How the conversation about cosmetic surgery changed
More openness has made good information easier to find and bad information easier to spread. How to tell them apart.
Perspective from Stone Surgical Arts
Cosmetic procedures are discussed more openly than they were, which has been a genuine improvement. It has also produced a great deal of confident, unreliable advice.
A thought to keep
Openness is useful when it comes with specifics. Treat anonymous certainty about someone else’s face as entertainment, not information.
01
What has genuinely improved
People considering a procedure can now find first-hand accounts of recovery, which used to be very hard to come by. Knowing what the second week actually feels like is valuable and rarely appears in a brochure.
Openness has also made it easier to ask questions without embarrassment, and to admit that appearance matters to you.
02
What has not
Speculation about what other people have had done is now constant, and most of it is guesswork. Lighting, weight, ageing, dentistry, hairstyle and makeup all change a face, and none of them is surgery.
Treating that speculation as a source of information leads to requests built on a false premise, which is a poor way to start a consultation.
03
Procedures are not trends
Named looks come and go on a cycle of a few years. Surgical changes to bone and tissue do not, and reversing them ranges from difficult to impossible.
A useful test is whether you wanted this before you saw it discussed, and whether you would still want it if the conversation moved on.
04
Where to get information
Professional bodies publish plain descriptions of procedures, risks and recovery, and they are a better starting point than a comment thread.
Then have the conversation in person. General information tells you what a procedure is; only an examination tells you what it would do for you.
Adapted from the Stone Surgical Arts archive and updated for clarity. This article offers general information; an individual consultation is needed for treatment advice.
Further reading
ASPS: cosmetic procedures ASPS: patient safetyKeep reading
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