Selfie craze prompting surge in lip surgery in US

Want to click that perfect selfie with fuller lips for a flawless pout? Get a lip implant. According to a media report, 2015 set a record of one lip surgery every 19 minutes in the US.

The findings, based on a survey of American Society of Plastic Surgeons (ASPS), showed that in 2015, a total of 27,449 lip implants on both males and females took place -- a jump of 48 percent since 2000, CNBC reported on Tuesday.

"We live in the age of the selfie and because we see images of ourselves almost constantly on social media, we're much more aware of how our lips look," David Song from the American Society of Plastic Surgeons (ASPS) was quoted as saying.

In Britain, a cosmetic dentistry firm has claimed that selfies have also changed the types of smile that patients are asking for.

People are now asking for a new "selfie smile" which "benefits rather than suffers at the hands of the typically center-widening, periphery-narrowing properties of smartphone cameras," the report stated.

"We have seen a 30 percent rise over 5 years in the number of patients sending in selfies through the website with concerns about the look of their front teeth, yet when the patients come in person, often the teeth don't look too bad at all," Tim Bradstock-Smith, a clinical director and cosmetic dentist, was quoted as saying.

"A patient may not be ready to commit to something as dramatic as a facelift or eyelid surgery, but there are a variety of ways you can change the shape of your lips," explained Robert Houser, a plastic surgeon in Ohio, US.

The ASPS commissioned a national survey of around a thousand women and found that the "subtle and sultry lips" of Hollywood actress Jennifer Lawrence were the most attractive celebrity lips that women wanted.

--IANS

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