Plastic Surgeons Anonymously Reveal Procedures They'd Never Get—and Why

Newsweek

25-05-2025

Based on facts, either observed and verified firsthand by the reporter, or reported and verified from knowledgeable sources.
Newsweek AI is in beta. Translations may contain inaccuracies—please refer to the original content.
Plastic surgery is on the rise, with some procedures becoming so common and flawlessly handled among film stars and influencers that they are often undetectable—but is there a limit to what surgeries we should be pursuing?
A now-viral post to Reddit from May 13 brought this very question to public consciousness. "Plastic surgeons of Reddit, what body altering surgery would you never get and why?" the anonymous inquiry, shared by u/topgunner85, read. It has since racked up more than 9,400 upvotes and hundreds of comments from users claiming to be plastic surgeons.
The thread, which prompted vigorous discussion on surgical risks and aesthetics, became a rare moment where professionals publicly voiced what they would avoid in their own practice—or bodies. It resonated because of its candor: procedures that some patients chase, despite trending popularity, are ones these experts would not go near.
To assess whether the internet consensus aligned with medical reality, Newsweek spoke to four board-certified plastic surgeons, asking whether these procedures are worth it. From Brazilian butt lifts to buccal fat removal, their responses ranged from concern to outright dismissal.
Why Plastic Surgeons Are Wary of BBLs
The Brazilian butt lift (BBL), a procedure involving the transfer of fat to the buttocks to increase volume and shape, drew some of the strongest criticism in the Reddit thread. Among medical professionals, it is no less controversial.
Sam Fuller, a board-certified plastic surgeon in Indiana and host of the Fuller Butz podcast, told Newsweek he would never get a BBL.
"It has some of the highest complication rates within plastic surgery, including bleeding, deformity, pain, blood clots, fat embolism, and death," Fuller said.
While the surgeon performs fat transfers to the hips and butt, he draws a sharp distinction between these smaller-volume procedures and the high-risk BBLs many patients request.
"The recovery of a BBL includes lying on your stomach for several weeks … This painstaking recovery overwhelms my interest in the goals of the surgery," Fuller said.
He added that reversing the effects of a BBL is extremely difficult if complications arise or beauty standards change.
Andrew Kwak, a cosmetic surgeon and founder of The Lumen Center in Philadelphia, acknowledged the risk but struck a more-nuanced note.
"A BBL can be dangerous if done improperly," Kwak told Newsweek, pointing to pulmonary embolism as a serious risk.
Still, he considers the procedure safe when performed with "large blunt instruments and pristine shallow injection technique."
Brandon Richland, who practices in California and Nevada, was more cautious. He told Newsweek that BBLs carry the "highest mortality of any cosmetic plastic surgery procedure," exacerbated when nonplastic surgeons attempt to perform the procedure in unregulated settings.
"Some providers are attempting to add too much volume," Richland said, "causing a significant increase in complications and fatalities."
The Trouble With Liquid Rhinoplasty
Another procedure Reddit users flagged was "liquid rhinoplasty," a nonsurgical nose reshaping using dermal fillers. Kwak echoed these concerns.
"The nose and area between the eyes carry fine arteries that can cause severe skin damage if they are inadvertently injected with a filler," he told Newsweek.
He advocates for blunt cannulas over needles and insists on "light injection in small amounts" to reduce the risk of complications.
Stock image: A plastic surgeon marks out a prospective face-lift on a woman's face.
Stock image: A plastic surgeon marks out a prospective face-lift on a woman's face.
Getty Images
Richland also noted the danger of this increasingly popular technique.
"When done unsafely, by untrained providers, it carries significant risks of skin necrosis, and even risk of blindness," he said.
Still, like Kwak, he noted that with proper training and patient selection, liquid rhinoplasty "can produce dramatic improvement."
The Risk of Overdoing Buccal Fat Removal
Once a niche procedure, buccal fat removal gained mainstream attention for creating more sculpted cheekbones. But it too featured heavily in the Reddit thread as a procedure to avoid.
Richland said: "This procedure, when performed conservatively on the right patient, can lead to a significant improvement in facial harmony. However, when performed too aggressively … it can lead to severe deformity and a 'skeleton' appearance."
His warning underscores a broader concern among surgeons: the risk of irreversible outcomes when aesthetic trends push the limits of anatomy.
The 'Fox Eye' Trend and Thread Lifts
Robert Schwarcz, a double board-certified oculofacial plastic surgeon in New York, expressed strong disapproval of the so-called "Fox eye" procedure.
"I wouldn't get the Fox eye procedure," Schwarcz told Newsweek, calling it "abused" and "destructive to the eye area."
The procedure, popularized by celebrities and influencers, attempts to recreate an almond-shaped eye via surgical or nonsurgical means. Schwarcz detailed the complex nature of the surgery, which often combines temporal lifts, canthoplasty or canthopexy, and sometimes thread lifting.
"The concern," Schwarcz said, "is for cosmetic deformity, damage to the zygomatic branch of the facial nerve, scarring and alopecia, eyelid malposition such as ectropion or entropion, and dry eye syndrome."
Nonsurgical options, such as thread lifts, are not better.
"Thread lifting can cause thread extrusion, palpable nodules or bumps, puckering or dimples," Schwarcz said, calling it a procedure he would never undergo.
"I think and hope this trend will be gone by next year," Schwarcz added. "Thankfully, recent beauty trends favor softer, more natural features."
The Consensus: Caution Over Hype
The rapid increase in cosmetic procedures among young people, particularly young women, has been well documented.
Lip fillers have become a routine beauty maintenance step for many, and there has been a significant rise in patients under the age of 30 seeking cosmetic surgeries and injectable treatments. For instance, the American Society of Plastic Surgeons found that the number of Botox procedures among patients aged 20 to 29 have risen sharply over the past decade.
A 2024 study by vitamin and supplement company Thorne found that some U.S. teenagers are already planning to go under the knife, despite their youth. Thorne found that 1 in 4 of the surveyed group of 13- to 17-year-olds plan to get cosmetic surgery to combat signs of aging, with "Baby Botox" frequently trending on platforms such as TikTok and Instagram.
Between the four plastic surgeons' opinions, one theme stood out: risk does not always stem from the procedure alone, but from the environment in which it is done—and who is doing it.
"All of these procedures can be done safely by a board-certified plastic surgeon who is trained in these procedures," Richland said. "But no procedure is completely risk-free."
He added that patients should avoid being swayed by social-media trends, noting that surgeries popularized online are sometimes performed by unqualified providers in unsafe facilities.
The viral Reddit post may have struck a chord precisely because it confronted this disconnect. Behind the gloss of aspirational social-media content are complex surgeries with real consequences.
For the surgeons who perform them, the decision to abstain is not about fear—it is about trust, standards, and the enduring gap between trend and medical judgment.
"It simply does not move the needle on my wish list," Fuller said of the BBL, summing up a broader industry view. "It is a hard pass on BBLs for me at this time."
Newsweek reached out to u/topgunner85 for more information via Reddit.
Is there a health issue that's worrying you? Let us know via [e-mail]. We can ask experts for advice, and your story could be featured on Newsweek.