Why Less Is Always More: Advice From A Plastic Surgeon

The best plastic surgery is plastic surgery you can’t see. I often have patients who say, “when I walk down the street I can tell when someone has had filler, or a facelift.” I say that the only plastic surgery you can see is badly-done plastic surgery. Well done Botox, filler, peels, or even surgery should leave you guessing why your neighbor looks so well-rested, or why your college friend has looked the same for the last 15 years. A good rhinoplasty makes you notice your cousin’s beautiful eyes rather than her new nose. A good facelift has you hoping you’ll inherit your aunt’s great skin.

You And Your Plastic Surgeon Should Be A Team

You should feel heard, and you should choose a surgeon whose aesthetic and philosophy of beauty you share. I like to look at my relationship with my patients as a partnership. I am the plastic surgery expert, but you are the expert with regards to your face and your lifestyle. We not only need to work together to optimize results, but we also have to trust one another and agree on what is beautiful. My philosophy of beauty is that “less is more.” My goal is to optimize your natural beauty, and to achieve an apparently effortless, simple and timeless beauty that preserves the face as a fresh, clean palate.

Timeless Beauty

It transcends trends. It’s clean and it’s fresh. So if you want to experiment, do it with your hair, clothes, make-up—even nails. But please don’t experiment with your face! Just like any other aspect of fashion and beauty, trends in facial plastic surgery come and go. Unlike other aspects of fashion and beauty, you can’t shed a surgery like last season’s stilettos. Dramatic “reduction rhinoplasties” of the late 60s and early 70s have made many a pinched ski-slope nose on Madison Avenue. Extreme blepharoplasty (eyelid surgery) in the 70s has left many otherwise gorgeous ladies with hollow-looking eyes as they’ve aged. Plucking the eyebrows down to fine lines in the 80s has left models looking for eyebrow hair transplants now that the trend is for fuller brows (Yes! You can do that!).

Desperately Seeking Surgery

People seek out cosmetic surgery for many reasons, and that motivation is important. I have found that the happiest patients after Botox, filler, peels, or surgery are patients that chose to have a treatment, or surgery for themselves. This is the right motivation. I have no problem telling patients that I don’t think a treatment or surgery is right for them. Just because I’m a plastic surgeon, doesn’t mean that everyone should have surgery. Surgery has its place, and can produce fantastic results, but there are many other tools and tricks as well. You can always do more, but once you do too much, you can rarely do less. Ralph Waldo Emerson said, “Love of beauty is taste, creation of beauty is art”. The perfect partnership between patient and surgeon respects the art of less is more. Originally written by Dr. Dara Liotta, a Charlotte’s Book Premiere Provider, for Travel Beauty. Edited and adapted for Charlotte’s Book.  

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