PENSACOLA, Fla. (WEAR/CNN) - Desperate times call for desperate measures, but a woman begging on the side of the road in Florida is not homeless.
She just wants help to enlarge a certain part of her body.
Christina Andrews took to a Pensacola intersection with a sign Thursday. She says she's never done anything like this before. It's a simple sign, with a simple message.
"I just want bigger boobs, because I'm not happy with the ones that I have. And I figured this was a good way to do it. People put out signs that they're homeless. I'm not, haha, so I'm just being honest," said Andrews.
She says she wasn't sure what kind of reaction she would get or if she'd actually collect any money. She did. And she says she also collected plenty of smiles and laughs as well.
She’s one of the most widely viewed and discussed women on the Internet but now the Ukranian model known as the “human Barbie” for her doll-like figure is speaking out to deny rumors of rampant plastic surgery and reveal her higher purpose in life.
“Some people even spread rumors about me and retouch my pictures to hurt me. But I don’t take them seriously,” Valeria Lukyanova tells V Magazine. “I’m even flattered! It’s what success is like. I’m happy I seem unreal to them, it means I’m doing a good job.”
Lukyanova, also an artist and singer, first made headlines in April when photos of her seemingly inhuman-like proportions were posted on websites like Jezebel.com and Huffington Post and quickly went viral. Commenters questioned whether Lukyanova was manufactured and, if she was real, how much plastic surgery she must have undergone to get her impossibly whittled waist, buxom chest and symmetrical features.
A spokesman for Lukyanova told ABC News the only plastic surgery she has had is a breast enhancement. The “human Barbie” herself told V Magazine she achieves her look with makeup.
“Many people say bad things about people who want to perfect themselves. It’s hard work, but they dismiss it as something done by surgeons or computer artists,” she tells V. “This is how they justify not wanting to strive for self-improvement. It’s how they explain their continued inaction. It’s just an excuse. There are plenty of video clips on the Internet showing what I really look like.”
Also revealed in the extensive interview for the magazine’s new issue, on newsstands Nov. 15, is Lukyanova’s deeply-held belief in the metaphysical and spiritual worlds, including her belief that the titles of singer, model and artist are just “labels for my creative potential,” not her “true essence.”
“I’m a teacher at the School of Out-of-Body Travel. It’s an international school in which our instructors show students how to leave their physical body and travel in their spiritual body, where you can visit any place on the planet and in the universe,” she says. “I know that this is the future of mankind and that it has huge potential. Hidden reserves will be tapped soon. ”
Lukyanova says her spiritual name is Amatue, an Atlantean reference to the goddess of the sun.
Though she describes herself as the “most famous woman of the Russian-speaking Internet,” Lukyanova says she is unfazed by the attention over her looks.
“I know the other side of celebrity is negativity, but I see it in a positive light,” she tells V. “If people care about me, then I am on the right path. In real life, I never hear bad things.”
“Indeed, I’ve noticed a trend,” she continues. “Every good-looking woman with fine features and a slim figure looks like a doll. I won’t deny that I play along with people’s perceptions. I’m amused by the reactions. I don’t take it seriously.”
The 7 Most Pointlessly Horrifying Plastic Surgery
Procedures
Plastic surgery has blessed us with something our forefathers never had: huge
boobs on skinny
girls. But science--and shallow people with extra money to throw around--were
not satisfied with that miracle.No, they continued developing plastic surgery techniques that strayed out of
the realm of the vain and image-obsessed and into the land of WTF.
#7.Ear Pointing
A small wedge of the ear is removed and the remaining ear is stitched
together. The result is an ear that is pointed, much like that of an elf or an
owl or Spock.Wait, why do you want to look like any of those things?The PriceAround $1,800.The Side EffectsSide effect? Your ears will be pointed! The side effect is what the
main effect becomes 30 years after you've lost all interest in the things that
made you want to get pointed ears. Are you picturing it? You're 50-years old,
interviewing for a job at a car dealership? And you have elf ears?
