Last year, Chrissy Teigen posted a selfie to Instagram. She had a newly sculpted face. A chisel had been taken to her lower cheeks. Her jawline appeared to be in an angular “V” shape. “I did that buccal fat removal thing here,” she said in a video, while pointing out her freshly hollowed cheeks. Meet the hottest new beauty trend: buccal fat removal, a surgical procedure that can alter the entire structure of our faces.
In the quest to achieve the ultimate in snatched faces, celebrities and deep-pocketed civilians are getting the fat removed from their cheeks to permanently contour their money-makers. Teigen is one of the few stars to actually admit to having the procedure done, leading fans to speculate on social media which of their favourite stars have yielded to face-gouging. Before and after pictures are scrutinised. Is it a filter or a surgical knife? Natural ageing or unnatural tweaking? Others, however, are more perplexed by the arrival of yet another barely achievable beauty standard for women – and some men – to measure themselves against. “What the f*** is buccal fat,” tweeted one person. “How are they still inventing new flaws for us?” Another wrote: “Wake up babe new surgery just dropped in Hollywood: jaw filler and buccal fat removal.”
