Despite the many botched plastic surgery photos, many women and men choose to undergo plastic surgery each year to boost their self-confidence and address problem areas. Plastic surgery can produce natural and effective results to help you achieve the look you’ve always wanted, or the look you used to have! But it’s important to be educated on what plastic surgery can and can’t do for you.
Thinking about going under the knife? Here is a guide to different types of plastic surgery! Read more to learn about what different plastic surgeries can do for you (and what they can’t)!
Face & Neck
Brow Lift
Don’t settle for a grumpy or sad appearance. A brow lift is a procedure that can reduce frown lines around your eyes to give you a more youthful appearance. This procedure can also reposition and reshape your brow if it is sagging. If your brows or eyelids are drooping significantly so that it makes it hard to put on makeup or even see, you might want to consider this procedure!
Eyelid Lift
Although wrinkles, drooping eyelids, and puffy bags under your eyes are common signs of aging, you don’t have to put up with them! And eyelid lift can remove loose or sagging skin around your eyes to rejuvenate your look. Loose skin around your eyes can impair vision, and again often results in noticeable bags under the eyes. This surgery can help improve the appearance of your upper and/or lower eyelids and remove years of aging.
Facelift
A facelift can give your entire fact a more youthful appearance and counteract the effects of aging and gravity. A facelift can lift sagging facial tissue to give you a more refined profile, reduce wrinkles, and smooth deep folds. There are several different types of facelifts that a plastic surgeon can perform, each producing different results. Discuss your options with your plastic surgeon to determine what type of facelift will produce your desired results.
Neck Lift
No one wants their neck to look more aged than the rest of their body! If you are concerned about the excess fat or skin under your face or loose neck skin, consider a neck lift. This procedure can restore the youthful contour of your neck and chin and remove double chins. While no surgery can reverse the aging process, this surgery will take years off your face! A neck lift can also be performed with other procedures to produce maximum results.
Ear Surgery
You won’t have to worry about your ears poking out too far after an ear surgery. This procedure can help reshape the ears to bring a more balanced proportion to them. It can also correct structural defects that have been present since birth. An ear surgery can make your ears smaller and can address protruding ears. Even a small correction can leave patients feeling more confident!
Nose Job
You don’t have to keep the family nose if you don’t want to! A rhinoplasty (often referred to as a “nose job”) reshapes the nose to create a better profile and proportion. This procedure can also help correct impaired structures in the nose that can cause breathing problems, like a deviated septum.
Chin Surgery
Plastic surgeons can also change the shape of your chin. Through a chin surgery, plastic surgeons can insert an implant or reduce the bone in your chin to create a more balanced proportion with the rest of your facial features. Additionally, surgeons can modify the upper or lower jaws to help improve your bite.
Facial Implants
Don’t settle for a weak jawline or poor profile. Facial implants can help create a new facial contour. Chin implants, jaw implants, or cheek implants are made with materials compatible with human tissue and can be inserted by a plastic surgeon to alter your facial structure.
Breasts
Breast Augmentation
Not all of us have developed to a cup size D, but there’s still hope! A breast augmentation can help increase your breast size or create balance between your breasts if they are uneven (a problem many women face). A breast augmentation could also restore breast volume that was lost after pregnancy and breastfeeding. During this procedure, a plastic surgeon uses breast implants or a fat transfer to increase your breast size. This procedure does not help with breast drooping, and patients may also need a breast lift (see description below).
Breast Reduction
Some of us have way too much breast tissue. While this may not seem like a problem, large breasts can cause back problems and discomfort. During a breast reduction, a plastic surgeon can remove some breast tissue, excess fat, and skin to decrease the size of your breasts to achieve a more proportioned look.
Breast Lift
When your breasts have all the volume you want but aren’t really in the same spot anymore, it might be time for a breast lift. Breasts can sag after pregnancy, breastfeeding, gravity, and aging. A breast lift can restore the youthful shape and firmness of your breasts by repositioning breast tissue and removing excess skin. Women can also get this surgery performed along with a breast augmentation.
Male Breast Reduction
Breast surgery isn’t just for women. When males have extra breast tissue (a condition referred to as gynecomastia), they may choose to undergo male breast reduction to flatten the chest and reduce extra skin and tissue around the breasts. This surgery can also involve repositioning and improving the overall shape of the areola, which can stretch and sag due to the extra tissue.
Body
Liposuction
Lipo can be a girl’s best friend. Liposuction can be performed just about anywhere on the body to remove excess fat deposits to reshape and slim specific areas. Liposuction can be performed on:
- Thighs
- Butt
- Waist
- Arms
- Back
- Legs
- Chest
- Calves
- Ankles
- Chin
- Cheeks
- Neck
- MORE
While liposuction removes extra fat to help improve your overall proportions, it is not a weight loss surgery. If you choose to undergo lipo, you should still maintain a proper diet and exercise well. Liposuction is also NOT a treatment for cellulite (unfortunately).
