Featured Posts

To top
19 Dec

A transient history of nose jobs

From scooped-out, turned-up, pinched-in noses to bump-adding injections, below a comprehensive guide on how nose jobs have evolved over time

Welcome to Beauty School, the corner of Dazed Beauty dedicated to learning. From guides to histories, that is where we make clear past subcultural movements and educate our readers on current trends and various goings-on.

From Clueless to Vanderpump Rules, popular culture has long been fluent within the nose job and its post-op bandages. Rhinoplasty techniques have change into so advanced that guessing who has had one is sort of not possible. However the normalisation of nose jobs and their increasingly natural-looking results have been an extended time within the making. 

Nose reconstruction surgery dates way back to the sixth century BCE, when Indian physician Sushruta outlined the forehead flap method for rebuilding noses. The surgery was performed on patients who’d lost their noses as a type of criminal punishment. Noses continued to suffer by the hands of bloody warfare and violent duels, however the science of their repair didn’t see much development within the West until the sixteenth century. Europe was knee-deep in a mass outbreak of syphilis that left hordes of victims with rotting and disfigured noses. Reconstructive nose jobs were performed as an try to disguise these symptoms and counteract the stigma of the disease.

Around the identical time, Italian surgeon Gaspare Tagliacozzi introduced a latest approach to reconstructive rhinoplasty using skin from the patient’s upper arm. Tagliacozzi promoted his ‘Italian Method’ – which required that the patient’s upper arm remain strapped to their nose for 2 weeks – as a substitute for the numerous facial scarring of the ‘Indian Method.’ But Tagliacozzi’s method had a downside of its own – in cold climates, the brand new nose would sometimes turn purple and fall off. For this reason, the ‘Italian Method’ soon fell out of use. 

These early nose jobs were performed to exchange, or give the looks of replacing, something that was lost by means of trauma or disease. It wasn’t until the late Nineteenth century that purely aesthetic rhinoplasty was born – performed to redesign intact noses, slightly than replace missing ones. In 1887, American otolaryngologist John Orlando Roe documented what is taken into account the first modern rhinoplasty on a patient who suffered emotional distress stemming from a ‘pug nose’.

Roe’s technique was performed contained in the nose, thereby eliminating external scarring, and ensuring the secrecy of his work. Around the identical period in Berlin, German-Jewish surgeon Jacques Joseph used an analogous method to diminish the noses of European Jewry. These groundbreaking early rhinoplasties belong in a category of world firsts for the fledgeling field of aesthetic facial surgery.

Within the years following, enhanced give attention to facial appearance – and the potential to reinforce, or ‘improve’ it – gave method to a movement of economic ‘beauty doctors’, who advertised services similar to paraffin injections to change the looks of 1’s nose. The injection of paraffin, also utilized in proto-boob jobs, proved to be unstable and unsafe. Advancements in surgical techniques became a necessity after World War I brought back a population of injured and severely disfigured soldiers in need of facial reconstruction. Thus, the atrocities of war further encouraged innovations in facial plastic surgery for the nose and beyond. 

Today, nose jobs are so common that they’re hardly news-worthy. Procedures take only a few hours and healing takes about every week. Rhinoplasty, colloquially often known as a nose job or nose reshaping surgery, refers back to the surgery of manipulating bone and cartilage to change the form and sometimes the scale of the nose. The focus of a nose job may be cosmetic (to narrow, straighten, etc.) or functional (to correct internal problems and improve respiratory), or each.

Depending on patient circumstances and desired results, the surgeon will perform either an open or closed rhinoplasty, the difference being the position of the incision. A closed rhinoplasty signifies that all incisions are made contained in the nose, whereas an open rhinoplasty requires a small incision on the underside of the nose, which can leave a scar. 

Nose jobs are the third hottest cosmetic surgery within the US – behind boob jobs and liposuction – with 213,000 nose reshaping procedures performed last yr (a 2 per cent decrease from 2017), as per probably the most recent data from the American Society of Plastic Surgeons (ASPS). Within the UK, stats from the British Association of Aesthetic Plastic Surgeons (BAAPS) show the procedure rating lower in popularity, yet the two,831 nose jobs performed in 2018 account for a 3 per cent jump up from the previous yr. US costs for a cosmetic rhinoplasty procedure average at about $5,350, where UK costs range from £4,500 to £7,000.

