Kuczynski - Beauty junkies: inside our $15 billion obsession with cosmetic surgery

Contents

One
Beauty Junkies

Two
Surgery Safari

Three
The Rise and Fall and Rise and Fall of Botox

Four
Forefathers

Five
Boom

Six
What Is Beautiful?

Seven
Los Angeles

Eight
You Want It, You Need It: Marketing the Dream of Beauty

Nine
Fat Is Not Beautiful

Ten
Harvey Weinsteins White, White Teeth

Eleven
My Love Affair with Dr. Michelle

Twelve
The Fatal Quest for Beauty

Thirteen
The Breast

Fourteen
American Geisha

FOR MY PARENTS
JANE CASEY HUGHES AND PEDRO-PABLO KUCZYNSKI

Acknowledgments

My editors at the New York Times first directed me to some of the intriguing stories about the cosmetic surgery and beauty industries, and without them this book would not exist: Barbara Graustark, Trip Gabriel, Danielle Mattoon, Mary Suh, Anita Leclerc, Alison Silver, and Luisita Lopez-Torregrossa. I owe a great thanks to Joe Lelyveld, for hiring me; Howell Raines and Gerald Boyd, who tried to bring more popular culture reporting to the newspaper; Bill Keller and Jill Abramson, who continue to be enthusiastic and supportive; and David Smith, who taught me how to write for a newspaper. Earlier, at the New York Observer, Peter Kaplan, Jim Windolf, and Peter Stevenson were incredibly patient and creative mentors.

Nancy Hass and Warren St. John are terrific journalists without whose friendship and intelligence I would be lost.

Most importantly, this book owes a great debt to the medical professionals who gave me their time. The following were generous with their expertise: Dr. Sherrell Aston, Dr. Daniel Baker, Dr. Mark Berman, Dr. Alastair Carruthers, Dr. Andrew Charles, Dr. Michelle Copeland, Dr. Terry Dubrow, Dr. Garth Fisher, Dr. Peter B. Fodor, Dr. Randal Haworth, Dr. Dennis Hurwitz, Dr. Gerald Imber, Dr. Cheryl Thellman-Karcher, Dr. Arnold Klein, Dr. Lloyd Krieger, Dr. Z. Paul Lorenc, Dr. Suzanne Levine, Dr. Stephen Marquardt, Dr. Alan Matarasso, Dr. Ivo Pitanguy, Dr. Thomas Rees, Dr. Vail Reese, Dr. Steven A. Teitelbaum, Dr. Rick van der Poel, Dr. Pat Wexler, and Dr. Harvey Zarem.

There are several excellent histories of cosmetic plastic surgery, and I encourage those who are interested in exquisitely reported historical works on the subject to read Sander L. Gilmans Making the Body Beautiful: A Cultural History of Aesthetic Surgery and Elizabeth Haikens Venus Envy: A History of Cosmetic Surgery.

I am grateful to Irena Medavoy for sharing her story with me. Many others gave their time in other ways, including: Clare Casey, Tina Sloan McPherson, Melissa Biggs Bradley, Matthew Snyder, Jason Grunstra, Roberta Myers, Robert Emmons, Bob Roe, Peter Rawson at the Harvard Medical Schools Countway Library, C. Loring Brace, Joan Kron, Lorraine Melvill, Peggy Siegal, Claudia Lowe, Peter Kaufman, Donna Zilkha, Sally Kadison, Leida Snow, and Adeena Colbert.

I interviewed many patients who were not comfortable using their names, for varying reasons. One woman did not want me to name her because she undertook an extremely private form of beautification. Another didnt want her parents to know that she started using Botox at age twenty-two. For their insight into their obsessions, I am grateful.

My thanks also to Sloan Harris of ICM for his encouragement, Stacy Creamer for her editorial skill, Laura Swerdloff for much-appreciated assistance, Bill Thomas and Steve Rubin for their patience, and production editor Bette Alexander for her careful management of the whole enterprise.

I owe the greatest debt to my husband, whose support and love have been immeasurable. You are perfection.

Beauty Junkies

A friend of mine, a New York entertainment executive in her fifties, does not look her age. Shes got the reedy, semi-starved body of an adolescent, and she has avoided the sun with a fervor bordering on religious principle. Shes always impeccably turned out; shes obsessed with shoesstilettos, kitten heels, anything to add a supple, curvaceous tightness to the calf muscle.

On a good day, she could pass for thirty-fivein dim light, possibly twenty-five. There are no telltale signs of age on her face, no wrinkles and no age spots. A dusky pink sheen illuminates her lips at all times, the work of a tattoo artist expert in the application of permanent makeup.

At the beginning of the summer, every year, my friend visits Dr. Patricia Wexler, a New York dermatologist whose clients have included Ellen Barkin, Donna Karan, Barbra Streisand, and Sean Diddy Combs. Everyone who goes to Wexler or who has heard of her calls her Dr. Pat.

Prior to this visit, Dr. Pat has withdrawn fat from my friends buttocks and siphoned out enough fat to fill twelve thick vials. The vials are labeled and stored in a freezer along with fat suctioned out of dozens of famous actors and actresses, Dallas housewives, lawyers, television anchors. My friend wears a tight-fitting set of Ace bandages for a week after the procedure. An opening at the bottom allows her to perform bodily functions and gives the outfit a distinctly S&M, Helmut Newton affect.

To subject oneself to the ministrations of a New York dermatologist can be a pricey prospect. Just to sit down and talk to Dr. Pat is $500. Laser treatments can run as high as $6,000 and liposuction as much as $11,000. A frequent guest on Oprah and the Today show, she has touted skin-tightening procedures like Thermage (about $3,500, according to the New York Times).

Certainly, a patient wont try everything at once. In the case of my friend and her fat, I watched Dr. Pat bring out one of the vials of fat and, using a fine subcutaneous needle, inject the contents of one of the syringes into the womans cheeks and nasolabial foldsthe lines that run from the nose to the mouth. The fat was surprisingly thick and bright yellow, a neon sludge that looks almost exactly like the lemon-flavored cake frosting you might buy in a plastic Betty Crocker tub at the supermarket. Just greasier.

The procedure is called autologous fat transferthat is, moving fat from one part of the body to another. Peggy Siegal, a public relations executive in New York who is also a patient of Dr. Pats, loves to joke about having had the procedure.

Siegal explains it this way: The older you get, the more the fat gravitates to your butt. The doctor takes it out of your bottom and puts it back in your face. So when you are kissing my face, you are actually kissing my ass. Then she gives a laugh, and it is a triumphant sound.

W hen Kathleen Kelly Cregan left her home in Croom, County Cork, Ireland, early in the morning of March 14, 2005, her husband, Liam, a farmer and part-time plumber, was proud: she was going to Dublin to take a two-week business course. Life was good. In the months to come, they were going to celebrate their eight-year-old sons first Communion and take a holiday in France.