Perth plastic surgeon warns of danger of seeking ‘Instagram Face' perfection

A plastic surgeon has warned young women of the dangers of seeking “Instagram Face” - a fad popularised by the likes of Bella Hadid and Kim Kardashian.

A Perth plastic surgeon has warned young women of the dangers of seeking “Instagram Face” – a fad driven by unrealistic beauty standards, social media and a constant pressure to conform.

The term – popularised after it was explored in a viral essay by author and New Yorker writer Jia Tolentino – refers to the pursuit of a “single, cyborgian face”, one that is always selfie-ready and makes everyone in your social media feed look somewhat the same.

“It’s a young face, of course, with poreless skin and plump, high cheekbones. It has catlike eyes and long, cartoonish lashes; it has a small, neat nose and full, lush lips,” Tolentino wrote for the New Yorker in December 2019.

“The face is distinctly white but ambiguously ethnic – it suggests a National Geographic composite illustrating what Americans will look like in 2050, if every American of the future were to be a direct descendant of Kim Kardashian West, Bella Hadid, Emily Ratajkowski, and Kendall Jenner (who looks exactly like Emily Ratajkowski).”

Speaking to The West Live podcast on Wednesday, plastic surgeon Jayson Oates said the trend has mostly young women flocking to clinics in a bid to realise the unrealistic.

Bella Hadid, considered a blueprint of the “Instagram Face” fad, admitted this week she regrets her nose job. Picture: Instagram

An increased number of young women are seeking cosmetic surgery procedures to look like their favourite celebrities. Picture: Instagram

Filters on social media platforms like Snapchat and Instagram, Tolentino noted, “allow you to become intimately familiar with what your face would look like if it were 10 per cent more conventionally attractive – if it were thinner, or had smoother skin, larger eyes, fuller lips”.

Dr Oates said that patients – accustomed to employing these filters as well as editing software in a bid to “improve” their images online – are in most instances charging surgeons with the impossible task of making their digitally enhanced version of themselves a reality.

Other patients request their features to be altered so that they can resemble their favourite celebrities – ignorant to the fact many of them have undergone substantial work themselves.

“Everybody seems to be doing this all the time and giving this false impression of what they look like,” Dr Oates told host Ben O’Shea.

“[Even] the influencers don’t look like that. The kind of pressure on women to look beyond what is realistic just never stops.”

Once considered a fairly dramatic intervention, Australia now ranks in the top 10 countries spending the most money worldwide on cosmetic surgery, with more than 200,000 procedures occurring each year.

“Instagram Face” refers to the pursuit of a “single, cyborgian face” that is always selfie-ready. Source: Instagram

Dr Oates, a surgeon at Subiaco’s Academy Face and Body, said a lot of procedures had moved beyond what were originally considered small touch-ups.

“Now it’s becoming more and more invasive,” he said.

He warned that completely changing your face can take a major mental toll – with patients at his clinic recommended to undergo psychological support before their procedures.

“People start fiddling with their nose, eyes, cheeks … there’s a real psychological element to it,” Dr Oates said.

“Because changing your face is a lot to go through mentally … once it’s done and you’re looking in the mirror … surgery is only part of the experience.”

Just this week, in a lengthy, candid profile in Vogue, Hadid – often considered one of the blueprints for Instagram Face – expressed her regret at getting a nose job aged 14.

“I wish I had kept the nose of my ancestors,” the 25-year-old supermodel said in the magazine’s April cover story. “I think I would have grown into it.”

While acknowledging her nose job, Hadid rubbished the repeated accusations that she’s gotten her eyes lifted, her jaw shaved and her lips filled, among other procedures.

“People think I fully f**ked with my face because of one picture of me as a teenager looking puffy. I’m pretty sure you don’t look the same now as you did at 13, right?” she said.

“I have never used filler. Let’s just put an end to that. I have no issue with it, but it’s not for me. Whoever thinks I’ve gotten my eyes lifted or whatever it’s called – it’s face tape! The oldest trick in the book.”

Dr Oates said a lot of procedures had moved beyond what were originally considered small touch-ups.

Nose job, face tape and eye lifts aside, Dr Oates said those scheduling an appointment in the hope of walking out looking like a Hadid or Kardashian-Jenner could be setting themselves up for disappointment.

“I spend a lot of time telling people that Instagram is not real. You don’t have to look like that,” he said.

“There’s a good chance that what you can do with your filter I cannot do in real life.”

He urged those considering drastic measures to improve their looks to instead begin with a far less invasive and more old fashioned approach – applying SPF.

“If you skin looks good, if it’s bright and healthy looking, then you do look better,” Dr Oates advised.

“Using products … sunscreen … it’s a great thing to do.”