{"id":26981,"date":"2023-12-07T07:05:42","date_gmt":"2023-12-07T15:05:42","guid":{"rendered":"https://www.realself.com\/news\/?p=26981"},"modified":"2023-12-12T09:28:11","modified_gmt":"2023-12-12T17:28:11","slug":"ethnic-rhinoplasty-vs-traditional-rhinoplasty","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https://www.realself.com\/news\/ethnic-rhinoplasty-vs-traditional-rhinoplasty","title":{"rendered":"What Makes Ethnic Rhinoplasty Different from a Traditional Nose Job"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Featured Experts<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Dr. Dara Liotta<\/a>, a board-certified facial plastic surgeon based in New York City and Dubai
Dr. Ari Hoschander<\/a>, a board-certified plastic surgeon in Rockville Centre, New York
Dr. Jimmy Sung<\/a>, a board-certified plastic surgeon in New York City
Dr. Edwin Kwon<\/a>, a board-certified plastic surgeon in Beverly Hills, California<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>

If you’re unhappy with your natural nose, rhinoplasty<\/a> can be a good way to smooth a bump, reshape the tip, and adjust the nostrils for all-around symmetry and more proportionate size. But as with other features, the nose can have certain characteristics depending on your ethnicity, like a bump in the bridge (aka the Roman nose) or a large, rounded tip.<\/p>

That’s where ethnic rhinoplasties come in. These types of nose jobs, which can be further categorized into Asian rhinoplasties, African American rhinoplasties, and the like, require a little more thought. They have to strike a balance between giving patients the results they want (and fixing what they don’t like) and respecting their heritage.<\/p>

That said, this sort of prescriptive approach to the nose is becoming a thing of the past. “Historically, ‘ethnic rhinoplasty’ was used to refer to a specific relationship between cartilage stiffness and skin thickness—namely, cartilage that is very soft combined with skin that is very thick,” says Dr. Dara Liotta<\/a>, a board-certified facial plastic surgeon based in New York City and Dubai; these days, she considers the term antiquated.<\/p>

However, there’s still a need for some<\/em> extra consideration, since many of the textbook goals of rhinoplasty generally center on Caucasian noses as the “ideal.” But the combination of thicker skin and softer cartilage—which tends to create a naturally wider, rounder, and overall softer look—requires different surgical techniques to get definition and angularity, which are the traditional goals, says Dr. Liotta. With that in mind, here’s what makes an ethnic rhinoplasty different.<\/p>

Interested in African American Rhinoplasty?<\/small><\/div>Find Doctors Near You<\/a><\/div>

What to expect during an ethnic rhinoplasty consultation<\/h2>

Being on the same page with your surgeon is always important, but it’s especially crucial in the case of an ethnic rhinoplasty. “Patient goals are a mix of how they see themselves, beauty ideals of their peers and culture, and their personal preferences,” says Dr. Liotta. “It’s the surgeon’s job to listen to and understand the goals of the patient—and use their experience and knowledge of anatomy to help the patient understand exactly what results are possible.”<\/p>

This entails identifying the issue in the first place. While some ethnic rhinoplasty patients may have a clear understanding of what their concern is, it might not line up with the opinion of a surgeon who brings a more aesthetic vision to the table. “If you come to me and say, ‘I want a new nostril width,’ but your nostrils are fine and you have a big bump, I’m going to [suggest you] take your bump off,” says Dr. Ari Hoschander<\/a>, a board-certified plastic surgeon in Rockville Centre, New York.<\/p>

On the other hand, if someone requests something vague, like “a better version” of the nose they have, then your surgeon may try to get more specific. “I’ll say, ‘Your tip is wide, so let’s narrow it’ or ‘Your dorsum is low. Let’s raise it a little,’” says Dr. Hoschander.<\/p>

One way to meet in the middle is with imaging programs like Vectra, which New York City board-certified plastic surgeon Dr. Jimmy Sung<\/a> calls “the gold standard” for the 3D reconstruction of a facial model. “By using that, we have something like a digital image that we can talk about together,” he explains. “I can morph it and say, ‘Do you like it this way? Do you like it that way?’”<\/p>

This hands-on collaboration isn’t just helpful for results that satisfy both the surgeon and the patient—it can actually make or break the success of an ethnic rhinoplasty. “I find imaging programs to simulate rhinoplasty results to be extremely necessary when traveling to different parts of the globe to operate,” says Dr. Liotta.<\/p>

Dr. Sung, for his part, also requires two or three consultations before a patient can schedule their surgery. “The only way [to get a satisfactory result] is, the patient needs to be well educated before they get the rhinoplasty,” he says. “And I believe in a cooling-off period. This is not Vegas.”<\/p>

How the ethnic rhinoplasty itself can differ<\/h2>

Ethnic rhinoplasties, rather than falling neatly into different techniques for each ethnicity, can rather be placed into two broader buckets: reductive rhinoplasty and augmentative rhinoplasty. “In reductive rhinoplasty, you’re taking a big nose and trying to make it smaller, and then there’s augmentation rhinoplasty, where you’re taking a smaller, flatter nose and making it taller,” says Dr. Edwin Kwon<\/a>, a board-certified plastic surgeon in Beverly Hills, California.<\/p>

When Asian, African American, and some groups of Hispanic people get a rhinoplasty consultation, they tend to fall in the augmentation category, according to Dr. Kwon. (lt’s worth mentioning that the diversity of noses within Hispanic people tends to be very wide, with one 2009 study<\/a> calling out three different archetypes).<\/p>

They share commonalities not only in their characteristics—like a low bridge—but also in their dissatisfaction. There are usually three universal complaints among these patients. First, “they feel like the bridge of the nose is too flat, so it makes their overall nose look flat,” says Dr. Kwon. “Sometimes they have trouble wearing glasses because the glasses don’t fit well.” Secondly, the shape of the nose tends to be round, bulbous, and relatively large for the face. Finally, “the third most common complaint is that their nostrils are wide,” he says. (That being said, there are still some differences. For instance, African Americans tend to have a wide alar base—alar being the nostril region—while Asian Americans have a narrower alar base and smaller openings, says Dr. Hoschander.)<\/p>

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A post shared by Andres Bustillo, MD, FACS (@andresbustillomd)<\/a><\/p><\/div><\/blockquote>