Busting Plastic Surgery Myths After 40

What happens to some of these celebrities? Because you would assume someone who's a celebrity has the, you know, they have access to the best. I remember I was, I worked in LA for years with actors and actresses and they had all the best stuff. That was when I realized, I go, oh, the difference between them and me is they have better access.

Yeah, right.

You know, they have better stylists, they have better hairstylists, they have better, better, better. However, you still see some botched jobs out there.

Yeah, so celebrities are interesting because they're, as you would expect, they either really push the pendulum right or push the pendulum left, right? Every time you see a celebrity unveiling, so to speak, because they're, you know, in the public eye, you immediately get scrutiny, right? So if their work, quote unquote, is good, you're going to hear all this, oh my God, everyone's got to get a facelift. Look at Kris Jenner, blah, blah, blah.

Okay. To be clear, she did inspire me. Yeah, that's what pushed me over the edge.

That was before she came out and said she hated it. So it's interesting.

She says she's hated it.

No, I mean, there's a whole debate and we can talk about it.

Okay.

Yeah, I got her being disappointed and it didn't hold. And if the outcome is good, it will drive people to want to do it. And if the outcome is bad, you're like, oh my God, look at Bradley Cooper. What did he do to his eyes? What did so-and-so do to her face? So first of all, celebrities are not superhumans. They are biologically the same as you and me. And so if a surgery is done to them that is not indicated or not ideal for their anatomy, no amount of money is going to change a shitty outcome. Secondly, the problem with celebrities is they are surrounded by yes people. So the average plastic surgeon, you get— just take whoever, let's just say Madonna walks into my office. The average plastic surgeon who sees a celebrity consciously or unconsciously wants that patient as their patient. And so often they too are humans and they will start to do things or operate on them in perhaps things that they don't need. So a patient comes in my office, she's a 28-year-old girl. Hey, I'm here for a facelift.

What?

What do you mean you're here for a facelift? Oh, you know, I saw Kris Jenner or one of these other celebrities. And the answer is no. Like, you're crazy. Oh, but I want to stay ahead of it before it happens. You can't do surgery for a problem you don't have. First of all, they have the most amount of pressure. So they're going to keep pushing the envelope when they don't need to. They're surrounded by people who don't necessarily tell them the truth. And lastly, money doesn't buy skill. And so a lot of people within the plastic surgery world are, quote unquote, the best surgeons because they do the best marketing.

Right?

Right. They are very good at getting their name out and getting their message out, and they have a great PR campaign and da da da da da. And it's one of the few places where, like, I don't know, I've seen patients before and I'm like, oh, you know, who all have you seen? And they mentioned a doctor and I'm just puzzled and flabbergasted because that doctor has horrible reviews, terrible photos, yet they went to them because they do a phenomenal job of marketing. In other words, they flood the market with their image and their whatnot, and then the patient almost doesn't pay attention to the facts part. So I don't think celebrities are immune, obviously, to shitty outcomes. And the problem is that unlike your friend Gail who had a shitty surgery, she just disappears into the woods. But it's one of these celebrities, they're going to be blasted on every post you can imagine.

All right, Kris Jenner doesn't— is it the honeymoon? I know they're supposed to be— honeymoon, yes, start where your face is fuller and then it starts to go down.

So Kris Jenner had a facelift. It's all the wow, it's all the talk. Facelifts has become the whole new world. So she goes and gets a facelift. Okay, awesome. She comes out and she does a reveal, and that reveal is beyond spectacular. In other words, it's too good to be true. She does a reveal, everyone— it breaks the internet, right? Because she looks spectacular. And then obviously a few months goes by, and now the rumor is— and it's a rumor— that she's overall unhappy with the outcomes and that, quote unquote, she wasted $300,000. First of all, she didn't pay $300,000. She paid nothing because none of these celebrities pay anything because if they're willing to talk about it, it's the exchange. And secondly, we don't even know if she's unhappy, but the idea is if you look at her image today, because she can no longer Photoshop every single image of hers, right? The launch image, aka the image that she put out first, she had access to. Every image thereafter, which is the 457,000 of them, she can't control. And And naturally, if you compare just 3 months ago to her current image, they're two different people. But are they? So what happens is the following thing happens. She gets a facelift. All patients— I literally just did a facelift last week. She's in for her suture removal. She's a week out. In one more week, she's going to look spectacular. She could do a red carpet reveal. Why? Because she's tight, she's swollen, her skin is immaculate because it's hydrated and full. And there is not a flaw within 100 miles. That's not because I walk on water, because it's just the nature of facelifts early on. Secondly, she has this tight skin envelope. Great. That's because she had a reasonable surgery done by a reasonable surgeon, and then she photoshops it. And what made her reveal even more spectacular was she had not a single pore. Go look at that photo. The photo. It was perfect. Not a wrinkle, not a pore, not a, not a dent.

That's a big giveaway, right?