"And then your Grandpa's pal Jerry said 'It'll
be awesome, you'll look just like Spock!' And that's why Grandpa can't get a job
today."
People Actually Do This?Not only do people do this, but here's the crazy thing: Some people are born
with pointed ears and, because their parents actually love their child, the
problem is surgically fixed while they are still infants and immune to Lord
of the Rings jokes. So in the case of ear pointing, people are spending
cash to have their local tattoo and piercing artist GIVE them what amounts to a
rare birth defect.
That's right, a tattoo or piercing artist. Ear pointing is considered a
"pseudo surgery," so it's not usually performed by doctors, but instead by "body
modders" like Steve Haworth, who is generally credited with inventing
the procedure. Basically, the same body-modification types who will stretch
your lobes to the point that ear sex becomes feasible, will also point your ears
so that ear sex also becomes a ridiculously creepy fetish.
#6. Voice Lift
We'll warn you in advance, this shit sounds delightful! During a voice lift,
the neck is cut open, and implants are placed in the vocal chords. Sometimes,
fat is injected into the vocal chords also. One doctor even takes ground up
cadaver skin and injects it into your throat!The idea is that if your voice has become old and scratchy with the years,
this will have you sounding like a young man again! You'll look 20 years
younger! On the phone!
"Wazzzaap? I'm looking forward to wrangling
some bitches with you this evening."
Also, you might start speaking in the southern drawl of the deceased serial
killer whose cadaver you just had injected into your neck.The Price$3,500 - $7,000.The Side EffectsYour voice could become hoarse and raspy if the procedure is not done right.
That would defeat the purpose, but the risk of sounding like Tom Waits certainly
wouldn't deter us. If you could guarantee results like that, we'd be in surgery
right now. But what if the doctor does the job too well? That flabby
couch potato body of yours would just be all the more ridiculous if you had a
voice like Fran Drescher.
People Actually Do This?Damn straight they do. When it comes to the voice lift, the awesomely named
Dr. Peak Woo makes it sound as normal as botox. And if you're the type who
thinks injecting botulism into your furrowed forehead is normal, then we suppose
it is.That article that we linked to above claims that P-Woo performs one zombie
skin injecting procedure per week. And that was in 2004. Five years later, it's
a pretty safe bet that business is even more booming now. That, or the cadaver
injection turned one patient into a ravenous zombie who then ate him. Pretty
awesome either way.
#5. The Toe Tuck
Having your pinky toe "tucked" can involve something minor yet still absurd,
like liposuction, or something more extreme, like removing the entire bone from
the toe. That seems way more complex than just hacking the damn thing off, but
our medical license was revoked years ago, so we could be wrong. But seriously,
what happens to that toe when you take the bone out? Does it just flop around in
the wind and shit? Really, we're asking.
So why do they do it? Brace yourselves:It's so fashionable narrow shoes will fit better.We really don't deserve to survive as a species.The PriceAround $2,000 per toe.The Side EffectsUndergoing this surgery requires full anesthesia, and carries along with it a
high risk of nerve damage and infection. The procedure can take anywhere from 20
minutes to two hours depending on how complicated it gets. The recovery time can
range from a few weeks to a few months. But that's the price you pay to look
fierce on the catwalk (or stripper pole).People Actually Do This?
Not only do people do it, but according to this
article, sometimes it doesn't even stop with the little toe. Some women get
the procedure done if their second toe is too long. Why? Because they don't like
the way it looks.
Listen, ladies. If your guy is put off because your second toe is kind of
long, you don't get surgery, you find another guy. That dude with his
foot fetish is creepy as shit. You may not realize it right away, but when you
come home one day and he's dancing around the living room to a Morrissey song
with his junked tucked between his legs, you'll know it then. Do you really want
to wait that long?
"I'd do me. Also I wish your toes were
smaller."
#4. Micropigmentation
Micropigmentation is a tattoo that replaces makeup. Anything from eye liner
to eye shadow to eyebrows can be permanently painted on your mug. Finally, a
tattoo you won't live to regret! Until you do!
