About ten years ago, a brief fad in cosmetic plastic surgery happened when many men and women went to a cosmetic surgeon to ask for a dimple to be put onto an otherwise smooth cheek.
Back then, the surgical technique was putting a stitch into a cheek, pulling it tight and then removing the stitch some weeks later.
Presto! Instant dimple……well, in most cases.
Some before & after dimple surgery reader reviews from 2010 printed in the New York Daily News seem to leave something to be desired. Reader reactions included:
*” …it looks like a bullet went through both cheeks…sorry for this guy, but he looks like the victim of a crime. So, thumbs down, (it) doesn’t look good at all.”
*” This guy doesn’t look like he has dimples. He looks more like he has holes in his cheeks. It’s bizarre looking.”
Many times, in our career, we have been asked to add dimples or a chin cleft.
We always decline, explaining: “We can always try to duplicate what nature has done, but the reality is we have never succeeded in making those changes look natural.”
Our opinion: Only God can make good dimples.
Is there anything worse than a bad knock-off?”
Well, what’s old is new again as a new iteration of Dimpleplasty seems to be going around. The thinking is facial dimples brighten a face by adding something:
- Cute
- Sexy
- An added attraction to a smile.
When dimples occur naturally, it’s because a muscle in the cheek has been shortened.
But where nature has failed to act, a cosmetic plastic surgeon helps by marking on one or both cheeks where a dimple should appear.
Sometimes, computer imaging is used so the patient can see on a computer screen what a healed Dimpleplasty will most likely look like.
If the surgeon goes ahead, he or she assesses your:
- Skin tissue
- Fat and
- Muscle
to determine the depth and size of your dimples.
Next, ink marks are made on the cheeks’ outside to guide incisions made in the cheeks’ inside.
Anesthesia numbs those incisions which scar the muscle and inner skin. Next, disolvable sutures are placed in the incisions to create a dimple on the outside cheek.
Healing takes days or weeks.
Dimples then appear even in the absence of smiling or other facial expressions. Usual surgical reactions include:
- Swelling
- Bruising
- Bleeding
- Infection
Possible Dimpleplasty failures include
- One dimple larger than the other
- Dimple locations on cheeks different
- Uneven size and depth of two dimples
- Dimples becoming shallow or disappearing
Approximate cost of Dimpleplasty reported in New York City has been between $1200 and $2700. A dimple on one cheek in Beverly Hills has been reported at $1200 while dimples on both cheeks ran $2500.
