Most people are familiar with the standard face lifts, eye lifts, nose jobs, implants, tucks and fat sucking procedures. The results are pretty dramatic on the below-average people plucked from obscurity for their potential to entertain us for an hour with amazing before and after footage.
What surprised me when I did the research for this post was the sheer inventiveness of plastic surgery. Of course you can get larger breasts or a new butt, but you can also have pecs, biceps, and even calves without investing a moment of time doing weight bearing exercises. Demi Moore is said to have had the saggy skin around her knees fixed, and there are plenty of other body alterations that science, medicine, and vanity have made possible.
There’s a type of face lift that involves no cutting and supposedly offers quicker recovery time called threading. It was invented in the mid-90s and involves inserting barbed threads under the patient’s skin while they’re optionally under local anesthesia. The procedure takes less than an hour and recovery is about three days. It predictably doesn’t last as long as traditional surgery, but is said to offer decent results and to hold up for about five years. The cost is about $1,500 to $4,500 and it may be priced by zone, like the brow, cheek, and chin area. In comparison a traditional facelift starts at around $6,000.
You can also get all sorts of private things done to presumably enhance sexual pleasure. Women can have their outer labial lips reduced in size for sheer cosmetic reasons, but they can also have their vaginal area tightened inside in a procedure called vaginoplasty Muscle inside the vagina is shortened and spliced together through surgery and/or lasering. It sounds painful, but people rave about the results. One surgeon whose site we viewed offered both procedures together for $10,000, or $5,000 and $6,000 separately.
Of course men can get their parts enlarged or widened through releasing the ligaments in the penis and/or injecting fat from other parts of the body. As there’s no way to increase the size of the head, “the results can be visually rather odd.” The surgery starts at around $5,000.
High-heel loving women are said to be getting injections into the balls of their feet to make punishing shoes more bearable. Botox is injected to add cushioning to the ball of the foot and toes are sometimes shortened to fit better into fashionable footwear. Of course there are non-surgical options to deal with stiletto pain that should be tried first.
Note to Madonna: you can even get your hands looking young with Restalyne injections.
In terms of more traditionally visible plastic surgery, everyone want to look like their favorite celebrity.
Beverly Hills surgeons revealed their top feature requests in Hollywood’s “Hottest Looks” survey, and everyone wants Jennifer Garner’s nose:
For the ladies, the most sought-after nose in Tinsel Town belongs to Jennifer Garner, while Penelope Cruz has the most requested eyes. Women want lips like Kate Winslet, Scarlett Johansson or Angelina Jolie – and they’d most like to have the body of boodylicious Beyonce, Halle Berry or Madonna!
The guys say they’d most like to have lips like Ashton Kutcher or Brad Pitt, a jawline like Matt Damon and a body like Mark Wahlberg, Will Smith or Matthew McConaughey.
[From The National Enquirer print edition, January 12, 2007]
There are all sorts of surgical procedures one can have to get puffier lips, higher brows, and more defined features, but nothing beats regular diet and exercise if you want to feel good and look cute. I can’t say I wouldn’t get a little nip and tuck if I had the cash, though, and who better to emulate than the people who’ve had work done by the best?
Update: here’s a gallery of celebrity plastic surgery we ran back in September. It’s originally from Sky Showbiz. Some people think that these aren’t all examples of plastic surgery, and that the celebrities’ faces may have naturally changed. Recent celebrity plastic surgery includes Katie Holmes’ and Michelle Williams’ new faces, and Jennifer Aniston’s new nose.
Very subtle or unchanged: page one
Very subtle or unchanged: page two
im not sure how current it is, but theres a site called, awfulplasticsurgery.com had lots of stories and comparisons realted to plastic surgery.
even in a lot of those pics, the thing i concluded is that not all of the people had something done… a lot of the differences had to do with posture, angle in which photo was taken, makeup, losing or gaining some weight, tan not tan, hair color/clothing.
i really have no way of knowing who did what…i am sure that a lot of celebs get themselves surgically tweaked all the time. the scarier examples of that are like suzanne somers, barry manilow, carol burnett…they just look like the freaky muppets.
like you said, though, if i had waterfalls of cash flowing through my bank, i might consider tweaking this and that. lol
interesting article
Yes I have to agree, a lot of these changes are just due to age, clever styling and better make up. Nicole Kidnman has exactly the same nose she’s always had and if Liz Hurley had a nose job she should get a refund because that schnoz is pretty fug.