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TNB - Typical Nigger Behavior

Demand for plastic surgery rises among ethnic patients
Last Update: Jul 18, 2007 1:15 PM

INDIANAPOLIS - Tyra Whittaker's upcoming wedding in September made her
decide to improve upon her one feature that she had never liked - her
nose.

When she was a child, Whittaker, who is black, endured jibes from other
kids about her nose, which she calls "long." For years she researched and
pondered having rhinoplasty, but the procedure always seemed too expensive
and the time was just not right.

Then she got engaged. In November she got a nose job.

"Because I'm getting married, and that's always been one of my biggest
things, I didn't want to be standing up in front of people and have them
look at my profile," says Whittaker, 27. "This was just kind of something
I've always wanted to do."

She's part of a trend that's getting noticed by the industry. Last year
the American Society of Plastic Surgeons issued an unprecedented
announcement: Cosmetic plastic surgeries among ethnic patients had risen
65 percent from 2004 to 2005. In 2006, the numbers of procedures performed
on minority patients continued to increase.

Plastic surgeons nationally and locally say that several factors are
behind the trend: Buoyed by such TV shows as "Extreme Makeover" and "The
Swan," overall interest in plastic surgery has grown. Demographic shifts
have rendered the population more diverse. Minorities have become more
affluent, giving them the extra income to spend on such procedures.

Cosmetic surgery "is not so much a taboo in the ethnic consumer market
anymore," says Dr. David Watts, a Philadelphia-area plastic surgeon, who
is developing a skin-care line customized for minority patients. "Now it
has become so mainstream, it's just considered a fact of life."

In Whittaker's case, the nose job wasn't a big deal. She likes her
reflection more, but others don't notice a dramatic change. If she runs
into someone she hasn't seen for a while, they don't comment on her nose
but say just that she looks good.

"You can tell a difference, but it's so subtle I still look totally like
myself," says Whittaker.

Nose reshaping is the most commonly requested procedures for
Asian-Americans and blacks, according to the American Society of Plastic
Surgeons. Breast augmentation leads the pack for Hispanic patients.

"Rarely do we find that any of these minorities or ethnic groups want to
look like a Caucasian," says Whittaker's surgeon, Dr. Stephen Perkins, a
facial plastic surgeon with at the Perkins VanNatta Center for Cosmetic
Surgery and Medical Skincare in Indianapolis. "They want to look like a
better form of themselves and retain their ethnicity."

Many of Perkins' black patients want nose work or lip reductions. Recently
he's been seeing more patients of Russian and Eastern European descent,
who come for rejuvenation procedures like injectables to help them look
younger. Many of his Middle Eastern patients seek his skills to help them
address large noses or noses with bumps in them.

Asian patients ask him to build up their noses or strengthen their chins
or perform surgery on their eyelids, he says. They also come to him for
eyeliners, a procedure that entails tattooing a semi-permanent eyeliner on
the lid to give the eyes more definition.

Hispanic patients tend to seek eyelid surgery, rhinoplasty, and procedures
to address facial puffiness and prominent ears, says Dr. Mark Hamilton of
Hamilton Facial Plastic Surgery on the Southside. His minority patients
may also turn to him for help with hyper-pigmentation, or skin darkening.

Pigments in the skin can also create problems for minorities when it comes
to plastic surgery, says Watts of the Plastic and Cosmetic Surgery
Institute, with five offices around Philadelphia.

"Whenever you create or inflict some trauma to the skin, you're now
damaging the pigment sites in the skin, and when they become traumatized,
they can overproduce, underproduce or they can remain the same," he says.

Keloid scarring, in which the body over-responds as it heals, is another
potential problem, especially for people of color, he says. One way to
head these off is to determine before the surgery if the patient has
experienced such scarring in the past for procedures like ear piercings or
prior surgeries. In that case, they might think twice about the surgery.

One advantage that people of color may have is they tend not to develop as
many skin lines and creases as Caucasians do as they grow older, Hamilton
says.

"You see less aging in terms of lines and sun damage," he says.

In 2006 there were more than 2.5 million cosmetic surgery procedures
performed on non-Caucasian patients, accounting for 23 percent of all
plastic surgery patients.

As plastic surgery has gained acceptance among minorities, the ideas of
attractiveness has changed, says Watts. Women such as J.Lo, Lucy Liu and
Beyonc are now all considered among the fairest in the land.

"It's no longer just this Nicole Kidman look that spans everything for
everyone," Watts says. "People are really looking at what's considered
beautiful, and I think it's starting to cross all of these ethnic
borders."

http://www.local12.com/news/state/story.aspx?content_id=fe29b04e-7ae3-4430-b4fc-6b9c1f218ee6