Remember when you were 18, and you were like, “I'm gonna stretch my ears”? And then remember when you were 27, and you were like, “I wish I hadn't stretched my ears”?
And then you had to get them sewn up.
This, actually, is kinda like that. Kinda. Maybe.
Dr. Semira Bayati is a Newport Beach plastic surgeon who believes the “lobe job” is the new boob job—earlobe “correction,” really.
Bayati thinks your saggy, floppy earlobes are giving away your age. Nope, it wasn't those crow's-feet, perma-dark eye bags, increasing beer belly or gray hairs sprouting every day. It's your earlobes.
“Gravity takes its toll on earlobes,” he says. “They droop like chins and breasts do and can make you look older. This aging of the earlobes is only exacerbated by continued wearing of heavy earrings.”
And gravity, Bayati remarks, is just the start of it. He goes on to explain that a loss of fat tissue in earlobes occurs as one ages. And with the frequent wearing of such heavy earrings as the chandelier type, you've got the next plastic surgery other people think you need. Hefty earrings may also contribute to a torn earlobe that needs to be sewn back up again, which kinda goes back to that gauged-ears thing.
Is anyone even looking that closely at your ears? Probably not, but that goes for most things you hate about yourself anyway.
One method to rejuvenate and liven up your earlobes? Injectable refillers. No, seriously: Bayati thinks that by filling up a deflated earlobe, wrinkles will reduce and appear more plump—which leads to this question: Earlobes have wrinkles?
The second method is reduction via an incision and a “meticulous closure” using absorbable stitches done under local anesthetic.
Oh, and if you're going in for something such as a facelift or, uh, “facial-fat transfer,” Bayat suggests the earlobe reduction can be performed in conjunction with those surgeries. (Thoughtful!) The whole procedure is done in less than one hour, and ears can be repierced in six to eight weeks. The earlobe job comes on top of the “Ready-to-Wear Breast” plastic-surgery “craze” that graced Orange County in 2009—plump up those boobs on Friday and be back in the office on Monday!
And same as then, though no one's in any kind of place to pass judgment on those who choose to undergo plastic surgery (though I believe the phrase “feminist fist shake at the heavens!” was used last time), you really do need to wonder what kind of place you are in in life when you're feeling bad about your earlobes.
This column appeared in print as “Lobe Job?”