Reasons for getting your nose done are personal and far-reaching. “Noses are a distinguished feature of the face. Patients who notice an imbalance in facial proportions may find that a nose job is just what they need to attain a more balanced look,” says ASPS President, Alan Matarasso, M.D., F.A.C.S. Matarasso often hears people say: “It’s like having a foot that’s too big in your body.” 

“Noses are a distinguished feature of the face. Patients who notice an imbalance in facial proportions may find that a nose job is just what they need to attain a more balanced look. It’s like having a foot that’s too big in your body” – Alan Matarasso, M.D., F.A.C.S

Historically, the scale, shape, and proportion of 1’s nose were looked to as a mirrored image of their whiteness. Starting in Europe within the late Nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, a number of the first cosmetic nose jobs sought to repair the so-called defect of Jewish ‘nostrility.’ Without the ethnic signifier to provide them away, patients could ‘pass.’ Over a century later, reasons for going under the knife could also be less politicised and more nuanced, but vestiges of the old days remain. 

Helen (29) had her nose done five years ago. Raised in a small Pennsylvania coal town, Helen was at all times keenly aware of her half-Iranian heritage. “I used to be at all times really, really, really aware that I looked not exactly white,” she says. Before surgery, Helen had what she calls a Roman, or hook nose. “To me, it looked overtly Middle Eastern,” she explains. Nose jobs have been historically popular amongst Iranian and Irianian-American women

Prior to now, rhinoplasties often produced what looked more like nose jobs than actual noses. That ‘done’ look, Matarasso explains, has change into less common as surgical techniques have advanced. “Most patients nowadays need a natural-appearing nose. They don’t need it scooped out, turned up, or pinched in – kind of that appearance that folks can have had within the 60s and 70s. They need a nose that appears like they were born with it.” 

Having said that, people’s sense of aesthetics sometimes vary regionally, in order that in some areas, patients might want their noses to look a little bit more ‘done’. But where boob job trends may be quantified by implant size, regional trends in natural vs done-looking noses are roughly anecdotal. 

Considered one of those anecdotes comes from Helen, who saw this play out in her circle of relatives, when her mother and brother each got their noses done in Dallas, Texas just weeks before she had hers done in Latest York. “Their noses just looked like really Who-ish to me,” she recalls. “They were very upturned, and it really did appear to be someone had just taken a butter knife and swiped through a soft substance to get this really perfect slope of a nose.” Helen discussed this along with her surgeon beforehand and together they decided to go away a little bit of character, which is why she still has a tiny bump on her nose. Because, she says, “you’re never born with a really perfect sloped nose.” 

“Everyone from Janet Jackson, Iggy Azalea, Tyra Banks, Ashlee Simpson, Courtney Love, and Lisa Kudrow have all spoken openly about their nose jobs. Some, like Cameron Diaz and Jennifer Anniston say that they underwent the surgery to correct internal health problems”

The ‘ideal’ nose is continually evolving. In America, nose jobs made a reputation for themselves against the backdrop of Nineteenth-century immigration. Despite the nation’s African American and growing Jewish and Irish immigrant populations, the ‘white’ body ideal, and the nose that got here with it reigned supreme. Small and sloped remained en vogue through the early twentieth century, where the changing face of nose jobs and the evolution of aesthetic ideals are perhaps best seen through the era’s most famous faces. 

Celebrity faces and the secrets (and sometimes surgeons) behind them have long captured public interest, but they’re also a window into our shared cultural fears and misgivings about our noses. In 1923, Jewish comedian and vaudeville star Fanny Brice had her nose refined in a surgery that was covered by the New York Times. Though Marilyn Monroe never spoke about it publicly, X-rays show that the Nineteen Fifties film icon did indeed have a nose job. Joan Rivers wrote a book on her surgeries, by which she devotes a whole chapter to her first-hand knowhow on nose jobs. Michael Jackson had so many nose jobs that some say he wore a prosthetic nose to cover his resulting lack of cartilage. Vanderpump Rules star Jax Taylor took audiences on a ride through the saga of his first, second, and third rhinoplasties. 

Everyone from Janet Jackson, Iggy Azalea, Tyra Banks, Ashlee Simpson, Courtney Love, and Lisa Kudrow have all spoken openly about their nose jobs. Some, like Cameron Diaz and Jennifer Anniston say that they underwent the surgery to correct internal health problems. Lil’ Kim opened up about having her nose done twice, the second surgery to correct damage after her nose was broken by an abusive ex-partner. Dirty Dancing actor Jennifer Grey has publicly lamented her decision to go under the knife, telling Mirror in 2012 that her rhinoplasty modified her face so drastically that she became literally unrecognizable to the purpose of anonymity. “It was the nose job from hell. I’ll at all times be this once-famous actress no person ­recognises due to a nose job.”