And so the reality is, no matter how good your surgery is, you are still 48, 52, 70. And even though you've been using tretinoin and you laser and you wear a hat and you use sunscreen, you are the best version of a 49-year-old or a 60-year-old, but you are not immune to the changes of 50, 60 years. So She comes out, she does that. It's clear as day to anyone who knows that that's not really a real photo. Fast forward 3 months later, she has a normal outcome. She has got a little bit of relax 'cause the swelling is gone. The tightness in all the areas, the 3 areas, the neck, the jowl, and the marionette has slightly given way, and she has normal 70-year-old texture. And so whether or not she is or isn't unhappy is not relevant, but the fact of the matter is that for what she had done, she looks great.. But in comparison to the unrealistic image she set out, this is a bad transition. There's just so much confusion with images and AI and Photomorph and Photoshop, and it just makes it very difficult. It's kind of— I always use the idea like someone keeps sending you a postcard from this imaginary mystical vacation. You're like, look at the water, it's amazing. Not a single mosquito, temperature's perfect. You keep seeing these postcards and then you go there and you're like, Well, this is a shithole. And you realize the postcard was just— yeah, Photoshop.

Well, you said you were happy that the facelift conversation's out. Why did you say that?

So I think this is the story. So every procedure— and I happen to be unique in the world of plastic surgery, not because my mother said so, but I tend to do a very broad gamut. Most surgeons today focus on facial plastics, eyes, breasts, weight loss, right? And you would think, oh, that's great, right? Because they're specialists. Well, it turns out that we only have like 20 years of training. And for you as a cordon bleu chef to only make pasta, it doesn't mean you're well trained. It means you're actually underperforming what you should be doing. So I have all this training and I actually, the only reason I'm still sane is that I do a nose job on Monday, facelift on Wednesday, circumferential body lift on Friday. And a mommy makeover on Monday. So I do a little of everything and I feel I do everything very well. The one area that I was, all of us were frustrated on, which is gonna explain you the whole filler phenomenon, which is actually really apropos for the listening audience, is what do I do when I hit 40? So if I may, let me just tell you what happens physiologically. 20s, golden years. Physiologically, you're your peak. Peak skin, peak tightness, peak muscle, whatever. If you maximize your genetics, you'll never look as good as you in your 20s. You'll look amazing in your 30s, 40s, 50s, but you— if, if you do exactly the same thing, you'll never max out because physiologically you're at your best. 30s, you do pretty good. And as you get to your late 30s, 39, 42, 40, that transition hormonally, physiologically, exposure-wise— I've been around 40 years— you're going to see a, a more visible notch. Up until then, everything is very incremental. Grass growing, grass growing. Oh, I never noticed anything. And then you hit that, that one phase and you notice a, a, a click.

Mm-hmm.

And that click is a, a few notches all at once. And you'll start to notice very predictable things, different in each person, but always gonna happen. By the way, every single human being at the end, at 80, will look the same, meaning all the same things will have happened to everybody. So the first things you notice is, huh, I go to putting on some makeup, my, uh, eyeshadow is smudging and my mascara is a little difficult to do. I gotta raise my eyebrow. So the first thing you're gonna notice is the corner of your eye is starting to settle. The next thing you're gonna notice is, is that a little duplication of skin above and below my eye? Next thing you're gonna notice is, I never had this bulging under my eye. Is this a fat pocket or what is that? And the last thing you're going to notice is that I have a little bit of a jowl here. My jawline was so sharp, it's a little bit upturned, meaning it's not sharp. I have a little bit of a marionette, which is the line that connects the mouth to your chin. And my neck skin's a little loose, all of which feels like it happened overnight. And that's the beginning. And what used to happen is you're basically sitting there waiting to do a facelift because it's the beginning of the changes that we address when we do a facelift, right? Prior to this recent boom, you'd sit there because you're too early to do anything surgical. Like, I'm not going to go get a brow lift at 40. At 46, I'm not going to go get a facelift. It was considered early, insane, aggressive, whatever you want to call it. Right or wrong is irrelevant. And what would you do? Oh my God, there's this new thing. What is that thing? It's called a filler. Ah, okay. And what do I do with it? I fill in the areas that are lax. Okay, so then I filled it and oh my God, it looks better. JJ, I look better. Yeah, because you have a little bit of laxity and a little bit of volume, even though the issue may not be volume, makes it look better. Then you go, you're so happy, you're happy as a clam. You go look in the mirror and then you start panicking. Is it going away? I think it's going away. What's going away? The filler. It's going away. But it's only been 3 months. No, no, I definitely think it's going away. You go back and see your one of 8 million providers. You're not going to the highest echelon. You're going to this provider, that provider, this injector, this pediatrician, that nurse practitioner. Right. And you ask them, hey, do you think my filler is going away? Yeah, I think it's going away a little bit. And there goes another syringe. So you put in 3. You went in when only one had gone away. You put in two. So if you do the math, you're four ahead now. You're actually moving forward. And this continues, this three steps forward, one step back, three steps forward, one step back. Next thing you know, you don't know it because it's so gradual, but your friends and family are looking at you going, what the hell? JJ looks swollen. She doesn't look like herself. She's not animating like herself. She looks pillow-faced, puffy-faced, whatever the hell the term is. And it's so gradual you don't know it until one day you see an image of yourself, a photo or a video, and you're like, oh my God, oh my God, filler is poison, we need to reverse it, etc. So that's just, by the way, how this whole filler craze happened. Nothing wrong with fillers. There's nothing wrong with salt. It's the injector, the chef, and how much of it they used.