With the rise of the ‘selfie’ we’re under more pressure than ever to look good. From temporary boob jobs to needleless Botox, we found out how many of us will be getting beach-ready this summer…
If 2014 was all about the Kim Kardashian-inspired Butt Lift, what does this year have in store in terms of cosmetic surgery?
Celebrities, naturally, are a big influence when it comes to the way we want to look. According to a survey by the American Academy of Facial Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery (AAFPRS), member surgeons saw a 13% increase in requests for celebrity-inspired procedures last year.
However, the ‘selfie’ phenomenon is also driving more and more of us under the knife. “It can make people look at their faces in a hypercritical way – which makes them even more self-conscious of a bump on the nose, a weak chin or visible acne scars,” says Edwin Williams, MD, President-elect, AAFPRS.
There are now more than 11 million cosmetic procedures carried out annually worldwide. Spain is the fifth most popular place to have cosmetic treatments in the world (Brazil, US and Mexico are the top three). According to the International Society of Aesthetic Plastic Surgery (ISAPS), there were nearly 447,177 surgical and nonsurgical procedures carried out in Spain during 2013. The majority of these were non-invasive skin and hair treatments like Botox and fillers, followed by breast, face and fat procedures.
Available treatments are getting ever more advanced and, in some cases, bizarre. Take for instance ‘ball ironing’, designed to eradicate male wrinkles – not on their face but on their testicle sack! Or how about dimple surgery to give you a cuter smile?
The next couple of years will see a range of new treatments hit the operating theatre, so we asked leading Marbella-based cosmetic surgeon Dr. Kai O. Kaye from Ocean Clinic to give us the low-down.
Holiday Boobs
If you’ve ever worried about stepping out in your bikini because of your breast size, you will soon be able to hit the beach with confidence thanks to a new procedure which temporarily increases your cup size. The treatment, which has been developed by a New York surgeon, employs an injectable saline solution to pump up patients’ breasts, giving a temporary boost that will last two to three weeks, however Dr. Kaye does not recommend it.
“Some surgeons offer this as a preparation for permanent breast implants. It can give the patient an idea of how it’s going to look,” he says. “However, if you’re injecting a large amount of liquid into the breast it can stretch the tissue, which you don’t want if you have no plans to increase their size permanently. Otherwise, after your excursion into holiday boobs, you’ll be left with worse shaped breasts than before.”
Fat-Melting Injections
Increasingly being used in the States, ‘fat melting’ injections are said to dissolve stubborn fat cells, which can then be passed out of the body via urination. Sounds too good to be true, doesn’t it?
“This is proven to work scientifically,” says Dr. Kaye. “But you have to consider the limitations and contraindications of this treatment.
“The drugs that are currently available are designed to melt fat that is clogging arteries. So when you use this medication for cosmetic purposes, it’s what we call ‘off label’ and you have to inform your patient.
“One issue with it is that it was not meant to be injected under the skin and sometimes the dissolution of fat cells is not even, resulting in a bumpy appearance. There is a new medication designed for cosmetic purposes but it is still trial stage.
“Crucially, you can’t use this technique on large amounts of fat; whatever you dissolve has to be eliminated by your liver. But the idea for this new medication is for use on submental fat (double chin), which makes sense.”
The Brazilian Tummy Tuck
First there was the Brazilian Butt Lift, now there’s the Brazilian Tummy Tuck. This procedure not only gives the recipient a flat stomach worthy of flaunting on Ipanema beach, it also offers a neatly nipped in waist. This is achieved by removing any excess tummy skin and sucking out any unsightly lumps with laser lipo.
“This is actually nothing new, it’s just a re-labelling,” says Dr. Kaye. “It is lipoabdominoplasty and it combines a classic tummy tuck with intensive lipo remodelling to give a completely different silhouette. I do all my tummy tucks like this. The old technique that does not take care of the silhouette around the tummy is an antique technique.”
The Ponytail Facelift
Look in the mirror and scrape back your hair into a tight ponytail. Ta-dah! Your wrinkles magically disappear and everything is lifted back to positions they last held in the 1980s! This is certainly the cheapest way to achieve the effects of a facelift, but for a more permanent change consider the Ponytail Lift. The procedure is designed to mimic the improved appearance that comes with pulled back hair, with lifted brows, cheeks and jowls, and is minimally invasive.
“The ‘pony tail facelift’ is simply a marketing name given to a treatment known as an endoscopic forehead lift,” says Dr. Kaye. “We tense the muscles of the mid-face and forehead by making some small incisions hidden in the hair. It’s not a new technique – it’s 30-years old! The endoscopic techniques are having a renaissance because of the trend towards minimally invasive procedures, which give great results with minimal down time.”
Non-Surgical Nose Job
If you’ve always wanted to change the shape of your nose but have been too afraid to take the plunge with full rhinoplasty, this could be the answer to your prayers. Liquid Rhinoplasty uses common dermal fillers, which are then sculpted to give the appearance of a real rhinoplasty. While the results are only temporary – lasting nine to 12 months – the upside is that the procedure is much less expensive and invasive than a traditional nose job.
However it’s not the answer if you’re looking for a small and dainty nose, says Dr. Kaye: “The thing with rhinosculpturing is that you can only add, you can’t take away. If you have a hump in your nose, you can fill in before and after the hump to give a straight profile, but the nose will be bigger.
“It can be a quick fix if you have a minor issue, but be sure to use resolvable fillers or you may get problems down the line.”
Fat Transfer Injections
Taking fat from a flabby stomach and transferring it to one’s boobs has got to be every woman’s fantasy. And now it’s becoming a reality with a fat grafting procedure, which sees excess fat from one part of the body donated to another that lacks volume. Using ‘like for like’ in this way is said to produce long-lasting and natural-looking results and Dr. Kaye says it is the most important change in plastic surgery technique in in the last 10 years.
“There are a number of benefits to using fat as a filler,” he says. “In most people fat is available in abundance and can be harvested via a very minor procedure of micro lipo extraction.
“Fillers are expensive; if you need 5-6mls for the face, we’re talking around €2,000, every eight months. If you have fat, you can have 20/30mls, or however much you need, and the price is the same. For fat transfer in the face it costs around €1,200.
“Some people think fat transfer in the face is only temporary, that it does not hold. But it is not. We do have a certain reabsorption in the first three weeks. These are living stem cells and they have to find connections with blood vessels. Some will die, but those that connect live as a living fat cell.
“This method gives great results. We can use it on areas that were very hard to treat before, like under the eyes, and it not only fills and plumps, the stem cells also have a rejuvenating effect on the skin. I combine this technique with all of my facial procedures.”
Needle-Free Botox
Scared of needles? Never fear, US-based Revance Therapeutics claims to be the first to have developed a gel version of Botox. The gel, which is applied to the face topically, is currently in Phase 3 clinical trials, testing its efficacy on crows-feet. The manufacturers hope to get FDA approval in 2016. Dr. Kaye is optimistic it will work but says we will probably be waiting somewhat longer:
“We use Botox in syringes because the molecule is too big to pass the dermal barrier,” he says. “The idea is to invent a carrier substance that can penetrate the skin and bring the Botox into the muscle. There are some sea animals that shoot spores with a neurotoxin that opens the skin, like a mosquito. Evidently, when you can include this kind of force in a cream you have topical Botox. This will work, but it might take another 10 years.”
BOX OUT – Marbella’s Most Popular Treatments
Dr. Kaye’s top 5 most requested treatments
- Breast augmentation
- Liposculpture
- Eyelid lift
- Facelift
- Fat filler
- Rhinoplasty