The Price$300-$1,500.The Side EffectsThere aren't really any more physical side effects than you would get with
regular tattoos--remorse, humiliation, the potential for hepatitis--but there
are some things to think about before you decide to have yourself permanently
dolled up. The standard for beauty changes every few years, and makeup can
change every day. Ladies, imagine if you had this procedure done in, say,
1984.
People Actually Do This?Judging from the countless number of websites espousing the virtues of
micropigmentation, they most certainly do. While it does have its benefits (in
instances of pigmentation loss or alopecia), some of the other suggested uses
are just ridiculous. Here are some prime examples from this list of The
Top 10 Reasons for Micropigmentation:Convenience: Saving up to 100 hours per year in makeup application! No
more smears! The outdoors: It can be tough to manage makeup application if
you spend a lot of time in the wilderness! It offers the natural
look!Well now that they put it that way, we're sold!
#3. The Tongue Patch
Much like that "Slippery When Wet" patch that you still inexplicably have sewn onto your acid washed denim jacket, the tongue patch is, well, a patch that's sewn onto your tongue.
If you're thinking people get these to cover the hole from an old tongue piercing, well, that's actually quite a bit less retarded than the real reason. No, the thing is essentially a torture device intended to force you to diet.
The patch makes eating solid food so painful that the only nourishment possible to take in is liquid. Not a horrible situation really, until you consider that the point is to lose weight and relying on Natty Light for your nourishment would spit in the face of everything you're trying to accomplish.
The patch stays sewed onto your tongue for a month so you can shed 15-30 pounds in the most horrific manner possible this side of tape worms. The Price
About $1,000. The Side Effects
After just seven days, a liquid only diet can cause hair loss, fainting, gallstones and comas. Comas! Read that again slowly if need be. This liquid diet lasts for an entire month. Your body will lose weight, but not all of the body weight lost is fat. For those who don't know much about nutrition, the highest quality proteins available come in the form of solid food. When your body doesn't receive the necessary protein, shit gets real. Your body goes all John Dillinger on itself and will rob protein from wherever it can get it, usually from muscles and organ tissue.
This can lead to other bad things, not the least of which being that your body is eating its own muscle and organ tissue. Oh, and that weight you lost? Most of it will come right back when you reintroduce delicious baby back ribs into your diet. People Actually Do This?
Eh, unlike the other stuff on the list, this one is debatable. According to this article, the tongue patch "is taking California by storm - ten people have it." While 10 people may qualify as a good starting point for a decent sized cult, it certainly doesn't make for a plastic surgery craze. Nevertheless, the procedure does exist. And if those skinny jeans you're rocking right now have anything to say about it, you may want to look into it.
#2. Knee Lift
Who among us hasn't been in the uncomfortable situation of preparing to breach the border of Boningville when, suddenly, you catch a glimpse of your mate's floppy, shriveled knees and find that it's enough to put you off sex forever?
Neither have we, but it must be a problem, because knee lifts really exist. It's a simple tuck procedure where sagging skin is removed and the remaining skin is stitched back together tight to create a more "youthful" appearing knee. The Price
Approximately $8,000. The Side Effects
Other than visible scarring, side effects are minimal. But unlike a tummy tuck or a breast lift, there's nowhere to hide the scars from a knee lift. Unless you wear pants, which we rarely do. People Actually Do This?
You know how, despite being approximately 109-years old, Demi Moore still looks pretty damn hot? That doesn't happen by accident. It takes years and years of eating right and exercising and just generally taking good care of ones self. Oh, and also a plastic surgery budget the likes of which could finance the invasion and overthrow of a mid-level dictatorship.
What the hell?!
In Demi Moore's case, part of that budget was spent tightening up her unsightly knee flaps. But hey, if it meant cashing in a life of platonic family time with Bruce Willis for a fun-filled marriage with Ashton Kutcher, wouldn't you do it too? No need to answer that, we already know you would.
