“The patient has changed. Five years ago, men came in asking to look rested. Now they come in asking for a specific canthal tilt, a specific gonial angle, and a hunter eye.” That is how Dr. Frank Agullo recently described the shift to MedEsthetics, for an article about looksmaxxing, an internet-based movement devoted to maximizing the appearance of men, which a young streamer named Clavicular’s hospitalization in Miami brought to the headlines this past spring.
For Dr. Agullo at Southwest Plastic Surgery, the more useful story is what these men are actually asking for, and whether what they are asking for is in keeping with medically sound treatments for an individual face.
This is an educational article, not a medical one.
What Dr. Agullo Is Seeing
As Dr. Agullo sees it, what this looksmaxxing phenomenon represents is men walking into his office with reference photos. These days, many come in in their early twenties after looking at photos for hours, which means they have spent a lot of time on posts, threads and specific forum content about looksmaxxing online. He sees them looking for a particular angle to a certain feature, and as he told MedEsthetics, this is a completely different consultation than what plastic surgery was originally designed around.
These requests rarely come one at a time. The usual collection includes chin implants, jaw implants and genioplasty, buccal fat removal, a refined rhinoplasty, and the lateral canthoplasty that may create the desired canthal tilt they refer to as a hunter eye, along with hair restoration. The table below shows what those requests correlate with at the practice and in the Med Spa.
The Requests, Mapped to the Practice
| Looksmaxxing Request | At Southwest Plastic Surgery |
|---|---|
| Sharper jawline and chin | Chin and jaw implants, genioplasty |
| Hollowed cheeks | Buccal fat removal |
| Narrowed, refined nose | Rhinoplasty |
| Hunter eye and canthal tilt | Lateral canthoplasty, evaluated by the surgeon case by case |
| Slimmer lower face without surgery | Neurotoxin to the masseter muscle at the Med Spa |
| Fuller hairline | Hair restoration |
While these requests may have some correlation to actual plastic surgeries and procedures, they are real procedures performed by real surgeons at Southwest Plastic Surgery based on the individual patient and face, not just a viral trend.
Where the Trend Helps and Where It Misses
The more relevant conversation, according to Dr. Agullo, is why these young men desire an aesthetic change. The desire itself is not “bad.” The problem lies with the motivation behind it, and so a good chunk of the conversation now focuses on why.
If a male patient wants his nose to conform to his face and look appropriate to the balance of his existing features, that is different from a patient obsessed with transforming into another person they saw online. And when the patient is chasing a goal that is always shifting, the appropriate course of action is always to slow the plan down, focus on the reversible and most conservative aspects of the request, and be willing to decline those procedures not likely to result in a satisfactory change or which may put the patient at risk for adverse outcomes. As a practice committed to honest patient care, the plastic surgeons screen for body image distress in each new patient during a consultation.
Why Southwest Plastic Surgery
Double board-certified in Plastic Surgery by the American Board of Plastic Surgery and in Surgery by the American Board of Surgery, and a Fellow of the American College of Surgeons, Dr. Frank Agullo completed a plastic surgery fellowship at the Mayo Clinic and is a Clinical Associate Professor of Plastic Surgery at Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center. He serves on the editorial boards of Aesthetic Plastic Surgery and PRS Global Open, and has been named a Castle Connolly Top Doctor in Plastic Surgery for thirteen consecutive years.
That experience is what allows Southwest Plastic Surgery to say yes to sound male aesthetic work and no to requests that would not serve the patient.
Ready to Talk?
Whether you are thinking about work on the chin, cheeks, eyes, nose or hairline, the honest first question is whether the desired change is a good fit for your individual face and your life, not which angle is trending.
For the editorial version of this read, see the sister post on drworldwide.com. For the patient-facing version, see the post on agulloplasticsurgery.com.
Call (915) 590-7900, text 1-866-814-0038, or book a consultation online at swplasticsurgery.com. #StayBeautiful.
@RealDrWorldWide on Instagram, TikTok, and Snapchat, @Agullo on X, or @AgulloPlasticSurgery on Facebook.
