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This Brings Me to The Shocking Statistics…

January 22, 2017 by Lucy Bryce Leave a Comment

Surgery: The Facts:

My final blog post on the topic of plastic surgery is looking at some statistics of what procedures people endure, and the recent rise in popularity due to the social media influences.

Here is an visual infographic to break it down:

Distressing results:

These are shocking statistics regarding plastic surgery from 2015! Surgery is evermore becoming the ‘norm’.

The number of people having body and face alterations is scary thought! It brings into question why someone would feel the need to change their appearance so much.

After evaluating these statistics against research into the influences social media has, it is clear to see that there is a correlation. The more social media sites we use, the more aware we are of our appearance. As the popularity of social media sites continues to grow and increase, so does the popularity of plastic surgery procedures. A very scary thought indeed for the future and the ‘social media generation’.

Thank you for reading this post!

Are You Even Human?

January 20, 2017 by Lucy Bryce Leave a Comment

Upon researching the topic of plastic surgery there were real- life stories that I found hard to believe. I began to question the authenticity of something that seemed so ridiculous.

The idea of someone altering their appearance to achieve a desired goal is a concept that I find strange to being with so when someone has surgery with the aim of looking like a cat, I go as far to question their sanity!

The new and improved take on cat woman, erm?

Jocelyn Wildenstein, a wealthy socialite and ex-wife of a billionaire art-dealer has reportedly spent over $4 million throughout the years on plastic surgery in an attempt to look more like exotic wild cats (yes you read that right! Cats!?) Because of this obsession, Jocelyn is often nicknamed “Cat Woman” in the media. As part of her 1999 divorce deal with her husband, the judge ruled that Jocelyn could not spend any of her alimony from Alec on plastic surgery (which gives an insight into how obsessed she must have truly been).

Here’s what Jocelyn’s transformation from a young, natural looking woman in what she believes to resemble a wild animal:

(Jocelyn Wildernstein’s transformation, 1970, 1998, 2003, 2008)

In 2011, it appear Jocelyn may have had a moment of realisation! She was last seen looking more human leading the public to believe she may have undergone some form of corrective surgery. Her lips looked smaller and her forehead/ eyebrows reduced and more natural. (Although her appearance was (and still) is drastically altered with non-human like features).

I wonder if it was something she’d always wanted to do? Or whether she woke up one day with the idea of being a cat and had the means (money) to do so.

Obsessed with surgery, pick up the cooking oil! (Not)

The initial reason I began researching the topic of plastic surgery was due to a video that I was made aware through twitter almost four years ago! I remember friends talking about it and my social media feed going insane!

It was all centred around a woman, Hang Mioku who was refused any more plastic surgery in Korea as doctors told her she had a psychological issue after being obsessed with silicone injections just wanting ‘soft’ skin. This rejection lead her to injecting cooking oil in face, leaving her permanently disfigured.

Here are some tweets from 2013 of people airing their initial shock at the story!
tweet tweet

(Tweets from 2013 regarding the story)

She was a former model with a pretty face who was left with a permanently disfigured from her DIY beauty treatment. After already injecting an entire bottle of black market silicone into her face, Hang resorted to using cooking oil that left her face severely swollen and scarred.

Video below from an American News show (TomoNewsUS) reporting on her tragic story:

Her disastrous attempt at perfection was featured on Korean television and viewers donated thousands of pounds to pay for corrective surgery. During her first of 10 operations, surgeons removed 60g of silicone oil (60g!!!!) and other foreign substances from her face and 200g from her neck. However, Hang remains forever more disfigured and says she desperately wishes she could have her old face back.

Hangs sad story should be a lesson to anyone who is thinking of taking plastic surgery into their own hands! Leave it to the professionals!

Thank you for reading this post! More updates will be posted soon

BOTHCED! Past the Point of No Return

January 18, 2017 by Lucy Bryce Leave a Comment

Is there a line when it comes to going under the knife?

There are countless celebrities who undergo surgery each day. Many flying under the radar having menial nip-and-tucks here and there that me and you aren’t even aware of. But sometimes celebrities just can’t help themselves and go a little too far. One procedure goes wrong and BAM! Stuck in the constant cycle of trying to correct their ruined appearance. Lots of these extreme botched procedures and altered appearances provoke extremely negative responses from an online social media audience.

