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You may have heard the term “ethnic rhinoplasty” on the internet recently. But in reality, it is not a medical term or an exact procedure and can mean different things to different ethnicities. The idea is that surgery can change some features but preserve others, such as a bump on the nose or bulbous tip. It’s been a particularly hot topic in the Black beauty space for decades, due to the nuanced relationship between racial identity and aesthetic aspirations.
In black women, it has also been used to categorize rhinoplasty that focuses on reducing features such as a bulbous tip, a flat nasal bridge and rounded nostrils, she explains. Dr. Richard Ricea double board certified plastic surgeon specializing in rhinoplasty.
This practice of lumping all ethnic nose jobs into one category can lead to a one-size-fits-all mentality that can lead to people not knowing what they’re getting, Dr. Reish says.
“The biggest problem in ethnorhinoplasty is surgeons who really overdo the nose with this very surgical look,” says Dr. Reish. Which can result in a “too pinched and over-finished look”.
TikTok creator Zuri got a rhinoplasty in 2025, which she called an “ethnic rhinoplasty,” but what she was hoping for was a permanently contoured nose. Soon after, she shared her experience online, where she faced massive backlash and hate. Below, Zuri shares her experience getting an ethnic rhinoplasty and setting her look apart from the internet.
I remember growing up and becoming Ebony and Jet magazines, and looking at Christina Milian’s nose, and just thinking, Oh my God. I would love my nose to look like this. I grew up in a predominantly white area and the standards of beauty were different from what I looked like and different from the media I saw in magazines and 106 & Park. When I was little, my childhood best friend, who was this blond, blue-eyed little girl, asked me why my nose didn’t have a bridge like hers. Even then, I don’t think I saw my nose as something that needed to be changed because I was so young, but looking back, what she said stuck with me.
As I grew older, I developed a love for beauty and makeup. I remember sneaking off to do my makeup in the school bathrooms before first period, as that kind of thing wasn’t really accepted in my culture as an East African woman. As I got older, I was obsessed with that bold, super contoured, chiseled nose look. During 2020, when we were all stuck at home and spending too much time online, social media really took off with all the face balancing. I wanted a lot more definition on my nose and the illusion of a raised bridge and a defined tip.
Photo: Courtesy of the subject
At the time, though, I didn’t think a real nose job was possible because I thought black people didn’t get plastic surgery. I thought it was only for white women. I just started watching my favorite Black creators like Jana Craig from Island of Love and a creator who it passes Iconissue post online about their experience with what they called “ethnoplasty rhinoplasty” after the pandemic that I realized it was something I could do. I liked my nose. I loved my face. I just wished it had a bridge and more edge definition.
So, in late 2024, I started deep diving into Reddit, Facebook, and Real Self and got serious about the process. That’s how I found it Dr. Vicente Daniel Uc Vera. It’s located in Tijuana, and since I had planned a spring 2025 work trip to Mexico, I was like Why not do it there and extend my trip? So I had my surgery on April 9, 2025.
By this time, I had already had liposuction and breast augmentation in the United States, so I knew how expensive plastic surgery could be in the US. In Mexico, I was told $5,100 plus travel and lodging, which brought my total to about $10,000, which is still less than what I would pay in the States.
As for the surgery itself, I didn’t get to see my doctor until the day of it, which isn’t the norm, at least not for any of the other surgeries I’ve had in the US, but in Mexico, I didn’t get to see the doctor until, like, 30 minutes before I went on. Even my online consultation was conducted by his staff, which in hindsight I can see wasn’t exactly ideal, but I did it normally for out of country surgery. When I met him, though, I liked his energy. he sounded very knowledgeable and that made me feel very confident. Going in, I showed him some noses that I liked, like this Fashion Nova model, Yodit Yemane, and I also used the Turkish surgeons that I also follow because they are known for the look that I really wanted.
Part of why I chose Dr. Uk Vera was because she had “national nose jobs” and went to Turkey to receive specialized training. To give me my bridge, he took the rib cartilage from my side and placed it on my nose to create the shape. It was just two incisions, one on my side and then one on my nose. He also cut off some of my nostrils and manipulated the tip with the bone to lift me up.
Right after surgery I honestly felt like I had a stuffy nose or sinus infection. I had to stay an extra ten days in Mexico to have the cast removed, so I didn’t know what it was really like at first. All I saw were the pictures on the table that he took of me right after the operation, which I loved. But once the bandages and stitches were removed, my first thought was: Did I just mutilate myself? I didn’t want to panic because I knew it could take over a year to see the final results, but at the time, I thought it looked very piggy. Just very swollen and upside down. I looked crazy. So I started filming my experience and sharing it on TikTok because I just wanted to put my story out there and hopefully have people resonate with it. I wanted to reach out to people who weren’t sure how to feel about their procedures at first, because I would love to see that. Very quickly, though, the videos started getting a lot of traction, which I didn’t expect, and a lot of them were negative.
From left: Photo: Courtesy of the subjectPhoto: Courtesy of the subject
From the top: Photo: Courtesy of the subjectPhoto: Courtesy of the subject
Every video I posted showing my nose or talking about my experience got millions and millions of views and the comments were crazy. People were like, “Oh, you hate yourself. You want to be white. Your ancestors would be so embarrassed. You look like Michael Jackson.” These kinds of comments were hard to read and really hurtful, especially since in the end, I was still deciding how I felt about my surgery. I knew I loved myself and took the nose for my own personal aesthetic and not because I hated myself or my ancestors as the comments said. But when I posted, I was still fresh out of surgery and not liking what I was seeing in the mirror so far. So these comments definitely messed with my psyche a bit, because it’s like God, maybe these people are right? I didn’t even start to like my nose until five months after surgery, so to have my phone blow up with hundreds of these crazy comments was just too overwhelming. I’m now ten months post-op and I like my nose a lot more, but I’m still in that healing process so I won’t see my final results for a few more months.
What was really messed up was that I started seeing my favorite influencers talking about me and making YouTube videos with my face and nose as a thumbnail. This was really disappointing, because these were women who had inspired me at one point. Luckily, there were some influencers who were really nice and gave me advice to deal with all the negativity. I was told not to reply to the hateful comments and just make a joke. Basically, troll the trolls. It’s been pretty crazy to see how much my platform has grown from all of this, but now when I try to branch out and make content for other things, there are always comments about my nose, which I don’t want to be known for.
Photo: Courtesy of the subject
If I could do it all over again, I would have the surgery, same doctor, same everything, but I would have put the phone down. Maybe read some books instead of posting about it online. Now, looking back, I really wasn’t in the space to post online because I didn’t even know if I still liked my nose at the time as it was still so upturned and looked very swollen. But the tip has dropped a lot now and will continue to drop over time, so I’m much happier with my results than when I first posted. But looking back, I absolutely regret posting it, because it made my healing more difficult mentally. I wish I had done the whole trip in private, off the internet.
