Do you long to have a dimpled look like Cheryl Cole or Leonardo DiCaprio? Plastic surgeons are seeing an increase of requests for dimpleplasties, a surgical procedure to add super-cute dimples like those modeled by celebrities. "Every time you smile, you'll get that little Mario Lopez dimple," says Miami board-certified plastic surgeon Dr. Michael Salzhauer. But beware, there are some risks: One plastic surgeon said that adding dimples is akin to permanent scarring, and when the skin sags with age, these designer dimples could turn into “ designer disasters.”
Urbandictionary.com refers to a chin cleft as a “ butt chin,” which could explain why there are so many people complaining online about their imperfect chins. This type of chin is a dominant gene, so chances are if you naturally have one, your child will inherit it. It can be so unpopular that Jessica Simpson once said her chin cleft is sometimes airbrushed out of magazine photos, although she hastened to add she is proud of her “butt chin.” Although plastic surgeons advertise their ability to remove chin clefts, it’s actually a sought-after trait in Hollywood. Perhaps the most famous man who wanted a chin cleft was Michael Jackson, who sculpted a new chin during one of his many alleged plastic surgeries.
Women aren’t the only ones trying to get rid of their love handles: A rising trend in the field of male plastic surgery is abdominal etching, in which liposuction is used to sculpt grooves in layers of fat to suggest a muscular appearance. The procedure—only for men who are otherwise fit and only have a couple extra inches of fat—runs anywhere from $3,000 to $10,000. Despite the procedure only taking an hour or two, you may not be beach-ready right away—swelling can last for weeks or even months, and complications include infection and bleeding. Which is an entirely different Situation than the one patients were going for.
If you’re bald already, you’re out of luck for these new procedures that require hair to be transplanted off your head and onto your eyebrows or eyelashes. Britain’s first official eyelash transplant took place last year, although the 19-year-old suffered from a condition that caused her to obsessively pull out her hair. The lashes get thicker after four to six months of treatment. Although mascara has long been used to make eyelashes appear longer, eyebrow transplants seem to go against the mainstream trend of well-plucked, carefully trimmed brows. But it’s true—women with thinner eyebrows have lately been going for implants to extend their eyebrows to have the same bushy look as Keira Knightley or the Olsen twins. “Hair transplant surgery is the only way to restore eyebrows permanently and it's also the solution for those who naturally have very fair or sparse brows," one plastic surgeon told the Daily Mail.
Inga Ivanova
Foot binding was a centuries-old tradition in China, where young girls’ toes were broken in order to give the appearance of tiny feet, which makes recent surgeries for toe shortening seem positively medieval. One podiatric surgeon in New York City said they often do surgery to correct unnatural toe lengths. "Sometimes we'll see one toe that's extremely long. For example, a second toe that is a half-inch longer than the third toe,” he said. "That's a foot that if 10 people looked at it, 9.5 of them would understand the patient's concerns," he said. Toe surgeries can cost between $2,000 and $15,000 for a “complete foot makeover.”
The French have an expression called “les jambes en porteaux,” or legs like posts, for cankles, but some people are starting to rebel against the dreaded and inherited chubby ankles. Their answer: cankle liposuction. A French plastic surgeon told Britain’s Daily Mirror that by using an unconventional form of liposuction—making several incisions and removing fat from all over the ankle—he is able to remove 3.3 pints of fat from women’s ankles. One woman, Joelle Bechade, said that after having the procedure, her ankles looked “slim, defined and feminine—just what I’d always wanted.” Removing all that fat comes with a heavy price: getting those slim and trim ankles costs patients $5,000 to $8,000.
David Calicchio
Sure, their teeth are only temporary, but that hasn’t stopped some fawning parents from turning to cosmetic teeth whitening for their toddlers. In 2007, tabloids reported that Britney Spears—who was in what we may now call her “troubled” era— attempted to whiten her son Sean Preston’s teeth. Pediatricians haven’t exactly embraced the practice, calling for “ judicious” use of teeth whitening for children and calling for more research on its effects.
Some women might turn to flats to avoid foot pain from wearing heels, but a fortitudinous—and vain—few are opting for collagen feet fillers instead. The solution is an injection of protein in the ball of the heel that provides a layer of extra padding. “I am guilty of over-wearing my favorite shoes…The foot filler treatment has made me a lot more comfortable,” one English client told the U.K.’s Daily Mail of the treatment. The treatment costs about $225.
Marek Brzezinski
Although there’s a million-dollar industry dedicated to hair removal, in a stroke of luck for cosmetic surgeons, pubic hair is considered to be a sign of fertility in some Asian cultures, yet loss of pubic hair or failure to grow it is more common in East Asian women than those of other ancestry. Improved technology in individualized hair transplants usually gives the procedure a fairly natural result, though there’s some concern of yeast, fungal and bacterial infections, and boils, especially for those who have already had surgical procedures in that area.
Have an outie but want an innie? For those whose umbilical cords left an unsightly mark in the middle of their midriff, belly button surgery (or umbilicoplasty) is an increasingly popular procedure—often done in tandem with a tummy tuck. Though it’s a fairly quick and simple process, the bill can run up to $4,000. “After I had children, my belly button did not look how it used to,” a fitness instructor told ABC News after her operation. “The fact that I can now wear a bikini again is exciting.”
Blue eyes, long considered a genetic gift to those lucky enough to inherit them, now may be within reach for those who want some baby blues—granted they can shell out the dough for custom artificial iris implants. The implants run more than $5,000 and have not been FDA-approved. To date, about 250 people have undergone this procedure worldwide, mostly as a corrective measure after trauma or an accident and to deal with congenital defects. Dr. Kevin Miller, an ophthalmologist at UCLA's Jules Stein Eye Institute said, "People are always looking to change cosmetic appearance…I don't think this is a procedure to change eye color. This a baby step in the direction of helping people with a significant medical problem. You never know what the cosmetic ramifications will be as time goes on." With the amount of people eager to undergo surgery for every other part of their bodies, eyes may finally be the final frontier.
Gummy bears are no longer just a delightful candy. Cohesive silicone gel implants, nicknamed “gummy bear” implants, are fake breasts that can more easily be molded to form the natural teardrop shape of women’s breasts. The implants have been dubbed gummy bears because—you guessed it—their texture and consistency is similar to that of the sweet treat. Along with their more natural appearance, doctors are excited by gummy bears because of their low complication rates. So it’s a win-win for everyone!
