Asian eyes are in as beauty ideal shifts
Plastic surgeons converge on Vancouver to discuss changing trends
Eyes wide open is not so hot these days. In a new trend, Asian women are asking for eyelid surgery that preserves their ethnic identity. Apparently, occidental is out.
As Vancouver gears up to host the world’s largest international conference of cosmetic surgery this month, the new trend in eyelid reconstruction will be tip of scalpel for plastic surgeons from around the globe.
“Patients have become more ethno-centric so the desire for that high, wide-open crease that is considered Caucasian is no longer in vogue or as popular as it once was,” said Dr. Andrew Denton, assistant clinical professor at the University of British Columbia and director of facial plastic surgery at Vancouver General Hospital.
“(Asian women) don’t want to look like Joan Rivers. They want to have a more attractive but still Asian appearing eyelid.”
Around 50 per cent of Asians lack a fold in the upper eyelid. Asian blepharoplasty, which originated in 19th centrury Japan, is a type of eyelid surgery in which a small amount of skin and fat is taken out.
The most important difference between surgery preformed on a Caucasian woman who wants a restorative eyelid lift and an Asian woman who wants an eyelid crease, is the amount of fat and skin removed, which determines the height of the crease. Even the type of stitches used are different, according to Dr. Denton.
“It’s a very different surgery,” he said. “Asian blepharoplasty used to be called Western Eye Surgery, but the goal is not to make an Asian eyelid look like a caucasian eyelid anymore. The eyelid crease is usually still lower in an Asian eye surgery than it would be in a similar Caucasian lid.”
In the past, Asian women seeking cosmetic surgery would tend ask their doctors for bigger, more occidental looking eyes, so much so that clinics advertise specifically to them.
Vancouver-based clinic Skinworks has an entire page on its website dedicated to “Asian Eye Surgery,” which asks: “Would you like to have oval shaped eyes, a more ‘Western’ appearance or wider peripheral vision?”
Dr. Michael Salzhauer, a cosmetic surgeon who practices in Miami, Florida, also says he has noticed
a change in Asian women’s desire to have eyelid surgery without looking “Westernized.”
“I didn’t know that anyone else had noticed that but I’ve seen that change too,” he said. “It used to be that people would come in and ask for occidental eyes but now they do tend to want to retain their ethnicity.”
Dr. Salzhauer recently penned My Beautiful Mommy, a children’s book about cosmetic surgery — which is due out on Mother’s Day, May 11.
The book was written as a way to introduce plastic surgery to children and tell them what to expect before mom goes under the knife so they don’t become shocked or emotionally scarred by their bruised and bandaged parent’s post-op appearance.
“I noticed that kids are very confused about the whole process,” said Dr. Salzhauer, whose patients are mostly young mothers. “Most parents unfortunately keep their kids in the dark. I’ve had some kids come in with some pretty inappropriate reactions, asking if mommy’s dying, or if she’s sick.”
Illustrated by Victor Guiza, who lives in Mexico City, the book is filled with Disney-like drawings. Big smiles and bright colours present the operation in a way kids can relate, said Dr. Salzhauer.
While the children’s book has been welcomed among Dr. Salzhauer’s patients and the larger surgical community, he admits that it has also generated some controversy.
But he says mother have two choices: They can lie to their children and keep them in the dark, or they can explain exactly what is happening and why.
Cosmetic surgery, although still taboo in many cultures, is gaining acceptance around the world. And according to plastic surgeons, Asians seem to have a greater affinity for the procedures than most.
Asian Americans are turning to plastic surgery at a faster pace than any other group, according to a new survey by the American Society for Plastic Surgeons. Compared to 2006, the number seeking cosmetic operations grew by 26 per cen last year. The increase for the overall population was only 7 per cent.
The most frequent surgical procedures for Asian patients were nose reshaping, breast augmentation and eyelid surgery.
“Every culture has different ideas of beauty,” said Laura Hurd Clarke, a human kinetics professor at the University of B.C. “In ancient Chinese culture, tiny lotus feet were the beauty ideal. In 19th Century Europe, cosmetic surgery on faces began as individuals tried to remove evidence of syphilis – the idea being that saddle noses were an indicator that one had syphilis. In Western North American culture, the emphasis is on looking young and having large breasts for women.”
Prof. Clarke says Asian women might be veering away from eyelid surgery that gives them occidental eyes because Asian contemporary culture is creating and accepting a different standard of physical attractiveness, “one that does not require women to look Western in order to be thought beautiful.”
But the desire to be beautiful can easily turn into a sickness, compelling women to go repeatedly under the knife in search of the the perfect look.
Since 1999, Lau An Ling, 40, an actress from The Philippines, has spent more than $200,000 in an effort to look more attractive. From her vagina to her hands, Ling has subjected herself to unskilled doctors who have butchered instead of chiseled.
“I have not felt like a woman for a long time,” she said last week.
Disfigured by bad cosmetic work, she went to Singapore early in April to seek help from Dr. Woffles Wu, consultant plastic surgeon at Camden Medical Centre. She hopes he can “restore her youthful looks.”
Traveling abroad for cosmetic surgery is nothing new, but countries across Asia, including Thailand, Taiwan and Hong Kong, are tweaking regulations and creating incentives to attract more medical tourism.
South Korea recently announced that it would relax strict regulations in order to become the world’s leading destination for cosmetic surgery tourism.
Cosmetic surgery is commonplace in South Korea. A Kyung Hee University survey in 2007 found that 47.3 per cent of adults had experienced it.
Separately, the Seoul city government has launched a project to attract more foreign tourists seeking plastic procedures, capitalizing on the popularity of the “Korean Wave” of pop culture in Asia in recent years.
“If parliament approves revised regulations, we will actively support a tour program for skincare and cosmetic surgery,” said one city tourism bureau official.
In 2011, thousands of plastic surgeons from every part of the globe will converge on Vancouver for the16th Congress of the International Confederation for Plastic, Reconstructive and Aesthetic Surgery (IPRAS), which runs from May 22nd to the 27th.
The conference, hosted by the Canadian Society of Plastic Surgeons, is held on different continents every year, rotating between the developing and developed world.
Meanwhile, new regulations loom on Ontario’s horizon which would prevent doctors without proper training from calling themselves surgeons. A growing number of doctors advertise as cosmetic surgeons despite having no formal accreditation in the specialized field. The Ontario government still has to approve the new stipulations.
Doctors in Alberta, B.C. and Quebec are prohibited from performing invasive procedures or advertising they are cosmetic surgeons unless they have special training in plastic surgery.