Tummy Tuck
Many women often have problems with their midsection due to aging, pregnancy, or fluctuations in weight. Get your bikini body back with a tummy tuck! During this procedure, a plastic surgeon removes excess fat and skin from your midsection. The surgeon can also help create a flat and toned abdomen by restoring weak muscles. A tummy tuck can also get rid of the stretch marks that are in the area of skin to be removed.
Remember that a tummy tuck is also not a weight loss surgery! Patients should maintain a proper diet and exercise.
Labiaplasty
Labiaplasty, or vaginal rejuvenation, reduces the size of the labia minora (vaginal lips), which can tug or twist when they become too elongated. Often the size and shape of the labia minora change over time, and especially after childbirth. This surgery can also improve the symmetry between the labia minora by removing excess skin and tissue.
Body Contouring
After major weight loss, you may want to consider body contouring to improve your contours! Body contouring involves removing sagging skin and fat to smooth your appearance. This surgery has the best results when performed after weight loss or major lifestyle changes. This procedure can also involve a variety of body lifts to achieve the desired result.
Arm Lift
One sign of aging is sagging arms, and sometimes working out just isn’t enough to correct this extra tissue! But don’t let sagging arms keep you from rocking that tank top. An arm lift removes flabby and sagging skin under your arms and lifts and reshapes the underlying tissue so you can get that arm definition back.
Mommy Makeover
Childbirth causes significant changes in a woman’s body. And some of those changes we would rather get rid of. A mommy makeover involves a variety of procedures like breast augmentation, liposuction, or vaginal rejuvenation, to restore a woman’s body after having children. This procedure is performed at one time and can help boost your confidence and make you feel sexy again!
Thigh Lift
Thunder thighs are out. But don’t worry, a thigh lift can help your thighs look great! During a thigh lift, a plastic surgeon removes flabbing skin and excess fat from your thighs while reshaping underlying tissue, so you can get smoother thighs and a better proportion. If hitting the gym isn’t getting you the results you want, it might be time to think about your surgical options.
Butt Augmentation
Tired of sagging in your butt when you try on pants? A butt augmentation can increase the size of your butt and improve the overall shape to balance out your figure. This procedure involves surgically inserting butt implants to achieve the desired shape and fullness, so you can have that hourglass figure.
Brazilian Butt Lift
A Brazilian butt lift is a type of butt augmentation that relies on transferring fat from other parts of your body into your butt. Plastic surgeons use liposuction to harvest fat from other parts of the body, and then it is injected into your butt and hips. This procedure can increase the size of your butt, improve symmetry, and get rid of sagging buttocks. Unlike a traditional butt augmentation, this procedure uses your own fat instead of implants to achieve the desired shape and size.
Minimally Invasive Procedures
Dermal Fillers
If you don’t want to go down the plastic surgery route, there are minimally invasive procedures that can help enhance your appearance without going under the knife. Dermal fillers, for example, are injected into areas of the face to restore volume and reduce wrinkles. Dermal fillers can also help plump your lips! While this procedure can’t achieve the same results as a facelift or brow lift, it can provide dramatic results!
Chemical Peels
Chemical peels can improve the texture of your skin without having to pay a ton of money. Chemical peels can help improve your acne, fine wrinkles, rough patches of skin, some scars, and sun-damaged skin. If you want a more youthful appearance, you might just need a chemical peel to bring back that glow!
Microdermabrasion
Microdermabrasion involves gently removing layers of skin using an abrasive instrument. Microdermabrasion helps with stretch marks, scarring, and discoloration foy your skin. This procedure, however, can’t treat acne or acne scars. But it does help thicken your collagen to achieve a younger-looking complexion.
Laser Skin Resurfacing
Looking to reduce wrinkles without the facelift? Try laser skin resurfacing first. This laser resurfacing (or laser peel) can help reduce wrinkles, scars, AND blemishes. Laser technology gives plastic surgeons a great level of control and precision to make sure your skin looks flawless.
Spider Vein Treatment
Don’t let spider veins creep up on you. Spider vein removal can reduce spider veins, the clusters of red, blue, or purple veins that often appear on areas of the legs. One of the most popular forms of removing spider veins is by injecting a solution into the vein that causes it to fade away. However, lasers can also be used.
Laser Hair Removal
Get rid of hair for good! Laser hair removal relies on laser technology to penetrate hair follicles with light. This light damages the follicle to keep hair from growing. While it may take several sessions of laser hair removal to see results, it is an effective method to slow hair growth and ultimately remove hair.
BOTOX
BOTOX is a popular injection that can reduce the appearance of wrinkles and fine lines to give you a more youthful appearance. BOTOX can be used on crow’s feet, forehead creases, and smile lines. The injection blocks nerve signals to the muscles around the injection site to achieve the desired look.
Now you know what plastic surgery can do for you (and what it can’t). Refer to this interactive guide to discover more about different types of plastic surgery! And contact a plastic surgeon near you for additional questions or to schedule a consultation.
