Under the Knife: Top 10 Most Popular Plastic Surgery Procedures

Is your nose curving a little to the left? Do your lips not look full enough in your selfies? Do you have a little bit of flab on your belly that you just can’t seem to get rid of, no matter how much dieting and exercise you do?

Well, plastic surgery procedures might be able to correct these concerns, and a whole list of others as well. Americans are increasingly turning to the knife to change features they perceive to need fixing. In fact, there were 17.5 million cosmetic procedures in 2017 alone, and the number appears to be growing year after year. 

Here are 10 of the most popular cosmetic procedures in the U.S…

1. Nose Jobs

Known in the plastic surgery industry as rhinoplasty, this procedure can reduce the size of your nose or reshape it more to your liking.

There are two potential components to this type of surgery. One of them might be purely cosmetic to reshape your nose, and the other could be to fix a deviated septum that’s interfering with breathing. In fact, it’s estimated that up to 80 percent of people have this latter condition, many without even knowing it. 

If you need a deviated septum fixed, there’s a chance your insurance policy will cover it. 

2. Lip Augmentation

Who doesn’t want big, full lips that are perfect for a duck-faced selfie on Instagram? According to stats, a lot of people want to improve this feature of themselves. A lip procedure is performed every 20 minutes in the U.S. 

One of the reasons this is among the most common types of cosmetic surgery might be how easy is it to get done. In the past, there could be invasive surgery involved to achieve more fullness to the lips. However, fillers are more commonly being injected to get the same results and only takes a matter of minutes. 

3. Breast Lift/Augmentation

Believe it or not, more than 280,000 women (and teenagers) per year are having cosmetic procedures performed on their breasts. It’s not just to make them bigger overall – it might also be to enlarge one breast to match the other. 

It could also be motivated by congenital macromastia, a condition that limits the growth of breasts during puberty. Silicone is often used to achieve enlargement, as well as saline. 

Breast lifts for women are also very popular, helping to restore some of the perkiness lost with dieting or pregnancy. 

4. Breast Reduction 

On the flip side, many women are opting for smaller breasts. But it’s often more than about vanity. Women with larger breasts tend to have difficulty finding properly fitting clothing and it can also put a strain on their back. You’ll have a better chance of insurance covering reduction than an enlargement. 

Meanwhile, men are also having cosmetic surgery done to make their breasts smaller. This is often to correct a condition called gynecomastia that results in excessive breast tissue in males. 

5. Tummy Tuck/Liposuction 

Known in the medical world as abdominoplasty, this cosmetic procedure removes excess tissue from the abdomen for a tighter appearance. This is often sought by people who have lost a significant amount of weight or following a pregnancy. 

This procedure is not designed to remove any fat. That’s the job of liposuction, which (as the name suggests) removes fat from specific places in the body including the mid-section. This can be done in a number of ways, such as by adding saline and a numbing agent or “melting” the fat before suctioning it out. 

6. Eyelid Reshaping

If your drooping eyelids make you look half asleep all of the time, then blepharoplasty might be a common plastic surgery to consider. You can change the look of both your upper and lower eyelid areas. For example, you can say goodbye to those bags under your eyes. 

Many people have this procedure done to look younger, but others actually have some obstructed vision from excess skin on their eyelids. 

7. Facelift

A rhytidectomy as its known is among the most common plastic surgery procedures. It aims to tighten skin on the face to rid the appearance of wrinkles from aging or sun damage. 

The facelift often also involves other procedures such as eyelid reshaping and a forehead lift. Oftentimes people have a neck lift too, achieving results by tightening the platysma muscle in the neck. 

8. Buttock Lift

If your photos aren’t cheeky enough, then perhaps a buttock augmentation might be a cosmetic procedure to consider. This does what you’d expect it to – changes the contour of the size of your posterior. Plastic surgeons often achieve this using implants or fat grafting or both. 

9. Dermabrasion

You’ve probably heard of a variation of this procedure at local spas (namely microdermabrasion, which is a non-invasive procedure.) However, dermabrasion involves actually scraping off the outer layer skin using a special tool to make it appear smoother. In the process, you might be able to reduce wrinkles and even scars on the face.

Like with any cosmetic procedure, you’ll want the best plastic surgeons to perform it for the safest and most effective results. 

10. Botox

Botox is often a service offered by plastic surgeons. The premise is that a neurotoxin drawn from an organism called Clostridium botulinum is injected to paralyze muscles in the face, reducing wrinkling. It’s actually the most common non-surgical cosmetic procedure. 

There are other possible purposes for botox injections. For example, while it’s often used to improve appearance, it’s also used by people that experience migraines and muscular disorders. It can also be a treatment for excessive sweating. 

Shape Your Image With Plastic Surgery Procedures 

Skilled plastic surgeons can help you improve your look and confidence by making some adjustments to your appearance. Whether you want to better align your nose or have some fat removed from stubborn areas, surgeons can make it happen through common plastic surgery procedures. 

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