Brazilian butt lift before and after photo courtesy of Dr. Jeff Angobaldo, board-certified plastic surgeon in Plano, TX. Results may vary.
Brazilian butt lift before and after photo courtesy of Dr. Jeff Angobaldo, board-certified plastic surgeon in Plano, TX. Results may vary.
Brazilian butt lift before and after photo courtesy of Dr. Jeff Angobaldo, board-certified plastic surgeon in Plano, TX. Results may vary.
Brazilian butt lift before and after photo courtesy of Dr. Jeff Angobaldo, board-certified plastic surgeon in Plano, TX. Results may vary.
Brazilian butt lift before and after photo courtesy of Dr. Jeff Angobaldo, board-certified plastic surgeon in Plano, TX. Results may vary.
Brazilian butt lift before and after photo courtesy of Dr. Jeff Angobaldo, board-certified plastic surgeon in Plano, TX. Results may vary.
Brazilian butt lift before and after photo courtesy of Dr. Jeff Angobaldo, board-certified plastic surgeon in Plano, TX. Results may vary.
Brazilian butt lift before and after photo courtesy of Dr. Jeff Angobaldo, board-certified plastic surgeon in Plano, TX. Results may vary.
A Brazilian butt lift, commonly called BBL surgery, is a popular cosmetic procedure that uses a patientâs own fat to create a higher, rounder, and fuller butt.Â
In this outpatient procedure, a plastic surgeon first performs liposuction to harvest unwanted fat from other areas of the body like the thighs, back, stomach, and flanks. They purify the fat, and then use a technique known as gluteal fat augmentation to inject a portion of it into the butt cheeks (and often the hips), enhancing the size and shape of the buttocks.Â
Dr. Matthew Schulman, a board-certified plastic surgeon in New York City, says that the Brazilian buttock lift has become so popular because âit is essentially two procedures in one. You are able to get rid of your unwanted fat and at the same time reshape your buttocks and hipsâall without artificial injections or implants.â This combination can dramatically contour the body and create an hourglass shape.
Pros
Cons
Hear from real patients whether their BBL was worth it, and learn more about the procedure from Dr. John Paul Tutela, a board-certified plastic surgeon in Livingston, New Jersey.
Your Brazilian butt lift price will depend on your surgeonâs credentials, their location, the number of areas where your surgeon performs liposuction, the type of anesthesia you get, and a few other key factors.
Most surgeons offer payment plans or accept third-party financing options, such as CareCredit.
See our complete guide to Brazilian butt lift costs
As you're choosing your surgeon, look for Brazilian butt lift pictures that show patients who had similar body types to your own, with the kind of fullness youâre looking for.
Pay attention not just to the butt, but also to the 360 lipo results, with an eye for proportional, natural-looking contours across the abdomen and back, with no visible lumps, incisions, or scars.
The swooping curve from the back to the lower butt should look especially smooth, with maximum projection at the center of the buttocks. Learn more.Â
The BBL pictures in our photo gallery have been shared by the surgeon who performed the procedure, with the patient's consent.
Good candidates for BBL surgery:
A growing number of providers are offering a "skinny BBL" procedure for patients with a BMI below 21. Some use the BeautiFill system for fat harvesting and processing, which has an average fat cell viability rate of over 95%.Â
Slimmer patients just need to keep their augmentation expectations in check: a skinny procedure involves a smaller amount of fat transfer than a traditional Brazilian butt lift, to ensure a natural result and optimal fat viability.Â
An in-person or virtual consultation with a prospective surgeon should include a physical exam to make sure youâre a good candidate, discuss your complete medical history, and ensure you have realistic expectations about the outcome.
RealSelf Tip: Before you schedule a consultation with a potential surgeon, look carefully at their before and after photo gallery and zero in on before pics that are similar to your body type. Here's what to look for in BBL before and after photos.
BBL surgery takes two to four hours. Every surgeon has their own technique, but hereâs a general run-down of what happens.
1. Markings and photos
2. Anesthesia
3. Liposuction to harvest the fat
4. Fat transfer to the butt
To see a significant difference, youâll need to have at least 250â300 cc of fat transfer per side.
