FEATURED EXPERTS
Dr. Ryan Stanton, a board-certified plastic surgeon in Los Angeles
Dr. Stanley Okoro, a board-certified plastic surgeon in Atlanta
Butt augmentations aren’t one size fits all. Through surgical procedures and minimally invasive options, surgeons can create a variety of different butt shapes—from round (also known as bubble butt) to V-shaped. And one of the most requested is the heart-shaped butt, named for its resemblance to an upside-down heart: narrow at the top, rounded at the bottom.
Even if patients don’t always request the heart-shaped butt by name, that’s ultimately “what they desire and find sexy and appealing,” says Dr. Ryan Stanton, a board-certified plastic surgeon in Los Angeles. However, Atlanta-based board-certified plastic surgeon Dr. Stanley Okoro has seen a decline in its popularity over the years, due to a shift toward a more natural look. In fact, more and more patients are approaching him to reduce or reverse their Brazilian butt lifts, or BBLs, which reflects “a broader trend toward embracing a more natural aesthetic and away from the heart shape that was previously coveted,” he says.
In spite of this shift, this butt shape remains among the more popular silhouettes doctors see in patients’ “wish” photos. With that, here’s how to get a heart-shaped butt, according to plastic surgeons.
How to get the heart-shaped butt
Pretty much anyone can get a heart-shaped butt, whatever their starting point. However, “as with any body implant enhancement procedure, the better-shaped starting product—that is, anatomy—always produces the better outcome,” says Dr. Stanton.
There are a few routes you can take to get there. Butt implants and fat grafting can be used, either alone or together, to create the heart shape. “This approach allows for the strategic enhancement of volume and projection, resulting in a more pronounced curvature—which is characteristic of the heart-shaped buttock aesthetic,” says Dr. Okoro. Fat grafting means a BBL, which involves liposuction on other areas of the body, like the abdomen and thighs, purification of the fat, and its injection into the butt cheeks and hips; this alone is a good option if you need only contouring to create the inverted heart shape.
That said, buttock implants always tend to be involved to some degree, especially for this particular look, since it tends to outperform the BBL in terms of results. Generally speaking, “I have found that buttock implants are far superior to BBL in consistently adding permanent projection to not only the upper but also the center and lower buttock, thus creating more of an inverted heart shape,” says Dr. Stanton.
Brazilian butt lifts alone aren’t as good, not only because the projection isn’t permanent but also because the results aren’t as consistent, according to Dr. Stanton.
Who can get a heart-shaped butt
The best candidate for a heart-shaped butt is someone who already has a “natural buttock shape,” according to Dr. Okoro; this ultimately means that you don’t have a “top shelf,” or wider hip width toward the top of the buttock, that’s disproportionate to the shape of the body. The more natural starting shape “presents an ideal canvas for sculpting a heart-shaped contour, as it allows for a more straightforward surgical approach,” he says.
That said, the inverted heart shape doesn’t make for an especially natural look, which is why it’s losing popularity these days. On top of that, “as individuals age, weight gain can alter the distribution of fat in the buttock region, often resulting in a less desirable and potentially unnatural modification of the heart-shaped contour,” says Dr. Okoro.
And finally, it doesn’t always work for everyone’s body type—and therefore “may not align with the desired outcome for every patient,” he says. This is worth keeping in mind before you go under the knife in the search for a heart-shaped butt.
