Cosmetic Plastic Surgery Articles

What did you gift your significant other for Valentine’s Day: flowers, chocolates, a decadent dinner? How about plastic surgery?

A growing trend called “beauty matching” began to emerge a couple years back. It has two different interpretations. In the majority of instances, it refers to couples who book cosmetic procedures—fillers, Botox, CoolSculpting—together prior to a big event or simply to share the experience with each other.

When you think about it, beauty matching is not the stretch it may seem to be at first glance. Couples tend to be like-minded people who have similar priorities. Why wouldn’t that extend to how they go about improving their appearance?

Sometimes, a partner is inspired by the other’s rejuvenation and books their own version. As one person is learning about a given procedure, they’re likely also discussing it with their partner. A treatment then becomes a mutual exchange of ideas.

The other interpretation is more literal: couples who get procedures in tandem so that they can look like each other.

The benefits of beauty matching

Let’s be clear: Beauty matching needs to be a mutual decision to share the experience. Getting procedures with your partner is completely normal, even practical. Being able to offer your significant other emotional support during their recovery is a big advantage.

Having another perspective during the consultation is another plus. With so many ways to treat a given issue these days, having someone there who knows you so intimately can sometimes make it all that much easier to arrive at a decision.

So, beauty matching can be very rewarding and valuable. What it shouldn’t be is pressuring your partner, or feeling pressured, into something. Even if your partner really wants it for you, you want to do it for your own reasons.

It’s also not about getting procedures with the intent to look like each other.

How to go about it

As to what types of procedures can be matched, they’re typically aging procedures—couples are often relatively similar in age and tend to have common concerns about their appearance—but, technically, just about anything could be done together.

Generally, the procedures revolve around big life events—Botox before a wedding or liposuction before a milestone anniversary party—which is very often the case for individuals, too.

Regardless of the procedure, the key with beauty matching is communication. Before you schedule a consultation with a board-certified plastic surgeon, make sure that you and your partner are on the same page about what each of you wants from the experience. This is the rare instance in your relationship where compromise isn’t a solution.

In my previous post (part one of this two-part series), we started our deep dive into the tummy tuck by exploring a few basic points: what the surgery’s meant to accomplish, what it entails, and what the recovery’s like.

Here, we’ll get into how to determine if a tummy tuck is right for you and, in the process, compare it to a couple of other popular body-contouring procedures, liposuction and CoolSculpting.

Is it right for you?

Tummy tucks are most commonly performed on women in their 40s and 50s, after they’ve finished having children. The reason for that can be traced to the two differentiating factors of the surgery: the muscle repair and skin removal. (Getting pregnant after a tummy tuck will stretch out the rectus muscles and the skin, essentially undoing the entire process.)

If you’re someone who has concerns about excess fat around your midsection, but not muscle separation or loose skin, or if you’re planning on having children, doctors generally won’t recommend a tummy tuck. In those instances, liposuction or a non-invasive body-contouring procedure, like CoolSculpting, may be a more appropriate choice.

Identifying which procedure is right for you can be tricky; each fills a different role. To help with that decision, seek out a board-certified plastic surgeon who’s experienced in all three forms of body contouring and try to be as clear as you can be in communicating what bothers you about your body and what your expectations are for the procedure.

How it compares

As I mentioned in my last post, a big part of the reason the tummy tuck has increased in popularity in recent years is because comparable noninvasive procedures can’t yet achieve the same results.

CoolSculpting works by freezing fat cells to kill them off, which is effective for dealing with trouble spots that no amount of diet or exercise ever seems to affect—a noninvasive procedure can usually reduce superficial fat by 25%, on average. But it won’t do anything to address the loose skin or underlying muscle separation the tummy tuck targets.

Liposuction can remove significantly more fat than noninvasive body contouring, but that’s the extent of its capabilities. In other words, it won’t tighten loose muscles, nor will it remedy loose skin.

For those for whom a tummy tuck is the most appropriate treatment, it’s still considered to be, among plastic surgeons, the gold standard of body contouring when it comes to results. Aside from the reasons mentioned up to this point, a tummy tuck, unlike many noninvasive procedures, likely won’t need to be refreshed after a few years. The results are considered fairly long-lasting—and, very often, nothing short of dramatic.