Itâs possible to have up to 1000cc (1.0L) of fat transferred, and patients looking for a dramatic volume bump often want that maximum amount of fat. However, the volume of fat transfer youâll be able to get will depend on the capacity of your buttâs soft tissues and what the skin envelope can contain. Experts say overfilling can create constriction that leads to a greater rate of fat cell death (fat necrosis) or abscess, as the transferred fat cells struggle to establish a new, healthy blood supply.Â
If your aesthetic goal requires more fat than can be placed in the subcutaneous layer in one surgery, you could have a second procedure, or even third, down the line.Â
âProbably one-third of my patients come back for a second round,â says Dr. Alexander Aslani, a plastic surgeon in Marbella, Spain. âThey donât necessarily need more, but they want more. Many patients just fall madly in love with the very swollen, exaggerated look directly after surgery.â
If you donât have enough excess fat to create that look, your surgeon may recommend a combination of fat transfer and buttock implants to get the projection you want.
Recovery time varies between two and six weeks, depending on the extent of your lipo and how well your body heals. Plan on taking at least two weeks off work, though itâs better to take four if you can get it.
Everyone heals differently, but hereâs a general recovery timeline.
Also keep these recovery tips in mind:
Related: 8 Products Plastic Surgeons Recommend For a Successful Brazilian Butt Lift Recovery
RealSelf Tip: Some patients use the term "fluffing" to refer to the natural tissue settling after BBL surgery. But according to numerous plastic surgeons on RealSelf, thereâs really no such thing as âfluffingâ after a BBL. The word âis usually used for breast augmentation and describes the phenomenon that occurs over several months in which the implant will drop into a more natural position and the tissues will relax allowing the implant to fall in a more soft and natural formation,â Philadelphia plastic surgeon Dr. Christian Subbio explains.Â
âI suppose one could describe some aspects of a BBL in a similar way: Initially the buttocks is inflated and tight from all the fat injected, but with time, some of that fat will dissolve, swelling will dissipate, and the tight and inflated appearance will drop and settle some, becoming rounder and more natural,â says Dr. Subbio. As liposuction-related swelling diminishes, your waist will appear smaller, which can make the butt look curvier by comparison.
Avoid sitting or lying directly on your butt for at least two weeks post-op, to allow the new fat grafts to establish blood supply. Transferred fat only lives if new blood vessels grow into it, and the pressure from sitting can compromise your results by causing fat cell death.
After two weeks, your surgeon may allow you to sit on a special donut-shaped pillow that redistributes pressure to your thighs.
Related: The 5 Best Post-Operative Pillows for the Most Uncomfortable Surgeries
Doctors on RealSelf recommend waiting up to four weeks to have sex after a Brazilian butt lift, but this is really a personal choice.Â
âI tell my patients that as long as they are comfortable, and avoid pressure on the butt, they can have sex as soon as they feel up to it,â says Dr. Schulman.
Youâll see much more volume immediately, but It can take up to a full year to see your final results.
During the first four months post-op, up to 40% of the transferred fat cells can be lost. The worst of the swelling should have resolved at this point, but it will continue to resolve over the coming months.
After a year, asymmetry, dents, or less-than-ideal results can be improved with additional fat transfer to your buttocks, if youâre up for the additional expense and have enough unwanted fat left to harvest.
The fat cells that remain about four months post-op will stay permanently.Â
That said, weight fluctuations can impact your results: too much weight loss will slim down your butt, while gaining a lot of weight can alter your proportions as the remaining fat cells grow.
Related: Plastic Surgeons Say Doing These Two Things Can Ruin Your BBL Results
Dr. Schulman explains that the ability of your results to change with you is part of the appeal. âThe beauty of the Brazilian butt lift is that since itâs your own living fat cells, it will change as your body changes.â
Yes, a tummy tuck and a Brazilian butt lift can be combined, allowing you to âavoid having to pay some fees twice, such as the facility and anesthesia fees,â says Dr. Scott Chapin, a plastic surgeon in Doylestown, Pennsylvania. Â
However, there is a downside: combining the two increases OR time and risks, and it makes for a very difficult recovery, leaving you unable to sit or lay on your belly for several weeks.Â
For these reasons, a number of doctors on RealSelf advise against pairing the procedures. Dr. Schulman has safely performed thousands of BBL and tummy tuck combo operations, but he notes that âa combination procedure is not for everyone.â
BBL surgery is not so dangerous, when done right. But it has a reputation for being risky, due in part to a spate of BBL deaths that occurred several years ago in the hands of uninformed surgeons, who were injecting fat into and below the gluteal muscle, causing fatal blood clots.Â
Stigma surrounding the BBL was further heightened by a 2017 studyâlater deemed flawed by BBL thought leadersâwhich calculated the risk of death from a BBL to be between 1 in 6,214 to 1 in 2,351.
