Not long ago, the plastic surgeon Sam Rizk, MD, had a prospective patient come in for a consultation. Rizk aims to please. he sees solutions where others see weak chins. But then the patient showed him her ideal face — a series of snapshots filtered through anatomical weaknesses.
“I was like, ‘You know, there are certain things under the jaw that are necessary for survival,'” he explains. “The trachea? You need it to breathe.’ He couldn’t give her what she wanted—not if she wanted to keep chewing her food. (He made.)
America is now in the grip of a Jaws craze not seen since the summer of 1975, when a killer shark was on the loose off the coast of New England. Amazon sells thousands of products that promise to stimulate and excite. Instagram is full of gua sha classes and med-spa interventions. TikTok videos showcase the benefits of “meow“—a questionable practice that promises a savage jawline to those who rest their tongues on the roof of their mouths. In recent Alex Katz Retrospective At New York’s Guggenheim Museum, at least one well-heeled patron could be heard taking notes: “There’s not a loose shoe in the entire show!”
Jason Diamond, MD—a Beverly Hills-based plastic surgeon whose office works very well with a Giorgio Baldi outpost of neuromodulators instead of agnolotti—maintains that “the most consistent feature of a red carpet face is a strong jawline ». A strong jaw—from Julia Roberts to Bella Hadid—is the indisputable sign of beautiful people. For the scalpel, Diamond has perfected a (trademarked) technique called Diamond Facial Sculpting, which uses filler injected just above the bone to “enhance and define” the contours of the face. And then there’s Diamond Tripartite, which sounds like a competitive race, but is actually a combination of custom implants (involving a CT scan and a 3D copy), a neck lift to create “invisible scaffolding,” and laser skin tightening. It’s not cheap, but Diamond warns of quicker fixes like fat-blasting Kybella. scar tissue can complicate future procedures.
If that all sounds like a lot for someone who just wants Angelina Jolie’s blunt angles, Diamond is here to break the news: The face isn’t actually a Picasso canvas. There is no increasing one attribute without modifying another to match. The real aesthetic effect is proportional. “We’re always focused on balance,” adds Rizk. For a facelift, Rizk eschews antiquated methods that can result in a visibly drawn-out look on some Madison Avenue natives, allowing the skin and tissue to move as a unit. Rizk Can Refer Patients to Less Time Needing Some Retinol Clearing to Heal—He Got It Well done housewife Jennifer Fessler on air for her reunion episodes just six weeks after her procedure. “I had all this loose skin!” she loves it when I talk to her on the phone.
However, for those who don’t want to spend up to $200,000 on a facelift, there are less drastic alternatives. One is Softwave, which I sample in the private practice of dermatologist Doris Day, MD, based in Manhattan. Considered a non-invasive tissue tightening device, ultrasound therapy is intended to cause small injuries to the dermis to encourage collagen production. I’m 31, so Day treats me like a newborn. But she and I both know: The jaw I have now is as stretched as it will ever be. Sofwave is supposed to be painless, and experts rave about both its downtime-free recovery and its one-session effectiveness. I left the office within 45 minutes and almost missed my station on the 2 train because I couldn’t stop taking selfies, but the Sofwave is as comfortable as a series of curl burns. At least this: Weeks out and with nasolabial folds that look much reduced to me (and mostly the same to my husband), I thought it was worth it.
