Posted on
19 March 2009, under
Grooming; More Grooming articles...
Improving Man
One in five cosmetic procedures in Ireland is now carried out on men. That’s according to a survey published in Rejuvenate, Ireland’s only cosmetic surgery magazine.
The survey, which values the Irish cosmetic market at €36m per annum, found the top five procedures for Irish men to be:
1) Permanent hair removal
2) Male breast reduction
3) Botox
4) Broken veins / Liposuction
5) Microdermabrasion / Rhinoplasty
“You’ve heard of the Sarkozy syndrome?” asks Marie Loftus, Rejuvenate’s managing editor. “It describes older men who are maybe separated or divorced and going into relationships with younger women. The younger women are fuelling this, or making them more aware of treatments that are available.”
The bigger picture, Loftus says, is that cosmetic surgery is now accepted as an industry. Around 8,000 invasive (and far more non-invasive) treatments take place every year in Ireland. “It’s not shocking. There’s a lot more information and it’s far more accessible.”
As to why male procedures are on the increase, she says: “I think it’s that everybody is working so hard, and everybody’s grasping. It’s like, ‘I’m doing all of this and I want to come out the other end healthy, happy and younger looking… I suppose it’s the eternal youth thing.”
But are zapping wrinkles and getting rid of ‘moobs’ appropriate solutions for complex body image issues, or quick fixes ultimately causing more problems than they address?
“The people we see have been thinking of procedures for a long time,” says Liz Dale, Director of the Harley Group. “It takes a lot of courage to come through the door. It’s not a quick fix... I don’t think it’s fair to make judgments, especially when you see how confident people can be afterwards.
“We see lot of mainstream people who don’t want to look eternally young. They just want to look a little bit younger and healthier than they actually are. Some of them, particularly men, say: ‘I just want to be how I used to be! It’s not like they want to be anything different, or look like a 25-year-old, it’s just that they don’t want to look tired or continually worried!”
Prospective clients should bear in mind that the sector is currently unregulated in Ireland, however. The growth of unnecessary cosmetic surgery has also been criticized by the Irish Medical Council and the Irish Association of Plastic Surgeons.
The Commission on Patient Safety and Quality Assurance recently recommended a mandatory licensing system for all health services in the State, but until then, the onus of research is on the consumer.
“You really have to take a look at yourself and what’s going on in your life before you choose any procedure,” Loftus concludes. “You need to be on home soil, and you need to be attending a doctor that is living and practicing in this country, as opposed to flying in at the weekend.”
Pól Ó Conghaile
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