Like every year at the same time, l’American Academy of Facial Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery (AAFPRS) lifts the veil on new trends in medicine and cosmetic surgery. With more than 2,200 members – plastic surgeons and facial reconstructors – the academy has toured the offices to find out what might push the public to resort to this or that procedure. [1]. After having turned to injections to no longer see their wrinkles in videoconferences, men and women now intend to retouch their faces to take beautiful selfies.
Increase in the number of patients under 30
As in 2021, cosmetic treatments and facial plastic surgery procedures increased in 2022, all age categories combined. According to the survey58% of AAFPRS members reported an increase in bookings and processing over the past year, and more than three-quarters of them report an increase of more than 10% in demand for this type of procedure.
Specialists interviewed indicate that most of their patients are women for sixteen of the eighteen procedures studied, with the exception of hair transplantation and otoplasty.
Another observation is that patients today turn more to non-invasive procedures, in 82% of cases, and more particularly towards neurotoxin injections, such as Botox, fillers, and topical products, such as chemical peels. It will be understood, preventing or fighting once morest the signs of aging is one of the priorities. If we are interested in surgical procedures, facelifts, blepharoplasties and rhinoplasties are the most popular. Rhinoplasty remains the most requested surgical intervention by patients under 34 years of age.
If we often speak of ‘Snapchat dysmorphia’ to justify the boom of certain treatments among the youngest generations, it would in reality only be a decoy. ” Gen Z’s influence in the aesthetics market isn’t yet generating leaps in the number of facial plastic surgery procedures — and that’s probably a good thing “, say the authors of the report.
Nevertheless nearly three-quarters of plastic surgeons surveyed report an increase in the number of patients under 30 for cosmetic surgery procedures and injectables. However, these would essentially be acts of prevention of aging intended to avoid resorting to more cumbersome procedures in the future. It is ultimately between the ages of 35 and 55 that ” the activity of surgical procedures increases significantly ».
The selfie, a new measure of beauty?
« In 2022, our members continued to see the impact of the ‘Zoom Boom’, with 79% of respondents naming the ‘Zoom Effect’ as a major contributing factor to patients’ desire to seek treatment explains Dr. Theda Kontis, President of the AAFPRS. But the increase in procedures would also be due to an unexpected factor. Dr. Kontis talks regarding the money saved during the pandemic, which would now be used to afford cosmetic procedures.
In addition to the ‘Zoom Boom’, the advent of selfies is also believed to be behind the increase in certain treatments and procedures. More than three-quarters of facial plastic surgeons say the desire to look better in selfies is clearly a rising trend. A finding that benefited the upper lip lift, practiced by at least 73% of AAFPRS members, up 3% compared to the year 2021. But also blepharoplasty, intended to correct drooping eyelids , which ranks second among the most requested procedures in 2022, just behind rhinoplasty.
The revival of the 1990s and 2000s, in both fashion and beauty, also had an impact on the choice of certain aesthetic procedures. The craze for refined and sculpted features, high cheekbones, and angular faces have boosted demand for bichectomy, or ‘fat buccal removal’, which involves removing or reducing Bichat’s ball, a fatty mass located on the center of the cheek. No less than 15% of the surgeons surveyed reported an increase in this intervention which is, it must be specified, definitive. A trend that runs counter to many surgeons who are more used to injecting fat into this area to allow middle-aged women to regain fuller cheeks.
« Bichectomy is not reversible. As much as you love the effect you get in your 20s and 30s, as you get older your face naturally loses fat, and therefore volume.e,” Dr. Kontis recalls.
