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Beauty Junkies: Inside Our $15 Billion Obsession With Cosmetic Surgery By Alex Kuczynski ( Doubleday )
Release Date: 2006-10-01
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List Price: $24.95
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Product Description
A star writer for the New York Times Styles section captures the follies, frauds, and fanaticism that fuel the American pursuit of youth and beauty in a wickedly revealing excursion into the burgeoning business of cosmetic enhancement.
Americans are aging faster and getting fatter than any other population on the planet. At the same time, our popular notions of perfect beauty have become so strict it seems even Barbie wouldn’t have a chance of making it into the local beauty pageant.
Aging may be a natural fact of life, but for a growing number of Americans its hallmarks—wrinkles, love handles, jiggling flesh—are seen as obstacles to be conquered on the path to lasting, flawless beauty. In Beauty Junkies Alex Kuczynski, whose sly wit and fearless reporting in the Times has won her fans across the country, delivers a fresh and irresistible look at America's increasingly desperate pursuit of ultimate beauty by any means necessary.
From a group of high-maintenance New York City women who devote themselves to preserving their looks twenty-four hours a day, to a “surgery safari” in South Africa complete with “after” photographs of magically rejuvenated patients posing with wild animals, to a podiatrist's office in Manhattan where a “foot face-lift” provides women with the right fit for their $700 Jimmy Choos, Kuczynski portrays the all-American quest for self-transformation in all its extremes. In New York, lawyers become Botox junkies in an effort to remain poker-faced. In Los Angeles, women of an uncertain age nip and tuck their most private areas, so that every inch of their bodies is as taut as their lifted faces. Across the country, young women graduating from high school receive gifts of breast implants – from their parents.
As medicine and technology stretch the boundaries of biology, Kuczynski asks whether cosmetic surgery might even be part of human evolution, a kind of cosmetic survival of the fittest – or firmest? With incomparable portraits of obsessive patients and the equally obsessed doctors who cater to their dreams, Beauty Junkies examines the hype, the hope, and the questionable ethics surrounding the advent of each new miraculous technique. Lively and entertaining, thought-provoking and disturbing, Beauty Junkies is destined to be one of the most talked-about books of the season.
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Informative and entertaining ( claibornem )
An interesting look into the beauty industry. Creative, funny, and informative. I only gave it a 4 because of how it left me feeling. I've never really considered plastic surgery, but there were times in the book that I actually thought "wow, maybe I should get that done". There were also times when I was so glad I never have and made me relish being actually looking like an individual rather than a barbie.
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 Extreme Critic ( bdifowenfwofv )
The endless struggle against looking old or inadequate, the inability to accept the changing or imperfect body and face, coupled with the relentless promotion of the technology to reverse the aging process, spawned a $15 billion industry in America. This book discusses the moral, ethical and socio-economic implications of readily available services like liposuction, breast augmentation, face lifts and botox injections.
Kuczynski's reporting is by no means ground-breaking. The book is certainly not an outright condemnation of cosmetic procedures and vanity, but don't expect anything balanced or objective. Its tone is definitely negative and very much against cosmetic surgery.
After throwing a lot of stunning figures (numbers) and highlighting the extreme extent to which some American women go to make themselves look younger or more beautiful. She talks about "surgery safari"s in South Africa. This is followed by a chapter on the "rise and fall of botox". A very concise history of this "magic bullet" against aging, but it would be hard to convince the public that the cases which ended up in disaster/death are representative of the huge number of satisfied botox patients.
Next, Kuczynski goes into the history of reconstructive surgery. This branch of medicine has, over the years, shifted from rehabilitating disfigured soldiers to perfecting the faces of vain people.
The link between HMO hassles and the flourishing of cosmetic surgery industry is an interesting one. But the author goes further than that. The media fixes our notions on what is beautiful. The herd behaviour influences people to improve themselves both inside and outside. The result - nobody is plain anymore. Evolution won't take its course! The author is actually worried that women who can play the role of grandmothers are getting fewer in numbers. Then, she goes on to expose juicy details on the disunity of the medical community, the unflattering ways in which cosmetic surgeons market themselves.
Finally, we get an inkling into why the author takes her stand. She recounts a traumatic experience with a Restylane injection in her lip. Another chapter on "the fatal quest for beauty" and a very interesting experiment (and results) in which the author begs for breast augmentation funds online.
Beauty Junkies is a a very well-organised, well-reserached and well-written book. But like some of the unnecessary surgeries she mentions, I think that Kuczynski's views are a bit on the extreme side. A good read for those obsessed with cosmetic surgery, but don't forget to put matters in proper perspective.
Survival of the Prettiest: The Science of Beauty
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Scary, but good read. ( resperling )
Beauty Junkies, by Alex Kuczynski, gives us the history of plastic and cosmetic surgery, the charlatans, the risks, the popularity especially in the U.S. and its ridiculous extremes. The story is told deftly, with humor and a sense of veritas: the author herself had undergone several procedures, including one that had the unintended effect of swelling her mouth to grotesque proportions (a severe response and fortunately for her, a temporary one). This last experience compelled her to wean herself from her growing obsession with cosmetic surgery and procedures.
Now, although the trend of excessive surgical change doesn't only apply to females, it's with the females that it is most prevalent and to me, most offensive: to change oneself into the porn star mold (i.e., sexual object), to reduce one's features so the result is a person indistinguishable form scores of other blandly appealing "beauties" (i.e., loss of that which makes us unique) or to chase youth as if it were the only thing worth having. It's sad that the inner selves of these people - intellect, creativity, personality, achievement - is so neglected and disparaged - in order to maintain a superficial and ultimately impermanent illusion. Ms. Kuczynski, in fact, discusses a woman for whom her appearance - and all the supporting procedures - is ALL she does with her time and money. This book is a cautionary tale, and an honest and entertaining - if disheartening - read.
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Informative chit chat ( dawnorzel )
This book was an eye-opener for someone not familiar with cosmetic surgery and beauty procedures. Lots of interesting information but rather rambling and lots of spin on the info.
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beauty junkies ( bebestroumf2000 )
it is an overall goodbook,but one thing attracts the attention is that the author is very self centered.one cannot deny the good sides of plastic surgery or its substitutes,like botox or others in the same field.
being born not a long time ago,the author does not know how lucky all women are today to have handy so many ways to stay beautiful and young.eversince humankind exists,human beings have been looking for the magical recipes for staying young.the author was born when all these fights were elements of the past.exagerating?maybe but why be so intolerant if people feel like doing it???? intolerance is what drives to such extremes in working on yourself but it is fashionable now to be
''natural''........let us wait until she really NEEDS it badly.would she prefer then to be a junky or an old rejected hag?????
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