These are only the celebrities who decide to publicise their surgeries, and never everyone does. But that doesn’t stop tabloids and gossip rags from making guesses. Feeling entitled to know what work a celeb has or hasn’t had done is one thing, but our obsession with other people’s faces transcends just curiosity. It’s not unusual for rhinoplasty patients to come back to their pre-op appointments armed with photos of celebrities whose noses they wish to emulate. From a surgeon’s perspective, that’s not all bad. 

Generally speaking, Matarasso finds reference photos – celebrity or otherwise – to be a useful resource. Patients are available in asking for a ‘straight nose,’ but what does that actually mean? Taking a look at a photograph together, he says, “you get a way of how much you’re going to file that nose down.”


Which celebrity noses he gets asked for probably the most fluctuates based on who’s in the general public eye at any given moment. “When Kate Middleton got married, everybody wanted Kate Middleton’s nose, when her sister-in-law got married, you had those who liked her nose. It fairly often reflects popular culture.” The one cause for concern? When patients are available in asking to look like a celeb. “Since it’s not only the nose that makes someone appear to be one other person.”

As a culture, we’ve made a habit of gauging an individual’s beauty by their proportions and dimensions, the angle of their nose, it’s length and straightness. Noses and our feelings about them evoke generations-old values and insecurities. For hundreds of years, they’ve been inextricably intertwined with racialised standards of beauty. More recently, a notable decline in the recognition of nose jobs may mean that we’ve begun to feel in a different way – or just that we’ve found latest and fewer invasive alternatives.

Last yr, ASPS reported a 45 per cent decrease within the variety of nose reshaping surgeries performed in 2018 as in comparison with 2000. Decreased surgery statistics may be due to the rising popularity of non-surgical alternatives, namely: the liquid or non-surgical nose job. The strategy works by injecting filler into areas of the nose with the intention to camouflage, or balance specific features of the nose. A liquid nose job normally takes half-hour or less, and requires little-to-no downtime. Leave in your lunch break and return with a “more balanced” face. 

The convenience and low-commitment nature of a non-surgical nose job may make it an appealing alternative to traditional surgery. However the procedure is simply temporary – with results lasting from around six months to a yr and a half – meaning, at an average cost of $1,050 per treatment, continued liquid nose jobs will quickly out-cost traditional surgery. Relating to which option is best for which nose, Matarasso says, “the overwhelming majority of noses need a surgical rhinoplasty.” In spite of everything, an injection nose job can only add to the nose, so removing a bump or narrowing a bridge isn’t within the cards. 

“Alternatively, lately cultural ideals have shifted toward an ethos of body positivity and inclusivity. Fitting in is less wanted than standing out. Perfection is just starting to exit of favor. There’s even a micro-trend of LA patients getting injections to create a ‘reverse nose job’ effect,”

Alternatively, lately cultural ideals have shifted toward an ethos of body positivity and inclusivity. Fitting in is less wanted than standing out. Perfection is just starting to exit of favor. There’s even a micro-trend of LA patients getting injections to create a “reverse nose job” effect, in other words, adding minor bumps back to their post-rhinoplasty noses. Helen reflects on the years since she had her nose job: “Quite a bit has modified concerning the political climate and accepting people. And my nose just wasn’t cool five years ago.” 

Would having grown up just a number of years later, and coming of age in a more inclusive world have modified Helen’s initial feelings about her nose? “I still would’ve disliked it, but I believe perhaps I’d have been capable of deal with it a little bit bit more or have it make sense to me.” She imagines that having social media in her youth also can have helped her to see that there have been other individuals who looked like her, who were valued. 

So far as what’s next? The longer term of surgical rhinoplasty is filled with possibilities, says Matarasso. When he began his profession in cosmetic surgery, a nose job patient stayed not less than three nights in a hospital and wore a plaster splint for a few weeks. “Now the patient is available in at eight o’clock within the morning – surgery could take about an hour. They’ve a melted piece of plastic that protects the nose for every week. And by lunchtime, they’re home.” It’s the variety of progress he couldn’t have predicted 30 years ago. One thing’s of course: As non-surgical nose jobs grow in popularity and imperfection becomes less of a grimy word, the nice old-fashioned nose job will proceed to enhance for many who want it. 


Recommended Products

Beauty Tips
No Comments

Sorry, the comment form is closed at this time.