Cosmetic Surgery

Not everyone has the cojones or the cash to get plastic surgery, but as the thriving beauty industry indicates, that doesn’t mean people are halting in their quests to fix their features. As plastic surgery becomes more popular, alternatives are springing up, many claiming to provide similar results with less pain and a whole lot less money. Take, for example, the Coco Beautiful New Look of Nose. While an outsider might label this nose clip a glorified plastic clothespin, some Japanese, Korean, or Taiwanese businessman out there has saved thousands of dollars on rhinoplasty surgery by dutifully applying the $7.50 clip to his nose for hours each evening.

For individuals with aging faces who don’t want to shell out big bucks for facelift surgery, there’s always the Facial Flex Facial Exercise and Toning Kit, which allows you to exercise your facial muscles in much the same way as a gasping fish. As one user in the infomercial puts it, “Even if I don’t see any [results] quite yet, I know that something’s happening and I know that I will see something soon.” If one can halt the aging process by placebo effect alone, she’s got it made.

Of course, such desperate measures aren’t unique to our time. Even before the existence of plastic surgery, women especially looked for alternative ways to enhance, reduce, and lift their way to aesthetic glory. The Psycho-Expander was marketed around the turn of the century to “develop neck, chest, and shoulders to striking beauty” by doubling women’s breathing capacity (read: cup size) for “perfect breath control” (man control) by means of a harness strapped around the chest. At some point, a girl’s just got to look at herself, laden with nose clip, mouth wire, and boob harness and have this epiphany: just get the surgery.