Cosmetic Surgeons Agree: Chubby Cheeks Are the New Black

Cosmetic procedures requiring injectables and implants have been around for a while. But apparently now the quest for a youthful look is not about filling in wrinkles in the face but making sure the face stays frozen in time like a wooly mammoth.

According to the New York Times, todays “new beauty goal” is “plumper cheeks.” Translation: A baby face makes you look younger. It’s okay to age, as long as you still have a baby face. Sounds very Twilight Zone, but okay.

Dr. David E. Bank, the director of the Center for Dermatology, Cosmetic and Laser Surgery in Mount Kisco, N.Y., said that he and his colleagues “used to take a very two-dimensional approach to facial rejuvenation. We’d see a line and fill it.” While filling in wrinkles could make people look better, it did not necessarily make them look younger.

“Instead of looking 25 again, they just look like a 45-year-old without wrinkles,” Dr. Bank said.

But when volume is restored to the face, it conveys youth, he said.

Volume! The docs have even invented a “Medicis Midface Volume Scale” where you can score between 1 and 4 — 1 is a “full, youthful” cheek and 4 is “an indented, hollowed-out one.” Apparently your cheeks are the one place it’s still acceptable to have some fullness. Are you writing all this down? Be skinny everywhere else but have fat cheeks.

It sucks that we live in a culture where an older face is not the ideal: With those hollower cheeks comes wisdom, knowledge, experience, strength! Babies are known idiots who will eat their own shit. Why do we want their face shape?

Anyway, forty-four year old Christina Conti told the Times she looks like she did when she was 29 (?) even though some people (myself included) would gladly pay money NOT to be in their twenties again.

“It gave me back definition I had 15 years ago,” Ms. Conti said. “People said; ‘Wow, you look great. You look happy.’ ”