Meet the Beauty Broker: Before and after the knives, this plastic surgery consultant does her work

Straits Times

20 hours ago

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Ms Melinda Farina is a former dental assistant who, over the last decade, has become one of the most significant players in the plastic surgery scene.
NEW YORK – Imagine this: You are a person of a certain age who is bothered by the sagging skin on your neck.
On Instagram, an image of the newly rejuvenated Kris Jenner jumps out at you.
For as long as the 69-year-old American reality TV star and her celebrity family the Kardashians have been famous, their faces have made an argument against the idea that God created people as they should be.
But now, Jenner looks dewier than her daughters Kim, Kourtney, Khloe, Kylie and Kendall. Even if you lament the women's effects on American culture, it is hard not to admire the surgical handiwork of famed Park Avenue doctor Steven M. Levine, who Jenner readily names as the one responsible for her facelift.
Unfortunately, you cannot get a consult. An automated voice message at Dr Levine's office says he is accepting new patients only via referral.
You might, at this point, head to Reddit and look through scores of reviews for other plastic surgeons whose patients walk away pleased with what they regard to be a similar result.
Kris Jenner on the second day of the wedding festivities of Amazon founder Jeff Bezos and journalist Lauren Sanchez in Italy.
PHOTO: REUTERS
Or you might schedule an appointment with Ms Melinda Farina, a 44-year-old former dental assistant who over the last decade has become one of the most significant players in the plastic surgery scene.
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Unlike Dr Levine, Ms Farina does not perform facelifts, tummy tucks or nose jobs.
Instead, she is a consultant who calls herself the Beauty Broker and charges around US$750 (S$960) for an hour-long consultation, after which she connects clients to the surgeons she thinks best fit their aesthetic and can work within their budgets. She also has a team of eight consultants who work for her, and their fees start at US$350 a consult.
From there, she may handle myriad tasks associated with surgery – among them translating medical jargon, soothing frayed nerves and handling aftercare.
A decade ago, prime players within the beauty industry were busy selling the idea that the best way to reverse the ageing process was not with invasive surgeries, but with a variety of injections and laser treatments.
Recently, the pendulum has swung back.
Part of this, doctors say, is because of GLP-1 drugs such as Ozempic and Wegovy, which can lead to sagging skin after weight loss that cannot be easily addressed without surgery. But it is also because of the proliferation of facelifts, nose jobs and eyelid surgeries featured on Instagram and TikTok.
With more awareness and information comes more choice and more uncertainty.
Enter Ms Farina.
She has appeared on her celebrity client Gwyneth Paltrow's podcast, talking about her increasing antipathy towards fillers. She has spoken before scores of surgeons at some of the plastic surgery industry's biggest conferences. And she is doing everything she can to ensure that even as high-profile people begin to speak more openly about the work they have had done, her middle-person services remain in demand.
Ms Farina has also made waves by arriving at the party with her own set of knives.
She has been in legal spats with beauty influencers. She has publicly accused two of the industry's best-known doctors of botching procedures.
'We sign non-disclosure agreements with all our celebs – and discretion and privacy is the most important thin g,' she said on a recent afternoon, sitting at a banquette at the Surrey Hotel in the Upper East Side of Manhattan.
'When you're working with surgeons in the Upper East Side and dealing with this type of clientele, it rubs off on you,' added Ms Farina, who lives in Weehawken, New Jersey, in a US$2.5 million house that she rents, along with her golden retriever.
Life is busy, controversy follows, she acknowledges.
'There are sceptics, there are haters, there are people who believe I do not belong, and there are surgeons who think what I'm doing is absolutely necessary,' Ms Farina said.
She attributes thi s to the fact that the business is an 'old boys' club' within which she occupies a complicated niche as a person who drums up business for the doctors but, ultimately, answers to those who seek out their services and do not always walk away happy.
Ms Melinda Farina is not the first plastic surgery consultant, but she has introduced new approaches to the business.
PHOTO: CLARK HODGIN/NYTIMES
Ms Farina is not shy about publicly criticising people in the field. And she has also been sued by prominent physicians.
In 2019, she was sued by Dr Simon Ourian, a Los Angeles cosmetic dermatologist to American pop star Lady Gaga and several Kardashians.
It happened after she called him a 'fraud hack' on Instagram.
Dr Ourian – who had his licence revoked in 2009 by The Medical Board of California but was ultimately placed on probation until 2013 – never worke d w ith Ms Farina.
He claimed in his lawsuit that she was 'steering clients/patients to aesthetic and cosmetic professionals who pay 'membership fees'' to her firm, while disparaging other doctors.
Ultimately, Ms Farina settled out of court.
In 2024, American actress Demi Moore starred in The Substance, a science-fiction horror movie about a woman who takes a potion to restore her youth. While she was racing down red carpets on her way to a Golden Globe win and an Oscar nomination, conversation swirled over wh o w as responsible for her enviable real-life face.
On Instagram, a Texas beauty influencer named Dana Omari claimed without evidence that Moore had received a facelift courtesy of Dr Levine, Jenner's surgeon.
Soon after, the Beauty Broker – who said she 'can neither confirm nor deny' that Moore is a client – pounced. She posted about the scourge of sensationalist plastic surgery claims online and cited Omari's post as a prime example.
Omari replied by telling her Instagram following of 250,000 that Ms Farina was nothing more than a 'dental hygienist who gets paid on both ends to book patients with plastic surgeon s in her little black book. And allegedly she gets kickbacks'.
So, Ms Farina sued Omari for defamation.
In response, lawyers for Omari produced a 2019 e-mail apparently sent by Ms Farina to doctors within her network proposing a compensation system of sorts for referrals: 'Going forward, our clients (the patients) will pay us directly 10 per cent of the overall surgical fee. All we ask is that our surgeons grant our clients a 10 per cent discount as a courtesy.'
Ms Farina said she sent that e-mail to four people 'testing the waters for a new business model', but that it never came to fruition. She added that it has been several years since she received any payment from doctors.
The suit is ongoing.
Dr Scott Hollenbeck, president of the American Society of Plastic Surgeon s, does not know Ms Farina, but said he did not have much issue with a consultant providing what amounts to marketing services for doctors.
Of course, as much of this information becomes available on the internet, some of Ms Farina's detractors argue that the same platform that has enabled her rise may ultimately be her undoing. But so far, she sees little evidence for this being true.
'Kris Jenner is not even my client,' she said later. 'And when she came out about her facelift, my inbox blew up. I got over 700 inquiries that day.' NYTIMES