Hollywood’s New Plastic Surgery Obsession Is Basically Like Permanent Contouring
Botox. Nose job. Lip fillers. Breast augmentation. Butt lifts. The list goes on and on. Now the question is: what’s next?
Well, you know how we are all insanely addicted to contouring? Well, we have it on very good authority that there’s a new trend in Tinseltown and it’s basically like permanently contouring your face: buccal fat removal.
With buccal fat removal, a plastic surgeon creates a hollowed out look in the bottom half of your cheeks, giving your face a more sculpted, less chipmunk-y appearance.
With some help from RealSelf, we checked in with Dr. Brent Moelleken for the deets on buccal fat removal. Dr. Moelleken is on the clinical faculty at UCLA and has been in practice for 20 years. He also has a private practice in Beverly Hills, California, and does a lot of facial and tummy work. Here’s what he had to say.
What’s buccal fat?
Buccal fat is this weird blob of fat that floats around in the cheek. Doctors think it’s there because when we were infants we needed it to breastfeed. With most people, the buccal fat usually goes away over the years. But some people keep it, and they’ll have extra fullness in the lower part of the cheekbone compared to the upper part of the cheekbone.
It might not be for you.
“It may cost you down the line if you get buccal fat removal when you really didn’t need it,” Dr. Moelleken told Galore. “You have to be careful because if you take out too much buccal fat or you take it out on the wrong patient, their face may appear overly hollow and can actually look prematurely old.”
It’s not an easy procedure.
This is quite a bit more intense than lip injections.
“The practice itself is difficult because you’re accessing the buccal fat from inside the mouth and right underneath the facial nerves,” said Dr. Moelleken. “The last thing I want is for someone to go to the doctor and request to have their buccal fat removed because they want to look more contoured, then ten years later end up really regretting it.”
It’s not reversible.
“Yes, it is permanent,” Dr. Moelleken said. “Once the buccal fat is gone, it’s gone.”
Did anyone say pass the makeup brush and contour palette…
