Profileplasty

Combination surgeries are a trend. If you’ve been thinking about facial surgery to improve your profile, you might want to learn more about what nose surgery and chin surgery together can do for you. Combining nose and chin surgery can often enhance the profile and improve overall facial balance.  

Combination surgeries are a trend. If you’ve been thinking about facial surgery to improve your profile, you might want to learn more about what nose surgery and chin surgery together can do for you. Combining nose and chin surgery can often enhance the profile and improve overall facial balance.

The nose-chin-neck relationship is a key factor in an aesthetically proportionate and pleasing face and profile. Profileplasty refers to all the cosmetic surgical procedures that can contribute towards improving your appearance in profile.

Many people do not appreciate the fact that beauty stems more from aesthetically pleasing proportions than from changing one facial feature or another. If you’re trying to improve your profile, think not just of nose reshaping, but also about how the jaw, chin and neck area affect the profile. Research done in Italy shows that combining rhinoplasty and chin surgery into a single profileplasty procedure can provide satisfying long-term results.[1]

The nose is at the centre of the face, and even the slightest change can produce great improvements in appearance. Nose surgery is globally popular, and its benefits are well known. The aesthetic possibilities and potential of chin surgery are not so well understood. It is common to hear people asking a surgeon to change the nose and features of the upper two thirds of their faces. Only a few mention the lower third—the jaw and chin—as trouble spots. In many people, however, profile improvement can benefit from both nose and chin surgery.

Surgeons often advise their patients that, to produce the best profile, the lower face also needs to be changed. Chin surgery can improve proportion, balancing the chin with other parts of the face and neck, as well as the lips, forehead and nose. For example, even if your nose is perfectly passable and average, it can seem large if you have a receding chin. So although your first instinct could be to make your nose smaller, your surgeon may suggest chin surgery instead to give you a stronger chin. Nose surgery will not produce the profile you want if you have either a weak or a very strong chin.

Types of chin surgery

There are different types of chin surgery:

• Chin implants – Chin augmentation using an implant can produce dramatic improvements to your profile. Chin implants are usually inserted through an incision inside the mouth or sometimes under the chin. Small pockets are created in the space underneath the skin for the implants to be inserted. The implants are affixed to the chin with tiny surgical screws or permanent sutures.
• Shaving the chin bone – Chin bone contouring can reduce a jutting or overly prominent chin, bringing natural balance to the lower third of the face.
• Sliding genioplasty – Genioplasty involves making a cut in the chin bone and moving it either back or forward. Sliding genioplasty, which moves the chin back, is used for treating a jutting or overly prominent chin. Sliding genioplasty, which moves the chin bone forward, is used to build a receding or weak chin. All patients in the study mentioned above had open rhinoplasty and genioplasty.

A surgeon will be able to explain which procedure or procedures will help improve your face, and in which way. Multiple studies have shown that sliding genioplasty and other chin surgery can help bring balance and harmony to the lower face.[2] [3]

Using computer imaging software

While you can have all the confidence in the world in your chosen surgeon, there is nothing like seeing your new profile or face on a computer screen. Imaging software to do just that is available in most surgeons’ offices and it lets you see how minor changes to different features can improve your overall appearance. This technology has become an indispensable part of the modern cosmetic surgery experience.

During the initial consultation, digital images will be taken of your face from multiple angles. Your surgeon will talk with you about the changes you want. The 3D images that comes up on screen will help you understand the possibilities and the actual changes that are possible.

For example, if you initially wanted nose surgery and did not buy the idea that a better, stronger chin would make rhinoplasty a non-issue for you, seeing this in 3D might help you appreciate your surgeon’s recommendation.

Be warned, though, you may not end up looking exactly like the images you see of your enhanced face. The images provide a good guideline for your surgeon to use in planning your facial surgery. Your surgeon will also help you see how tweaking features even a little can make large changes to your appearance. This experience also helps you appreciate the idea of beauty being a matter of harmony and balance, rather than an attribute of individual features.

Why combination surgeries are popular

Facial surgeons around the globe have combined rhinoplasty and chin surgery into one single procedure, producing stable results and good outcomes for their patients. According to Dr. Dario Bertossi from the University of Verona, “Genioplasty, if performed with bone remodeling, is a stable operation which guarantees long-term results.”

According to Dr. Jeffrey Salomon, an assistant clinical professor of plastic surgery at Yale University School of Medicine who was not involved in the Verona study, combining rhinoplasty and genioplasty makes sense because it helps reduce overall patient costs.

Combining surgeries also helps avoid the separate recovery times necessary when the surgeries are performed separately. Convenience and reduced costs are key factors in combined procedures’ popularity. Mummy makeovers—which typically combine breast augmentation, a tummy tuck and liposuction into one procedure—are another globally popular combination procedure.

If you’re considering facial surgery, especially surgery to improve your profile, keep your mind open to the possibilities. And check out our article, “What is Beauty.” It may change your ideas about exactly what in your face you want to change. It may also help you understand what your surgeon recommends in terms of profileplasty.