An example that I’m sure many of you will be aware of is Pete Burns. He was known for his openness about his surgery mishaps, and spoke freely about undergoing over 300 operations in order to fix his botched surgeries. Despite the vast amount of time times he had been under the knife he still continued to state how he “was in love with his appearance ” yet somehow also felt “just like Frankenstein”. A confusing paradox from the deceased singer.

(Pete Burns – before and after)

Before his recent, tragic death in October 2016 due to a heart attack, he appeared on the Channel 5 show “Celebrity Botched Up Bodies”. Botched is a popular documentary TV show that interviews celebrity personalities that have either had countless surgeries (and gone too far away from what now may be perceived as a ‘normal’ alteration) or had surgeries that have gone wrong and had drastic consequences.

Here is a trailer for the latest series of the show:

On the show, Pete stated that he first got plastic surgery 20 years ago, when his single “You Spin Me Round” became a success. Then proceeding with four nose jobs, cheekbone implants and countless alterations to his lips.

His rise to fame and consciousness of his appearance in the public eye provoked his first nose job (as it was crooked due to being broken in a previous year). Speaking of his first procedure, he shared: “I realised I was going to be a visual entity and that I had to look good.”

“When you’re young, self-conscious and standing in front of a camera and the photographers are whispering, ‘Can we turn his head to the left?’ you think, ‘I’ll do something about it’.”

When things don’t go as planned:

He then underwent a rhinoplasty to fix it! But the procedure went wrong… He told Channel 5 how he “woke up covered in blood. There was so much blood it was unbelievable”.“He’d removed most of my nose and there was just two nostrils and a little bit of bone in the middle. I nearly fainted.”

The star then underwent more surgery to attempt to fix that cosmetic failure, where he claims – that it was just the first of “probably 300”. Pete states that the “amount of surgeries I’ve had are absolutely minimal compared to the reconstructive surgeries I’ve had”. A very worrying thought that brings into question the addictiveness of cosmetic alterations.

(Pete Burns lips- Channel 5’s Celebrity Botched Up Bodies)

On the show he also recalled the time he was performing on stage and realised there was a problem with his lip fillers. He then went back to the surgeon to get excess fluid drained. “At least a pint and a half of yellow steaming fluid was vomited out of the lip.” (An unsightly thought that makes me feel faint thinking about it).

To make the situation worse, Pete said the filler started spreading to the rest of his face, leaving holes in his skin which would ooze yellow fluid. He successfully managed to sue the surgeon for £450,000 in an out of court settlement after the infection spread to rest of his body with his lips possibly requiring amputation.

Reliving the horrific ordeal, he explained: “I’ve had a major operation a week for two years to remove it from my cheeks where it had migrated, my Adam’s apple, the back of my eyes…They couldn’t do anything about the liver and the kidneys. I had to excrete that out.”

From bad to worse:

The signer discussed how he became clinically depressed and how the ordeal drained him of two years worth of his life.

Things continued to dramatically declined for Pete as he developed blood clots and pulmonary embolisms in his legs, heart and lungs.“I got these black marks on my skin and I thought they were bruises. The next thing my driver came in and I was unconscious, not breathing.”

He was rushed to hospital and told that he had less than two per cent chance of survival! He was put on blood thinners and after 10 days, doctors managed to save him. But despite his brush with death, Pete was undeterred, stating “What I’m trying to achieve with my surgery is my own personal satisfaction. It’s narcissism at its extreme.”

When societal pressures become too much:

Why do celebrities succumb to the pressures of striving for perfection? Especially when the situations they put themselves in are so life-threatening!

Many people are unaware of the pressures put on celebrities to look good. The attempts that they put themselves through to achieve this ‘perfection’ are extremely dangerous and as you can see, sometimes life threatening. Yet, the public chose to ignore this fact (or may even not be aware) but are extremely quick to judge and ridicule. Pete Burns is often used at the ‘butt’ of a joke and is seen frequently tweeted about on Twitter. Here are some examples:

“I don’t understand how people can get cheap plastic surgery, then be all heartbroken and shocked when they unwrap and look like Pete Burns” – @Tigercha5e (twitter)
“Watching Pete Burns interviews, loved the music but finding the surgery truly disturbing, awful to see and incomprehensible – why???” – @Judyelon

