Reversing ‘breast regret’ and £26,000 face and neck lifts are predicted to be the biggest cosmetic surgery trends of 2024.
MailOnline spoke to Marc Pacifico, chairman of the British Association of Aesthetic Plastic Surgeons, about what are likely to be the procedures in greatest demand in the coming year.
The head of the charity, whose members are surgeons committed to improving practice in Britain, said there were unlikely to be any more big boob jobs this year.
Instead of the ‘Love Island type’ breast augmentation, Mr Pacifico said clients either wanted smaller cup sizes or, in some cases, had larger implants removed because they were tired of physically carrying them around.
Another procedure, the neck lift, is also predicted to become increasingly important over the next twelve months.
In the boob trends for 2024, ‘Love Island-esque’ huge boob jobs are out and smaller cup sizes or in some cases reductions are on the rise (stock image)
The head of the British Association of Aesthetic Plastic Surgeons also told MailOnline that neck lifts are in increasing demand, in a trend mainly driven by social media (stock image)
Mr Pacifico said demand for the procedure, which sculpts and redefines the contours of the neck, has been driven by people realizing that their facelifts stick out like a sore thumb without one.
The cosmetic surgeon said large breast implants were increasingly falling out of favor among women, especially new mothers.
Instead, he said women, mostly in their late 20s and early 40s, opted for post-lactation breast restoration instead of breast augmentation.
“Post-pregnancy patients who would like their breasts to be restored to the way they were before breastfeeding and before she lost breast volume, rather than that ‘Love Island’ type,” he said.
Another trend has been addressing breast regret, with women who got larger and heavier implants years ago now wanting to move down to a smaller size because they’ve grown tired of the physical problems they can cause.
Large breast implants, like their natural counterparts, can cause women to suffer from back, shoulder or neck pain due to the strain of the physical weight.
Mr Pacifico said that ‘shape over size’ is the new mantra, and smaller implants combined with a breast lift are now preferred.
He added that cosmetic surgeons also saw an increase in breast reductions.
These are procedures in which women who suffer from the problems associated with having larger breasts, such as pain, skin irritation and inability to fully exercise, have part of their breast removed and then the rest reshaped.
Although they are available under strict criteria, Mr Pacifico said private surgeons in some parts of the NHS were seeing an increase in patients unwilling to wait for their procedure in the health service.
Another cosmetic procedure that Pacifico believes will be on the rise in 2024 is the “transformative” combined face and neck lift.
He said demand for this surgery was mainly driven by social media, with people realizing how easy it was to spot a facelift on someone with an unadulterated neck.
“Without good, harmonious improvement to a person’s neck, a facelift doesn’t look as good as it could or as natural as it could,” he said.
A facelift lifts and retracts the skin of the face, making the face look tighter and smoother.
But Mr. Pacifico said if you have one but don’t do anything about the neck, the fact that you’ve had a facelift can stick out like a sore thumb.
“If you don’t have a good neck and a good face, we can tell right away that something is wrong,” he said.
‘If we want to achieve the very best result, and that is someone who doesn’t look like he’s had surgery, very natural, very fresh, with a beautiful jawline and a beautiful neck, then a more involved operation is needed.’
More involvement means more expensive, with Mr Pacifico saying a high-end combined face and neck lift is likely to cost between £22,000 and £26,000.
He predicted that more surgeons would offer combined surgeries in the near future in response to patient demand.
Mr Pacifico said that although a few men inquired about the procedure, the trend was mainly led by women in their 50s who had researched how to achieve the best aesthetic results.
However, he warned that demand could outstrip supply, with only 15 to 20 UK surgeons currently offering this type of complex surgery.