Plastic surgeons tell Phoebe Hooke she needs $17k of work on her face

LEADING plastic surgeons told this 24-year-old beauty that she needed Botox, a nose job, brow lifts and fillers on her “flawed face”.

Phoebe Hooke has been told she needs Botox, a nose job, brow lifts and fillers. Picture: CLEO.

PHOEBE Hooke needs Botox, a nose job, brow lifts and fillers. Obviously.

Or at least that’s what some of Sydney’s leading cosmetic surgeons told her when she went window shopping for cosmetic surgery.

The 24-year-old magazine writer, who conducted the experiment for CLEO, was told she could be beautiful if only she forked out $17,000 for work on her “flawed” face.

“Your nose is dominating your face,” the first doctor told her.

“We need a plan to fix it. I don’t want to see some hanging kamikaze hawk thing going on.”

Hooke asked each of the clinics what work they thought she needed to fit in with the glossy world of magazines, revealing that she worked at CLEO.

Hooke says staff at a clinic in Sydney’s CBD advised her to have pretox — cosmetic surgery for women her age.

It was suggested she start with a $3500 non-surgical brow lift (performed under local anaesthetic and sedation) and then a non-surgical nose job, to make her nose bump look flatter.

Hooke then attended a free consultation at a cosmetic clinic in Bondi Junction, where she was advised to buy $400 worth of medical strength skincare products.

“In regards to face shape, you’re missing cheekbones,” she was told.

“(The consultant) suggested plumping up my cheeks with fillers to balance out my ‘boxy masculine jawline’. I felt a lump in my throat. Being told my ‘best feature’ needs $1100-worth of dermal fillers is heartbreaking,” she says.

“At first, there was a certain excitement that came from being told how I could improve my looks, a bit like having the offer of a real-life Insty filter. But there’s a comedown: are my flaws really that obvious?”

Hooke’s final consultation was with a consultant and senior laser technician in Sydney’s southwest.

“We sit down in what looks like the waxing room of a cheap beauty parlour and she says, ‘I think you’re gorgeous and still so young, you don’t need anything’. But just as I think I’ve discovered a rarity in this biz, she blurts out, ‘look up for me please ... You need Botox in your forehead’.”

Hooke was told that with age her deep lines would get worse.

Latest statistics from the Cosmetic Physicians Society of Australasia show that 700,000 Aussies between the ages of 18 and 29 have had an antiageing cosmetic procedure.

CLEO editor Sharri Markson says the pressure for young women to look beautiful is enormous.

“Previously girls would just compare themselves with friends in their immediate circle. Now they’re comparing themselves to models and beauty bloggers on Instagram,” she said.

“In our CLEO undercover, we found cosmetic surgeons are telling young, beautiful girls to get thousands of dollars’ worth of work they don’t even need. Instead, surgeons should be turning these girls away, telling them they’re beautiful as they are.”

Continue the conversation via Twitter @newscomauHQ | @cleomag

Read the full story in the October issue of CLEO, on sale now.

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