#1. Prosthetic Testicles... For Your Dog
So, let's say you've bought every kind of plastic surgery the medical profession has thought of, but still have cash left over. What now?
Hey, the dog has seemed a little down recently. He's probably jealous of all the plastic surgery you're having! Come here, Fluffy! You're going under the knife!
But what kind of surgery would a dog want? Surely an eye lift isn't going to do a Rottweiler any good. Oh! How about some nice fake balls.
Yes, now a neutered animal can have solid silicone implants placed in its ball sack to replicate the look and feel of testicles. There are many different sizes to accommodate all pets; from dogs, cats, horses, bulls, monkeys, prairie dogs and even rats. Fake rat balls, you guys! The Price
$109 to $1,800. The Side Effects
According to a Neuticles ad:
"Dogs neutered with NEUTICLES do not realize they have been neutered [and] do not suffer post neutering trauma." Sounds awesome, yeah? Your pet won't suffer any of that post-ball removal malaise that pet owners dread. What's that? Pet owners haven't noticed any change in their pet's demeanor after being snipped? Well screw you, pet owners, it's a real condition. The people that invented Neuticles discovered it! And they won the prestigious IG Nobel Peace Prize for their work. Their website says so. Sure, the IG Nobel Peace Prize is to science what the Razzie Awards are to acting chops, but still, they won y'all!
People Actually Do This?
It is estimated in 2009 the U.S. will spend 45.4 billion dollars on their pets. There are over 100 countries in the world that don't make that much money in a year. One of the biggest trends that has been picking up steam in the past few years is pet plastic surgery. As for Neuticles, business is going so well they actually offer pretenda-balls in several different sizes and textures. This means that there are people out there choosing prosthetic pet testicles based on which one they believe will feel better inside their pet's sack.
We know what you're asking: "What if I want to give my kitty cat gigantic tennis ball-sized nuts for my own amusement?" The answer is, it can't hurt to ask!
TheXiaxue -Plastic surgery questions answered! (Part 1 & 2)
Xiaxue
Personal life
Born on 28 April 1984,[1] Xiaxue studied at River Valley High School and graduated from Singapore Polytechnic with a diploma in mass media,[2] then briefly worked as a project coordinator.[3] Her father, an antique dealer,[3] and her mother, a property agent,[3] are divorced;[1] she also has a younger brother.[3] For a year, she maintained a paper diary, which her ex-boyfriend's new girlfriend threw away during a Chinese New Year spring cleaning. Wanting to air her thoughts in a space that nobody could throw away,[3][4] she started blogging in April 2003.[5] In 2010, she married American engineer Mike Sayre, whom she met online and had dated for three years,[6] and in September 2012, she announced she was pregnant.[7]
Blog
Xiaxue has ten blogs, including her main blog, a geeky blog, her media centre and several private blogs. She selected her pseudonym, which means "snowing" in Mandarin Chinese, because it "had that tinge of mysterious, beautiful girl thing about it".[4] On her main blog, which attracts about 50,000 readers daily,[8][9] she provides updates about her personal life, posts photographs, writes about topics such as fashion, discusses local issues such as "nasty taxi drivers", and posts paid advertorials.[3][4] She often uses profanity in her posts and her success has been attributed to her provocative writing style.[3][5] According to a survey she conducted, which attracted 6000 responses, her readers are mainly Singaporean, female, young adults interested in fashion and "looking for an alternative voice".[4] Her main blog was the first Singapore blog to enter the Technorati Global Top 100 Blogs List,[10] was selected for the National Library Board archive in 2008,[5] and has won several awards, including the 2004 and 2005 Wizbang Weblog Awards Best Asian Blog and the 2005 Bloggies Best Asian Weblog.[5][10]
