Instagram Fuels New Wave of Plastic Surgery Requests
Patients are requesting skin alterations to emulate flattering photo filters.
— -- Natalie Portman’s nose, Jennifer Garner’s defined jaw, Angelina Jolie’s luscious lips and Beyonce’s flawless skin are some of the most desired celebrity features.
But now, instead of bringing photos of steamy stars to the plastic surgeon’s office, some people are getting a bit more real.
“Now people are coming in with Instagram filters,” Jonathan Kaplan, a San Francisco-based plastic surgeon, told ABC News.
Instagram has set off a new trend in cosmetic surgery with patients asking doctors to alter their appearance to make them look-- in real life—like the selfies they take using one of the app’s photo filters.
Those filters are apparently helping boost ones self-esteem, with the Willow filter making faces look a little more defined and the Earlybird filter giving a warmer, softer glow.
Janet Ross, a personal assistant from San Francisco, says she fell in love with the way she felt the Amaro filter improved her photos.
“All of a sudden I was like, ‘Wow, I could totally post this because I think I look really good,’” Ross, 47, explained.
Ross asked her doctor to mimic the filter but to make the result a little more permanent.
“I had the fillers in the sides here, and on the lips a little, then Botox all around here,” she said.
Kaplan says he’s been able to help many of his patients like Ross ditch those Instagram filters without going under the knife, however.
“The patients coming in with the filters for Instagram are mostly concerned with wrinkles around their mouth, complexion and different blemishes, dark spots or red spots, and that’s great for them because you don’t really need any surgical procedure,” he explained.
Some psychiatrists say this latest quest for selfie-improvement could be dangerous.
“Filters are something special that are designed for a camera, not a plastic surgeon’s fingers,” said psychotherapist Stacy Kaiser, a psychotherapist from Calabasas, California.As for Ross, she says she has no regrets.
“I feel way more confident,” she said. “I don’t need the filters anymore."