Hello, this is me:
A little dead inside, roots overgrown, hair bleached beyond repair, but I also want to say my lips look really good here. I used to hate how thick they were because all the other girls in my elementary school years had small, thin lips, and I wanted to be pretty like them! I didn’t realize then how being Vietnamese made me so different than all the other girls in suburban Utah (yep).
Then, a certain girl with the first name Kylie and the last name Jenner set off approximately two years of swirling controversy over her lips: did she get plastic surgery? She’s so young! They were so thick and clearly worked on!
Homegirl later admitted that she was super-self conscious over her lips after a boy kissed her and commented on how small they were. Well.
And now my lips are in style. My orthodontist told me people pay thousands of dollars to have lips like mine. And finally, at 11 years old, I embraced my lips.
(I’m like 14 in this photo but you get the idea.)
Which brings into question the greater scope of cosmetic alterations. Plastic surgery isn’t just inserting fake silicone boobs anymore. It involves fillers, bone-breaking and remodeling, bone-shaving, fat-sucking, and fat-stuffing. What are people putting in their noses? What are people padding their cheeks with (in every sense of the word)? Can I look like Beyonce?
I’m looking forward to answering these questions and more in the months ahead. I’ve watched many episodes of Botched on E! with my mother, and I’ve always wondered how these biomaterials have developed and what’s on the cutting edge.
My favorite episode so far is when this woman got her boobs done to even them out but the doctor messed up because he was just a gynecologist or something and he left a whole TUBE in her breast like dear Lord.