Other media
Due to the popularity of her main blog, Xiaxue has earned jobs in mainstream media, notably as a columnist for national newspapers TODAY and The New Paper, Maxim magazine and Snag magazine.[5] She has a sponsorship deal with T-shirt maker LocalBrand and was also previously sponsored by hair salon Kimage and nail studio Voxy.[2] In 2006, she and DJ Rosalyn Lee co-hosted Girls Out Loud, a reality TV series on MediaCorp Channel 5, where they engage in "outrageous antics and no-holds-barred banter".[11] She has a fortnightly series, called Xiaxue's Guide to Life, on the web television channel clicknetwork.tv;[5] its highest-rated episode had more than 325,000 viewers. The Health Promotion Board selected her as an ambassador for their Get Fresh campaign to discourage women from smoking and help female smokers quit.[10]
Controversy
In October 2005, Xiaxue wrote an entry condemning a disabled man, who scolded a non-disabled man for using the toilet for the disabled, leading to an online backlash that prompted two of her then-sponsors to cancel their deals.[2] Two months later, she suggested that foreign workers be banned from Orchard Road, as they were molesting Singaporean girls; many netizens condemned her posts as "racist rants" and signed an online petition to ban her from Orchard Road. She was accused of impersonating another blogger and abusing her position as a Tomorrow.sg editor to remove comments critical of her in January 2006.[8] She has a heated rivalry with blogger Dawn Yang, who threatened to sue her for an allegedly defamatory post in June 2008.[9]
References
^ ab"FAQs", xiaxue.blogspot.com, Retrieved 9 July 2012.
^ abc"Hard-hitting blogger flushed with success", The Straits Times, 31 December 2005.
The Morning Show: Extreme plastic surgery (Justin Jedlica & Lacey Wildd)
From a human Ken doll to the mother with L-cup breasts, a look at the most extreme cases of plastic surgery
By Sadie Whitelocks PUBLISHED:22:17 GMT, 12 October 2012| UPDATED:08:02 GMT, 18 December 2012
(source: dailymail.co.uk)
A new show looks at some of the most extreme cases of plastic surgery. Justin Jedlica, one of the stars of20/20 Going to Extremes, refers to himself as a human Ken doll, and has spent $100,000 on more than 90 procedures over the past decade. Instead of going to the gym, the 32-year-old, from New York, uses surgery as a quick fix, and his sculpted physique is the result of numerous silicone implants. Scroll down for video
Under the knife: Justin Jedlica, who refers to himself as a human Ken doll, has had numerous implants to help him achieve a sculpted physique
Describing working out as 'not exciting, glamorous, or fabulous', Mr Jedlica has shaped his upper chest and arm areas using bicep, tricep pectoral implants.
Mr Jedlica's obsession with cosmetic surgery started after he decided to get a nose job in his mid-twenties. He has since had four more, each one 'not as extreme and exaggerated as I wanted'. 'I'm closer to... the picture that I have in my head,' he adds.
Mr Jedlica's obsession with cosmetic surgery started after he decided to get a nose job in his mid-twenties
Extreme: Mr Jedlica has shaped his upper chest and arm areas using bicep, trIcep pectoral implants
Asked if he's worried his body won't be able to withstand further surgery, he says that he understands the risks and is 'willing to take those on'. Mother-of-six Lacey Wildd also features in the upcoming documentary.
''I think I look okay. I'm trying to look like a certain type, like almost like a Barbie type'
The mother-of-six, who has had 12 operations to give her L-cup breasts, says she will not stop having cosmetic surgery until they are the biggest in the world. The 44-year-old based in Hollywood, whose real name is Paula Simonds, currently has the seventh biggest breasts in the world, and together they weigh 21 pounds. She has also had two tummy tucks, four full body liposuctions, abs sculpting, bottom implants and two bottom lifts. The glamour model said. 'I think I look okay. I'm trying to look like a certain type, like almost like a Barbie type.'
