Cardi B removed the injections in her butt. Courteney Cox, Gwyneth Paltrow, Cameron Diaz and many more have either cut back on facial injections or stopped doing them to get away from the super smooth mask-like effect… Even the Kardashian family is said to be getting a backlash with reports suggesting that Kim and Khloe have had their butt implants removed (although neither has publicly admitted to having the procedure), and Kylie Jenner is deflating her lip volume.
Lip fillers, Brazilian butt lifts (BBL for short), breast implants… these kinds of notable cosmetic procedures are fading from the limelight. The aesthetic trend on social media is no longer one of super full lips, dramatic cheekbones, XXL buttocks and breasts. The famous hourglass shapes that have been a staple of social networks for years are gradually being replaced by more natural looks. The result, on TikTok, is a string of young women going to their surgeons to ask for a reversal. It is largely a matter of removing implants and fillers to regain one’s former appearance.
Outdated processes?
Fran, a 24-year-old flight attendant who spoke to me Refinery29, had spent over £5,000 (or over US$6,000) in 2018 to get the “Instagram Face”, but found that influencers were returning to a more natural look. “”I used to have Botoxdermal filler, weight loss injections, microblading, microneedling and facial contouring,“Explains. But when she realized this aesthetic was falling out of fashion among her friends and the influencers she follows, she regretted her surgeries.”I felt like a clown when people started going natural, wearing tinted concealer and doing soapy brows while mine were tattooed. I was still giving away Bratz Dolls.“
In 2023, the trending figure is the thin figure of the early 2000s. As a result, many of those people who have gone under the knife want to have their implants or fillers removed. On TikTok, lip reduction-related hashtags have a total of millions of views: #lipdissolving has nearly 87 million, #lipfillerdissolved over 44 million. The #breastreduction hashtag has a total of 1.5 billion views. In the United States, plastic surgeons are seeing an increase in breast reduction requests with such procedures increasing in frequency by 54% between 2019 and 2022, according to the American Society of Plastic Surgeons.
Meanwhile, some very specific businesses have all but disappeared. The “fox eye” style for example. This procedure, also known as “cat eyes”, involves lifting the eyebrows and eyelids to achieve almond-shaped eyes. “Fox thread lifts were a trend that was very popular last year, but now thankfully seem to be falling out of style,“Dr. Elizabeth Hawkes told Refinery29. According to her, the hype was likely due to filters and apps that change the shape and size of the eyes.”But it’s a very unnatural look based on a social media trend and generally looks awful.“
But can we really call this trend a return to a truly natural look? After all, today’s trend towards aesthetic upheavals does not mean the end of interventions. And of course, there always seems to be a plethora of new beauty trends popping up on social media. But the trend now is to subtract more than to add. Especially when it comes to facial procedures. Just look at the craze surrounding “chin lipo” or “oral liposuction,” which involves removing or reducing fat in the mouth.