It’s not only Pete Burns who receives negative backlash from an online audience, child actors such as Amanda Bynes and Lindsey Lohan have been victims of a negative response from the online public too:

Amanda Bynes:

“Do you think if I got addicted to the narcotics after surgery I could be like Amanda Bynes” – @masonwymerr
“Amanda Bynes usta be so pretty… until she went and had a s**tload of plastic surgery done” – @EPluribusWiggum

(Amanda Bynes left after surgery, right minimal surgery)

Lindsay Lohan:

“@lindsaylohan not even surgery could save your face hunny” – @wreckedari
“@lindsaylohan tooo much surgery “ – @AntoniomoonL

(Lindsay Lohan post surgery)

Thank you for reading this post! More updates will be posted soon

“Life In Plastic It’s Fantastic”

January 10, 2017 by Lucy Bryce 3 Comments

As Barbie famously proclaimed: “Life in plastic it’s fantastic”

But is that the reality?

There have been countless times that I have been shocked by what the tabloids produce in their headlines. And I’m not talking about the shocking political stories, or the next debate regarding global warming… I’m talking about the disastrous experiments that ‘normal people’ are participating in an attempt to morph into celebrities through plastic surgery. A headline at which my common repose is just to release an exasperating sigh of “oh, no not another one?!”

You must remember last year when Jack Johnson took over our television screens, headlines and twitter feeds as the latest to attempt to look like celebrity. He underwent countless surgeries to look like David Beckham, the resemblance was uncanny (not). Don’t remember? Lucky you! Here is a quick recap; he spent £20,000 on procedures on his cheeks, chin, eyebrows, teeth, lips and tanning injections in an attempt to achieve his desired ‘Beckham look’. And who wouldn’t want to look like David Beckham, the former England captain was even crowned People magazine’s Sexiest Man Alive in 2015.

Johnson appeared on a number of popular TV shows to debut his ‘new and improved’ look, including popular day time TV show This Morning. He discussed how many doctors have turned him away from gastric band requests as they see he does not actually require one. But despite the fact he is £20,000 in debt, he plans to spend a another £30,000 more!

He states on the show “I do love myself, I just want to look like David Beckham. Who doesn’t? No one can say he’s ugly or unattractive. Even people who aren’t a fan.” But if he truly loved himself why did he feel the need to change into someone else, rather than loving his own appearance?

Check out this video below where he discusses his surgery live on This Morning:

Many people took to the social networking site Twitter, to voice their anger at the ‘waste’ of benefits and how it is a sham that he was allowed to go this far in the first place:

It doesn’t stop there …

This is not the first time (and probably won’t be the last) that someone has attempted to mimic a celebrities appearance.

Back in 2013 we saw Toby Sheldon in the spotlight after spending $100,000 US dollars on surgery in order to look like Justin Bieber . Sheldon who is 14 years older than the Canadian pop-sensation spent 5 years having numerous surgeries including face fillers, a chin reduction and even eyelid surgery (who even knew that was a thing?!) in an attempt to look like Bieber. The super-fan even appeared on the plastic surgery horror story series Botched.

Sadly, in 2015, Sheldon was found dead in a motel room in San Fernando, with his death being recored due to “multiple drug intoxication”.

(Sheldon left, Bieber right)

‘Celebrities’ can come in all shapes and sizes

Ordinary people are more frequently aspiring to be like their idols and in the case of Grant Coulson, moulding himself to look like a real-life doll. A recent article printed by the newspaper The Sun , it documents how the unemployed 25 year old “has already had fillers for acne scars paid for by taxpayers but now wants further work on his face”. Coulson has claimed to doctors that he has difficultly breathing to persuade them to reduce his nose size and states “that it is looking likely I will get it”.

(Article headline from The Sun newspaper from 3rd January 2017)

Why is this happening?

It has hard to pin-point exactly why ordinary people are undergoing these expensive surgeries and procedures that not only dramatically effect their bank account but that can also have dangerous and life-threatening consequences.

One psychiatrist Dr. Carole Lieberman explained to Yahoo how “Consciously or unconsciously, people think that if they look like a particular celebrity, it will bring them the power a celebrity has, the power to attract people, to be a heartbreaker, to have guys or girls swooning over them.”

