaz and Drew Barrymore.

PEOPLE reached out to a rep for Dakar and left multiple messages with Dakar’s clinic asking for comment but has not heard back.

“I don’t really know how to accurately convey how little I want to be making this video right now, but I’ve kind of run out of options,” Nelson says at the beginning of the 13-minute clip, which has since garnered over 5 million views. “… I’ve put off making this video for literal years. It’s a pretty scarring — literally — experience for me.”

Nelson explains that she began seeing Dakar in 2019 after previously using her products. At the time, Nelson was 26 and seeking treatment for her acne. “I was immediately enthralled,” she recalls. “She was so intelligent and so convinced that we’d be able to clear my acne, which, if anyone’s been through that, that’s the dream.”

She explains that Dakar did end up clearing her acne, and she continued seeing her for routine facials. The pair formed a strong bond and became like “family” to each other. “Our sessions were like half skin care, half therapy,” Nelson says. “I really felt like I was hanging out with and getting advice from my mom.”

In April 2021, Nelson says she went in for her usual facial, and at the end of the treatment, Dakar suggested they finish with a chemical peel. Because Nelson had had a peel from Dakar in the past, she says, she “trusted her.” She also points out that the treatment is marketed by Dakar as having “no downtime or irritation.”

She says Dakar applied a liquid solution to each cheek as well as her forehead. “I kind of felt this immediate burning and stinging, which, if you haven’t had a peel before, they can have a little bit of a bite to them, but this definitely felt different,” she recalls, adding that she was not given eye protection, and her eyes began watering.

After complaining of pain, Nelson continues, Dakar rinsed off the solution and gave her a fan to cool her face down.

“It was still really on fire, and I was kind of confused as to why this hurt so badly,” Nelson says. “So I opened the front-facing camera on my phone … and saw what I thought looked like a white cream or white lotion but pretty quickly realized that that was actually my skin just burned.”

While she was concerned, Nelson says that Dakar assured her that “it would be fine” and that she could resolve the burns in a month of treatments. However, after 18 sessions in 2021 and 12 in 2022, some of which included “pretty aggressive micro-needling,” Nelson says she still had burns on her face.

At this point, she recalls “feeling on the inside like I was permanently disfigured.” She estimates that she spent roughly $30,000 on treatments from Dakar and admits she still has “no idea” what was in the liquid solution that Dakar used.

In July 2022, Nelson consulted with her dermatologist about her burns during a routine skin check.

“She was pretty immediately, one, really confused as to why Sonya hadn’t immediately referred me out to a burn unit or a plastic surgeon when this initially happened, and two, was really concerned as to what was actually in this peel since in her experience, what an esthetician would have shouldn’t do this level of damage,” Nelson recalls.

The dermatologist recommended a laser treatment, which, according to Nelson, cost her another $8,000 over six sessions.

Nelson says that in January 2023, she let Dakar know she was seeing a dermatologist, but the esthetician convinced her to come back for treatment, where she spent “in the ballpark of $10,000 with her.”

“Sonya and I have not spoken since 2023,” Nelson says. “I’ve since been advised by a number of professionals that the liquid probably was medical grade or at least was something that an esthetician shouldn’t have access to, and that’s what her license is under the California Board of Barbering and Cosmetology. I’ve also since been informed that the microneedling treatments that she was doing to fix the issue are also not covered by that license.”

The Board of Barbering and Cosmetology states that medical-grade products and microneedling are both out of the scope of an esthetician, and that it is “ultimately a licensee’s responsibility to understand their scope of practice as provided in Business and Professions Code section 7316.”

Nelson says that today, she still has visible marks on her face and “it’s something that I’m very self-conscious about.”

“In total, over the years I spent in the ballpark of $60,000 with Sonya,” she claims. “I trusted her with my face, with my skin, honestly, with a lot of my inner-most feelings, and to feel like this person wasn’t looking out for me in the way I had hoped is just really disappointing at the end of the day. I’ve also spent another $30,000 on other treatments with other professionals in hopes of getting my face back and having the pigment and the texture go back to normal.”

Nelson claims that while she’s contacted the California Board of Barbering and Cosmetology and filed a complaint, there has been “no resolution” in her case. PEOPLE reached out to the board, but was informed that complaints are confidential.

Nelson also called out the board’s past disciplinary action on Dakar’s license. Per the Department of Consumer Affairs, the California Board of Barbering and Cosmetology revoked Dakar’s license in 2011 and placed the esthetician on three years of probation, though details on the reasoning behind the action are not available.

“To be clear, this isn’t a woe-is-me video. It’s a ‘be warned’ video,” Nelson concludes.