I overheard a young woman having brunch with her girlfriends next to us on the patio of a St. Petersburg, Florida, restaurant. She was detailing the cosmetic procedures she planned to have on an upcoming trip to Mexico, where the cost would be significantly cheaper than in Florida.
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Anyone who saw her in her current state would find her attractive, and yet she listed multiple surgeries and procedures. None of her friends even nominally mentioned that she didn’t need all this work done. They all looked to be in their 30s.
Why would someone so young and conventionally pretty subject herself to the risks involved with getting multiple surgeries in Mexico, and why weren’t any of her friends trying to talk some sense into her?
Dr. Deniz Sarhaddi, a plastic surgeon with St. Louis Cosmetic Surgery, explained that the trends around cosmetic surgery are changing dramatically. Patients are getting facial rejuvenation surgeries earlier than ever before. Most of her facelift patients are in their 40s. Women start “preventative” Botox in their 20s, and the term "Sephora kids" refers to tween girls buying skincare products designed for aging skin.
There are multiple reasons for this accelerated war on aging.
The popularity and accessibility of minimally invasive procedures such as Botox and fillers have skyrocketed. The American Society of Plastic Surgeons released a report in 2022 that showed a 70% increase in the number of procedures for fillers since 2019 and a 73% increase in neuromodulator injections like Botox. Cosmetic surgeries also rose during this period, although not as dramatically. The facial cosmetic surgery that grew the most was cheek implants.
Sarhaddi pointed out that surgical techniques have also changed to create more natural-looking outcomes. She has seen a rise in patients who have rapidly lost weight with drugs like Ozempic, which cause volume loss in the face, as well.
We now live in a culture that chronically documents our images on social media, increasing our own scrutiny and expectations. With ubiquitous filters on our phones, you might see only "facetuned" images of a person. Celebrities hire people to scrub any undoctored or unfiltered photos of them from the internet.
It used to be that magazines Photoshopped celebrities’ faces to create an altered reality. Now, their very faces are an altered reality. Their duplicity feeds others’ insecurity. The irony is that the lies about their own surgeries and procedures also come from this same place of insecurity and fear of how fans will perceive them.
Many celebrities who hawk their own skincare and beauty lines have a financial incentive to convince the masses that buying their overpriced products will lead to similar results. In truth, only a needle and knife in the hands of a skilled surgeon will lead to those kinds of results.
There’s still a lingering stigma over plastic surgery, to the point where many celebrities lie about the obvious or subtle work they’ve had done on their faces.
“If someone is ageless, they are having something done,” Sarhaddi said. In her practice, about 95% of the patients are women.
“There’s more tolerance for male aging,” she said. Plus, men are more tolerant of their own aging. Women will bring in a photo and criticize some aspect of how they look in it. Sarhaddi explains that a phone camera uses a fisheye lens, distorting how one actually looks in real life.
She laughs when she hears celebrities denying that they have had cosmetic procedures and surgeries. She can see evidence of all types of surgeries on their faces.
No, it’s not just contouring, she said. And it’s certainly not just olive oil, as some have claimed, she laughed.
“It makes me sad, because people are looking at these women who are filtered and operated on and have endless money and they are thinking that that’s attainable naturally,” she said. In fact, numerous celebrities have admitted to lying about nose jobs and fillers for years before finally 'fessing up.
Sarhaddi wishes they would just be honest upfront. It would be less hypocritical and far less damaging to young girls and women who don’t realize how duplicitous the industry is about aging.
Sometimes people need honest feedback more than they need a surgical procedure.
Sarhaddi reminded me that how we age is largely a function of genetics and how diligently we’ve worn sunscreen. She has told 20-somethings who come into her office to stop being hypercritical of their appearance.
“I hope you know how beautiful you are,” she says to them. She likes to say that if your parents are paying for your plastic surgery, then you’re too young to have it. She also redirects women looking to have surgery to prevent aging. You can’t operate on a perceived problem that doesn’t yet exist.
“Doing facial surgery before you show signs of aging makes no sense,” she said.
Getting plastic surgery or cosmetic procedures from an unscrupulous or unskilled provider will only create far more problems. Keep this in mind while watching the stars walk the red carpet and accept those shiny awards.
The best performers are pretending it's all-natural beauty.