Thank you for reading this post! More updates will be posted soon

The ‘Kylie Jenner’ Effect

January 4, 2017 by Lucy Bryce 75 Comments

Hello All!

This is my first blog post (of many) focusing on the effect that social media can have on people partaking in plastic surgery procedures, and how young people are constantly striving for perfection. This particular post will be centring around the craze that took the social media world by storm in 2015 and is still being discussed to this date; ‘The #KylieJennerLipChallenge’.

(Kylie Jenner’s enhanced lips)

Background to Kylie Jenner’s Lips:

In an interview in April 2015 with Grazia magazine, she discussed the rumours surrounding whether or not she had had her lips surgically enhanced. Jenner states “I’m like, ‘Stop talking about my lips. I haven’t had plastic surgery. I’ve never been under the knife. People flashback to pictures of me when I was 12 and say, ‘Kylie’s so different,’ but how can I look the same from 12-18?”. But was the then 17 year old telling the truth?

The reality star went on to reveal in May 2015 (only a month later) on an episode of Keeping Up With The Kardashians that she had in fact had ‘temporary fillers’ as it was an insecurity of hers and was what she “wanted to do”. She claimed “I want to admit to the lips, but people are so quick to judge me on everything, so I might have tiptoed around the truth,” she added. “But I didn’t lie.”

I can’t quite personally understand the youngest Kardashian sister’s statement about not lying, but due to being 17 at the time it is understandable that the young star knew she would receive backlash if she were to come clean about going under the knife, especially when her own Mom-ager (mother and manager), Kris Jenner told Access Hollywood that she “got really upset” with Kylie over the lip fillers.

(Jenner with a ‘fuller look’)

Dr. Paul Nassif, a plastic surgeon on E! reality told E! News in October 2016 when asked about Kylie’s lip injections, “She’s always, just like the rest of these girls, she has nice lips already. She already has beautiful, full lips.”

“I find it fascinating because I think Kylie has become such a huge star now that she actually can start a trend,” surgeon and Botched star Dr. Terry Dubrow said. “She started a trend of young girls coming into our office with pictures of Kylie, showing her lips, wanting her lips.”

The ‘people’s’ response:

Her new look inspired a whole new craze of lip enhancing which involved people sucking on bottles to acquire her plumped up look!

Countless photos and videos were being uploaded online of people trying the #kyliejennerchallenge to blow up their lips to ridiculous proportions. How it works: someone places their lips into a bottle (or in some cases a shot glass) creating an airlock. When suction of the bottle occurs it increases the blood flow to the lips and causes them to swell.

Some immediately regretted their decision though as the suction caused severe bruising and swelling to their lips.

(Thousands take to twitter to show their attempts)

In some drastic cases where a shot glass was used, the glass would explode during the suction causing severe cuts and damage to young people lips. (waring graphic image ahead)

(Teens lip’s cut by glass due to the glass shattering during suction)

Even with all the warnings of others and witnessing multiple failures posted online, numerous people still continued to get involved.

Click below to watch a video compilation of failed #kyliejennerlipchallenge attempts created by social mania on youtube, the video of the top 100 fails has over 26,000,000 views:

What next?

This craze sparked a new era of desired big lips, with many jumping on the lip enhancement hype. Rising to fame was the safer and more natural way of fuller, plumper lips. Still a suction technique but with softer coatings of plastic (rather than shot glasses or plastic bottles). One make that is extremely popular is Fullips which has been featured in Cosmopolitan, the Daily Mail and on E!Online.

screen-shot-2017-01-04-at-21-49-32

They are advertised as “a tool for fuller, healthier-looking lips without the injections or chemicals. Small enough to carry in your makeup bag, simply use the Lip Enhancer before applying your lipstick or lip gloss” that will last the day or evening and can be topped up when necessary. This approach seems a lot safer than the amateur attempts people were trying and posting online using simple tools they could find in their kitchen cupboards. The Fullips website even has a “how to guide” with videos to ensure the safety of their users.

screen-shot-2017-01-04-at-22-04-58 fullips

(Fullips lip enhancers)

It is hard to say what the next big craze will be, but with cases where body alterations are involved it is important to make sure that safety is considered at all times. Products such as Fullips provide alternatives for young people rather than having to undergo surgical procedures.