One surgery too far? Lacey Wildd has had 12 operations to give her L-cup breasts and says she will not stop having cosmetic surgery until they are the biggest in the world
Wow! Ms Wildd describes that she was a tomboy as a girl (left) but today she works as a glamour model (right)
Earlier this year she said she was considering more surgery, to take her from triple-L cups to triple-M, to become 'the number-one booked breast star', however she remains an L-cup. Ms Wildd describes that she was a tomboy as a girl. But after becoming a single mother as a teenager and struggling to make ends meet as a waitress, she decided to reinvent herself, undergoing 12 breast augmentations, changing her name and becoming a model.
Hinting at her current salary Ms Wildd revealed that models like her make around $250,000 per year.
Career boost: Ms Wildd (left) after surgery in 2001 and today (right)
Cosmetic and reconstructive surgeon Dr Alberto Gallerani, based in Miami, warned that Ms Wildd may be suffering from body dysmorphic disorder and should not have further breast implants. Going to Extremes,airs on ABC at 10pm tonight. An extreme dieter, who permanently wears a corset to train her waist to a smaller size, and a journalist, who has written about her experiences being a topless lap dancer in secret clubs and a naked sushi model also appear on the show.
Why Do Some People Go Under the Knife Time and Time Again? Four People Tell Their Stories
It doesn't take a trained eye to spot someone who's had too much work done on his face. But when does a person move beyond simply sporting frozen features into the realm of obsession? "There is such a thing as too much plastic surgery," says Dr. Roxanne Guy, president of the American Society of Plastic Surgeons. Too much, she says, is when patients repeatedly turn to the scalpel "to fill an emotional need." They may run up debts of hundreds of thousands of dollars and alienate family and friends in order to undergo multiple invasive and potentially risky procedures. Are they addicted? "It's not an official diagnosis," says Dr. Katharine Phillips, a psychiatrist at Rhode Island's Butler Hospital body image program. "But certainly patients can feel very driven to get cosmetic procedures; that it is their only hope." In some instances, patients may be suffering from body dysmorphic disorder, a debilitating preoccupation with slight or nonexistent flaws that afflicts 1 to 3 percent of Americans, but up to 15 percent of cosmetic surgery patients. With a high suicide rate, BDD "is not vanity," says Phillips. "It's a serious illness." Rather than more surgery, says Guy, people suspected of BDD "need to be referred for a psychological evaluation. Part of our ethical standards is not to operate if there isn't a need." The individuals on these pages—driven to cut and recut their faces and bodies for a variety of reasons—share stories of confronting their fixations.
The former farm boy has had 37 cosmetic procedures to help him feel he fits in the Beverly Hills beauty industry Steve Erhardt, 49
Abdominal etching, or Ab etching, is a plastic surgery procedure invented by plastic surgeonHenry A. Mentz, III in the early 1990s that uses a special cannula to contour and shape abdominal fat pad to provide patients with a flatter stomach. The procedure selectively removes a small amount of fat around the patient's natural muscular contours and shapes or sculpts the abdomen to create a more athletic contour.
Prior to the procedure, the surgeon makes detailed markings of the patient's flexed ab muscles and uses the markings to remove fat and highlight the patient's individual muscular structure. The procedure is suitable for patients who are already in shape and who have between one to two centimeters of "pinchable belly fat". It is not suitable for patients with larger accumulations of abdominal fat seeking to significantly reduce their belly size or accomplish weight reductions as the amount of fat removed is fairly small. A traditional liposuction is more suitable for those patients.
Michael Jackson was in the public spotlight since he was a small child. In that time, he transformed from a cute little African-American kid with a 70s afro into a thin, light-skinned man in a black wig with a comically tapered nose. His plastic surgery is so obvious that it’s the stuff of urban legend. People have long speculated that he bleached his skin for cosmetic purposes, and prescription lightening cream was even found among his effectsat auction. Jackson said he suffered from the auto-immune disease vitiligo, which lightens the skin in patches. That same cream is used to treat his condition and it’s possible that once Jackson opted to lighten his skin there was no going back and trying to cover up the parts that lost pigment.
