With toddlers donning sheet masks, twins buying wrinkle serums and 30-somethings booking facelifts, it can seem like the beauty industry itself is aging backwards – its rituals and treatments are getting younger along with its consumers. But there is a process that flips the script on the trend, appealing to a much larger crowd than in the past. Rhinoplasty, long considered a high school and college kid’s operation, is gaining popularity among the middle-aged. Over the past two years, people ages 40 to 54 have had about as many nose jobs as patients in their 20s, according to the American Society of Plastic Surgeons, with each age group accounting for 26 percent of the total number of nose jobs performed in both 2023 and 2024.
In Beverly Hills, half of the patients who visit a plastic surgeon Katherine ChangMD, for rhinoplasty is over 40. Linda N. LeeMD, a board-certified facial plastic surgeon in Boston, says more than 50% of the nose jobs she performs are on middle-aged women and men, noting that, in her case, there may be some selection bias. he tends to avoid surgery on patients who are still growing, physically and emotionally, which limits the number of teenagers he treats. Some of the other surgeons I spoke to estimate that the 40-plus set comprises closer to 15% or 20% of rhinoplasty cases, but “that’s definitely more than I did five years ago,” he says. Adam CaulkerMD, board certified plastic surgeon in New York.
Oren Tepper, MD, a board-certified plastic surgeon in New York City, says that when he first started his practice, he would almost have to “pause at first” when an elderly person came in wanting a nose job. He would wonder why they didn’t think of surgery at a more conventional stage of life. (The prime time for a rhinoplasty still generally falls in the transition zones between graduating from high school and college or college and a first job, she says, when the physical transformation can be “less jarring and more accepted.”) She’s since realized that patients have many reasons to delay nose jobs—and that some never want to do it. before.
However, some who approach rhinoplasty later in life do so with trepidation, notes Melissa DoftMD, board certified plastic surgeon in New York. They will commonly say, I should have done it when I was younger. Or ask, Is it ridiculous that I’m thinking of doing this now? While the stigma surrounding plastic surgery has faded in some circles, nose jobs are still closely associated with the awkward toll of adolescence. Dr. Doft reassures patients by explaining that midlife rhinoplasty “is actually more common than you think,” as many adults now combine it with other procedures, such as facelifts and eyelids, in the name of facial rejuvenation. Actually, a study from UCLA, who used age-estimating AI technology to compare before-and-after photos, found that women looked three years younger just after rhinoplasty.
Why now? Behind the rise of middle-aged rhinoplasty
For younger generations, it’s hard to imagine a world without iPhones and Instagram. But Gen Xers exploring rhinoplasty in 2025 grew up without these modern staples—and the extreme self-consciousness they tend to promote. “When we were 18 or 20, we looked in the mirror while brushing our teeth in the morning and mentally carried that image with us throughout the day,” says Dr. The photos were usually taken with us smiling at the camera, capturing the same reflection and rarely revealing our profiles. But now “we’re exposed in a way we’ve never been exposed before—every corner of us is out there,” says Dr. “It’s just a whole different level of pressure.”
Back in the day, rhinoplasty—plastic surgery, in general—had some geographic strongholds, like Los Angeles and New York, but it wasn’t as ubiquitous as it is today. Even if someone was ashamed of their nose – because bullying, unlike selfies, is not a 21st century invention – the idea of cosmetic surgery might have been foreign, scary or over the top. And so, “they put it off for years,” says Dr. Kolker.
“I’ve wanted to get my nose done since I was 16, but my parents weren’t going to pay for a nose job. And where I grew up, in central Florida, plastic surgery wasn’t something people did, especially in the ’90s,” says Margot*, who had a rhinoplasty along with a facelift in her 40s. It wasn’t until his late 30s that he felt he was at a place, career-wise, where he could devote the necessary resources to surgery and recovery. Around the same time, she was beginning to consider a facelift to address some early sagging along her jawline. Surgery provided an opportunity to address two insecurities in one fell swoop. She asked Dr. Doft to remove the small bump from her nose and narrow the tip. Now, she says, “I still look like myself, but my nose is more elegant and fits my face much better.”
