The chances are that if you are over 40 years old, when you were a kid you may have heard your Mom talking on the phone about some other woman. “I think she definitely had some work done” she probably said. Back then, that was scandalous, something to be kept secret. And psychologists of the time categorized people having plastic surgery as depressed and “suffering from clinically low self-esteem.”

Now contrast that to people under 40, particularly in their early 20s. People in that age group would be more likely to reply, “What’s the big deal? Everybody could use a little help here and there.”

The subject of cosmetic procedures and the changing societal mores about them is the subject of a mid-summer cover story in Time titled “Nip. Tuck. Or Else. Now everyone gets work done. Will you?” by Joel Stein. The article chronicles the aesthetic industry and its ever-increasing client base. The conclusion? Americans feel much more comfortable these days with the idea of cosmetic enhancement.

It talks about Joan Rivers who had her first facelift in 1973 and said she received five decades of ridicule about it. That stopped, she said, around 2008. She wrote a book about it, Men Are Stupid… And They Like Big Boobs: A Women’s Guide to Beauty Through Plastic Surgery. In the book she says things have changed so much that now the “shame is not having anything done.”

In 2014, 15 million cosmetic procedures were performed in the United States, a 13% increase from 2011, a 50% increase from 2000. $13 billion was spent. Five times as many of those procedures were non-surgical — 3.6 million Botox and other neuromodulator injections, 1.7 million filler injections among them.

In 2005, two thirds of cosmetic surgery patients made $60,000 or less. Gone are the days of Beverly Hills or Upper East Side residents being the only ones who can afford a little work.

In the article, Stein attributes the changing landscape of the aesthetic industry to a few factors: surgeons’ skills have become much more nuanced; reality shows have demystified the process; cosmetic options are widely available through doctors, dentists, and dermatologists; new procedures, such as laser skin resurfacing, don’t require surgery; procedures are cheaper and doctors created payment plans; thanks to social media we are all, to some degree, on the red carpet; and culture now celebrates a cosmetic procedure as doing something good for ourselves.

So, what are you waiting for? Isn’t it time to take care of those cosmetic issues that have been bugging you? Call us at 843-705-8940 for your consultation with Dr. Smith.