Perfecting the Ethnic Nose

The shape of your nose often times depends on your culture, and if you’re considering a nose job, you may want to maintain that ethnicity.

Dr. Geoffrey Keyes, a board-certified plastic surgeon from Los Angeles, California talks about how the purpose of an ethnic rhinoplasty is to resolve nasal issues, cosmetic and functional, without removing the uniqueness of the patient. A good plastic surgeon knows how to shape the patient into a better version of themselves.

By Geoffrey Keyes, MD
and Susan Kamyab
ThePlasticSurgerryChannel.com

Maintaining Ethnicity

“When you’re doing a rhinoplasty patients often want to maintain their ethnicity.  If you take an African American, you don’t want to take an African American nose and make it look like a Swedish nose, it just doesn’t work,” explains Dr. Keyes.

You have to take into account the specific internal and external features of each patient’s nose. Ethnic noses may require a considerable alteration of the internal structures in order to change the outer appearance.

• Surgery to change the shape of bone and cartilage inside the nose.
• Grafting cartilage from elsewhere on the body to extend the nasal tip.
• Narrowing of the nostrils.

These major internal changes will impact the function of the nose.

Meaning, extreme care is given to keep ideal breathing function and open airways. With the reconstruction to the nose, rhinoplasty can also fix any hindrance or abnormalities of the nose.

How Young is too Young?

Dr. Keyes notes, “It’s not a matter of age; it’s a matter of growth.  So whether it’s a male or a female, they have to have reached maturity and their facial features have to be the size they’re going to be.  You don’t want to do a rhinoplasty on a ten year old girl because her nose hasn’t grown to its complete extent. Normally a girl at the age of sixteen, seventeen, or fifteen in some cases, their noses are full grown. For boys it’s a little longer but by the time they are seventeen or eighteen years old they can have a rhinoplasty.”

The Right Rhinoplasty for Natural Looking Results

Dr. Keyes uses a computer program, that allows him to alter the nose while the patients are sitting there to get an idea of what they want.  “Sometimes it’s not all about what the doctor wants it’s what the patient wants.  You have to educate the patient about what looks good and if you do rhinoplasty correctly and it looks natural, people don’t know you’ve had a nose job.”