Now that we know the end of Jackson’s story (or perhaps 3/4 of it given the battle that’s about to ensue over his estate) it tugs at the heart strings to see what a cute little boy he was and how he eventually ended up – thin, pale, and finally broken by a decades-old addiction. The news of his demise and his abuse of prescription drug medication puts his eccentricity in an entirely different light. This was a man who was heavily doped out of his mind and who lost his fortune and eventually his life to drugs. In Touch gave me this idea with a photo timeline in this week’s issue featuring Jackson as a child up until these last few months of his life. Although I’ve seen many photos of him throughout the years and knew that he changed so much it’s fascinating to see the pictures lined up in order. I’ve recreated it here with different photos. The biggest difference in Jackson’s appearance was made by his multiple nose jobs, which eventually left him with a thin pencil of a nose that looked like it was pinched. Jackson’s last plastic surgeon is said to have been “a normal guy” who wasn’t particularly strange or fame-wh*rish as far as plastic surgeons go. If he kept performing surgeries on MJ he was an enabler, though, just like many of the other people who surrounded him in his last days. It’s no wonder, because Jackson fired and distanced himself from everyone who ever told him “no.” (Source: celebitchy.com)
Aesthetic plastic surgery, also called Medical aesthetics, involves techniques intended for the "enhancement" of appearance through surgical and medical techniques, and is specifically concerned with maintaining normal appearance, restoring it, or enhancing it beyond the average level toward some aesthetic ideal.
In 2006, nearly 11 million cosmetic procedures were performed in the United States alone. The number of cosmetic procedures performed in the United States has increased over 50 percent since the start of the century. Nearly 12 million cosmetic procedures were performed in 2007, with the five most common surgeries being breast augmentation, liposuction, nasal surgery, eyelid surgery and abdominoplasty. The American Society for Aesthetic Plastic Surgery looks at the statistics for thirty-four different cosmetic procedures. Nineteen of the procedures are surgical, such as rhinoplasty or facelift. The nonsurgical procedures include Botox and laser hair removal. In 2010, their survey revealed that there were 9,336,814 total procedures in the United States. Of those, 1,622,290 procedures were surgical (p. 5). They also found that a large majority, 81%, of the procedures were done on Caucasian people (p. 12). The increased use of cosmetic procedures crosses racial and ethnic lines in the U.S., with increases seen among African-Americans and Hispanic Americans as well as Caucasian Americans. In Europe, the second largest market for cosmetic procedures, cosmetic surgery is a $2.2 billion business. Cosmetic surgery is now very common in countries such as the United Kingdom, France, and Germany. In Asia, cosmetic surgery has become an accepted practice, and countries such as China and India has become Asia's biggest cosmetic surgery markets. Thailand is also one of the main cosmetic surgery markets in Asia, in particular for affordable breast augmentation and sex reassignment surgery, with international patients coming from Australia, Europe and neighboring Asian countries.
The most prevalent aesthetic/cosmetic procedures include:
Phalloplasty ("penile liposuction") : construction (or reconstruction) of a penis or, sometimes, artificial modification of the penis by surgery, often for cosmetic purposes
Breast augmentations ("breast implant" or "boob job"): augmentation of the breasts by means of fat grafting, saline, or silicone gel prosthetics, which was initially performed to women with micromastia
Reduction mammoplasty ("breast reduction"): removal of skin and glandular tissue, which is done to reduce back and shoulder pain in women with gigantomastia and/or for psychological benefit men with gynecomastia
Mastopexy ("breast lift"): Lifting or reshaping of breasts to make them less saggy, often after weight loss (after a pregnancy, for example). It involves removal of breast skin as opposed to glandular tissue
Buttock augmentation ("butt implant"): enhancement of the buttocks using silicone implants or fat grafting ("Brazilian butt lift") and transfer from other areas of the body
Buttock lift: lifting, and tightening of the buttocks by excision of redundant skin
Midface lift ("cheek lift"): tightening of the cheeks
Chin augmentation ("chin implant"): augmentation of the chin with an implant, usually silicone, by sliding genioplasty of the jawbone or by suture of the soft tissue