Further study revealed a more accurate Brazilian butt lift mortality rate of 1 in 14,952 patients, which is similar to that of an abdominoplasty (tummy tuck), when itâs performed by a board-certified plastic surgeon following the latest safety protocols.
A review of gluteal fat grafting published in the Aesthetic Surgery Journal (ASJ) in May 2023 underscores âincreasing evidence regarding the safety of subcutaneous gluteal lipofilling⊠principally related to new technologies, surgical techniques, and training being developed to avoid intramuscular injection of fat.â The authors go on to note that âpatients seeking surgery at unregulated facilities or via medical tourism are deemed to be at higher risk of being exposed to serious complications.â
Another new study looks specifically at the unusually high rate of BBL fatalities in South Florida, which, according to the authors, âcarries the highest BBL mortality by far in the nation.â The plastic surgeons (both BBL experts) who conducted the research reviewed the anatomic findings from 11 post-BBL surgery autopsies and found that, in all cases, fat was injected into the gluteal muscles. They also discovered that âthe great majority of patients (92%) [underwent] surgery at high-volume, budget clinics located in South Florida,â and that âshort surgical times of approximately 90 minutes appeared to be the norm for these cases.â Some surgeons weâve spoken to refer to these practices as âassembly lines.âÂ
Brazilian butt lifts are known to have the highest incidence of post-op complications of any plastic surgery procedure, but the most common ones are cosmetic and fixable: irregular contours, dents, or lumps.
The aforementioned ASJ study includes hypothermia, sepsis, skin necrosis, poor aesthetic results, and fat embolism among more serious risks and complications of the BBL.
A pulmonary fat embolism can generally be prevented if the surgeon stays above the gluteal muscle and away from veins. The danger comes in if a surgeon penetrates the fascia or injects into the muscle, a technique that can create more volume at the expense of patient safety.
âAn embolism occurs when an injection cannula injures a vein, allowing injected fat to enter the vein,â says Dr. Ricardo L. Rodriguez, a plastic surgeon in Lutherville, Maryland. âThe gluteal region is very vascularâthere are a lot of blood vessels in and below the gluteal muscle.âÂ
Fat that enters a vein can be carried into the heart or lungs, blocking critical vessels. This can quickly lead to deathâeven on the operating table.
Again, while the procedure has a notoriously dangerous reputation, plastic surgeons have been studying BBL risk factors and refining techniques, to make the procedure safer.
To further reduce the risk of complications, Dr. Rodriguez advises having surgery in a facility thatâs accredited by the American Association for Accreditation of Ambulatory Surgery Facilities (AAAASF), an accredited ambulatory facility, or a hospital.
When choosing your plastic surgeon, ensure that they:
For a complete list of essential questions to ask, see our BBL surgery consultation checklist.
If youâre on the fence about this procedure, there are a few other butt augmentation options worth considering.
Nonsurgical treatments
Surgical procedures
Doctors actively warn against liquid silicone, acrylic, and hydrogel injections. Unscrupulous injectors often use industrial-grade silicone (sometimes in their home, a hotel room, or at a nail salon) for a procedure some call âbutt shots.â None of these injections is FDA-approved for body contouring, and all can cause serious, permanent side effects, including debilitating pain, tissue death, or patient mortality. See the FDAâs safety warning.Â
RealSelf Tip: Some workout franchises use âBrazilian butt liftâ in the marketing for their exercise regimens. While workouts that target the muscles in your rear can shape and lift it, that toned appearance is very different from the curvy look that a BBL achieves by adding more fat.
Updated May 23, 2023