Brazilian Butt Lift – today’s ultimate aesthetic buttock augmentation
Some say JLo had “it” done, maybe Kim Kardashian too. “It” being a gluteal augmentation with buttock implants or the famous Brazilian Butt Lift (which – like facelift – is on the road to becoming another big misnomer in the history of cosmetic surgery).
Attractive breasts, bellies and buttocks rank high among the markers of femininity in our Caribbean and International plastic surgery and cosmetic surgery practice at Trinidad Institute of Plastic Surgery, Trinidad and Tobago. Clients from all over the Caribbean – Barbados, Jamaica, Guyana, Venezuela, St. Vincent or Bahamas ask for it every day.
In the context of breast augmentation, tummy tuck and gluteal enhancement bigger is not necessarily better, it is the shape of the breasts, torso or buttocks and their natural harmony that makes it or breaks it. This is a fairly straightforward conclusion – just look at the next big butt you see on the street and ask yourself if it has an attractive shape in harmony with the remaining body.
This conclusion implies then that there must be an aesthetic ideal with respect to the size and shape of the buttocks (with some cultural variations – rather petite in Asians, rather moderate in Caucasians, wider in Latinas, more projecting in Afro-Caribbeans, East Indians being somewhere in the middle, often surprisingly close to Asians/Caucasians in their preferences) and in fact there is, much as there is an aesthetic ideal for breasts.
While breasts and abdomens can be relatively reliably reshaped at Trinidad Institute of Plastic Surgery with implants, lifts, fat transfer, liposuction and lipoabdominoplasty, gluteal augmentation eluded plastic surgeons for quite some time as buttock implants (first idea that came to mind) in their early days unlike breast implants were quite devilish devices with a ridiculously high complication rate. This situation has somewhat improved over the past couple of years with improved devices outside the US and a better understanding of appropriate surgical techniques.
Brazilian Butt Lift – natural gluteal augmenation without buttock implants
Buttock implants are best used in buttocks close to the aesthetic ideal, which just lack projection when viewed from the side. This is again similar to the use of breast implants, which are employed to enlarge small but otherwise aesthetically ideal breasts. Buttock implants do not lift the buttocks much if at all and only moderately improve the shape by taking care of the absent projection. With other words, they are somewhat one dimensional.
Brazilian Butt Lift – buttock lifting without incisions
So when would a buttocks lift be advantageous ? Well, again similar to breasts lifting, a buttock lift is an option if the buttocks sag (here as well the medical term is ptosis). Unfortunately the analogy continues – breast and butt(ock) lifting require incision and excisions leaving scars. True buttock lifting in our own practice at Trinidad Institute of Plastic Surgery is most often required to correct the effects of aging in the 60+ age group and after massive weight loss. In the latter group it is mostly performed as part of a lower body lift.
Brazilian Butt Lift – modern buttock enhancement
The ongoing analogy was ingeniously broken by Brazilian plastic surgeons, who designed another procedure besides lipoabdominoplasty truly for the 21st century – the Brazilian Butt Lift, which has nothing to do with lifting the buttocks but everything with rehaping them. Much like Michelangelo saw the sculpture and not a the block of stone in front of him, gluteal reshaping with the Brazilian Butt Lift means approximating an aesthetic ideal by taking off what is too much with liposuction and augmenting what is too little with fat transfer – gluteal sculpting. In general no incisions beyond the access for liposuction and fat injections and excisions are required except maybe Mendieta’s small Miami thong lift incisions hidden in the gluteal crease and folds. The risks are minimally increased over a standard liposuction of less than 4L aspirate. While gluteal sculpting has an increased operating time compared to buttock implants it is still within reasonable limits if appropriate fat harvest and transfer technologies such as those available at Trinidad Institute of Plastic Surgery are used. Due to the use of the body’s own fat the results are a very natural “look and feel” with a recovery time similar to a large outpatient liposuction.
Warning – looks great in swimsuits !
Trinidad Institute of Plastic Surgery – the superior choice for Brazilian butt lift in the Caribbean, Antigua and Barbuda, The Bahamas, Barbados, Belize, Dominica, Grenada, Guyana, Haiti, Jamaica, Montserrat, Saint Lucia, St. Kitts and Nevis, St. Vincent and the Grenadines, Suriname, Trinidad and Tobago, Bermuda, British Virgin Islands, Cayman Islands, Turks and Caicos Islands, Miami, New York, Toronto, London