There's a piece in the New York Times all about the un-glam world of surgery redux. It's not pretty, kids. From said piece we culled the following:

-Disregard everything you've seen on "Dr. 90210, Nip/Tuck and the flashy cosmetic surgeons of Extreme Makeover." (That's from Amazon's description of The Facelift Letdown.) Apparently it's a lot more painful and there's less sex. Think TLC, not FX.

-If you get cheap plastic surgery, it looks crap. '"I'm seeing more people who have gone to clinics where price is a major concern for them going there, and often they are dissatisfied with the result," said Dr. Stuzin, a past president of the American Society for Aesthetic Plastic Surgery. "Instead of muscle work, they are oversuctioning the neck, so the neck looks skeletal."'

-A lot of the time, people get their surgery "corrected," either because it doesn't look good or there's some kind of "complication," ie you can't breathe. "But some surgeons think impaired breathing is an acceptable trade-off for aesthetic improvement."

-Even if you're happy with it, you're gonna need periodic touch-ups.

-Oh yeah: if you don't get any in the first place, you can avoid all of the above.

The book doesn't have any comments on Amazon yet, but we imagine what business it does will be over the internet. After all, carrying this to the register of a Barnes & Noble would rank somewhere on the buying-trauma scale between Depends and Catholicism for Dummies.
When Plastic Surgery Calls for A Do-Over [NY Times]

OK, so in the first scene, Audrina, Lo and Stephanie are talking about how they're going to go to Heidi and Spencer's "welcome back" party. Steph obviously has her new nose here.


See?


However, at the party, she has her old nose.


In her next scene, she's talking to Audrina about the events of the party, and she has her new nose again.


But then at Frankie's birthday party, her old nose returns.


BTW, how old was Frankie turning? 48?


After Frankie's party, Stephanie's new nose again, on the scene.


But only time will tell if it will stay.

My Beautiful Mommy tells the story of a little girl whose mother gets a tummy tuck and breast implants (did you guys know that this combo is referred to as a "mommy makeover"?) along with a nose job for good measure. Before the woman goes into surgery, she explains to her daughter, "You see, as I got older, my body stretched and I couldn't fit into my clothes anymore. Dr. Michael is going to help fix that and make me feel better." It's unclear why the mother also chooses rhinoplasty, but she does tell her daughter that the nose will appear "different, my dear—prettier!" (Because that's an excellent message to send to your daughter: isn't she going to think that her nose is inadequate, too?)

Newsweek quotes one mother, Gabriela Acosta, who got a tummy tuck. She read the book to her son, Junior, and at a party shortly after Acosta's recovery, Junior went around asking people, "Did you see her new belly button? It's so pretty!" The article gives stats about plastic surgery, including the fact that, last year, 348,000 women had boob jobs and 148,000 had tummy tucks, but what I'm wondering is who are these people?

There are so many articles about plastic surgery — women dying from Botox, women getting boob jobs for their weddings — but I barely know anyone who's had surgery at all. Sure, a smattering of post-grad nose jobs have occurred, but it doesn't seem to be this all-out country-wide body reconstruction/ self-loathing that the sheer amount of press makes it seem like. Is it because celebrities get so much surgery that it makes it seem like the norm? Or do I live in a fantasy land where women spend their money on new books, not new breasts?

Mommy 2.0 [Newsweek]
My Beautiful Mommy [Big Tent Books]

According to the paper, women are getting boob jobs, nose jobs, Botox, and more than 20% of brides polled by academic researchers "were taking an approach [to weight loss] that the researchers perceived as 'extreme', including downing laxatives, vomiting after meals and adopting a new-found smoking habit as a way to stave off hunger pangs."

"You could say bollocks to it and get married in something from Topshop," writer Alice Wignall says, "but it's not easy for any woman who has grown up with the beauty myth - even if she's actually read The Beauty Myth - to do that on the one day still marked most seriously by old-fashioned notions of femininity."

Cosmo and MSN took those old-fashioned notions of femininity to heart when they printed this list of Single-Girl Things to Do Before You Marry. (Goddamn, this list is stupid.) "Slip one of those furry covers on the toilet," Cosmo suggests; "Plan your fantasy wedding!" "If all you feel like eating for dinner is ice cream and diet soda, buy a cone and pop a Coke!" Except for the planning the wedding part, the entire list is filled with idiotic tripe that you could do when you're married, too. Isn't there some sort of middle ground between getting married in Topshop and planning your Cosmo-licious fantasy wedding years before you've even met a prospective husband?

And The Bride Wore Botox ... [Guardian]
Single-Girl Things to Do Before You Marry [MSN, reprinted from Cosmopolitan]

Earlier: Single Slut Crashes New York Weddings Showcase

Each week on Top Model, we watch her have totally arbitrary rules on beauty and modeling, and often times, conflicting advice for the girls ("Don't lose weight to conform!" "Do anything you have to do to book that job!"), so it's not surprising that she'd have different answers for different outlets on the same subject. She did admit to Heather last week that she compartmentalizes, after all.

And in case you forgot:

Earlier: Did Tyra Banks Have A Nose Job?

Old noses:

New noses: