Fast Aesthetics: The Rapid Rise and Fall of Aesthetic Trends

In this week’s episode of the “Anti-Aging Insights” podcast, Dr. Teri Fisher delves into the trend of “Fast Aesthetics” as identified by Galderma. This trend revolves around the constant desire for novelty and newness in aesthetic treatments, leading to rapidly changing trends in the industry. Dr. Fisher discusses how social media plays a significant role in driving these trends, with treatments gaining popularity quickly and then fading just as fast.

Using examples from the Galderma NEXT report, Dr. Fisher highlights procedures like buccal fat removal, Brazilian butt lift surgery, Fox eyes, and Russian lips, showing how these trends can peak and decline in a short period. These rapid changes present challenges for practitioners in determining which trends will last and how to adapt their treatments accordingly.

Dr. Fisher emphasizes the importance of understanding societal trends in aesthetic treatments and the need for a stepwise approach to ensure patient satisfaction. As the demand for reversals of “fast” aesthetic treatments grows, practitioners must be prepared to navigate these shifts in consumer preferences effectively.

Stay tuned for more insights on upcoming trends in aesthetics in the following episodes, and connect with Dr. Teri Fisher on Instagram or his website for further updates and discussions.

Key Insights

• Fast Aesthetics trend identified by Galderma focuses on novelty and newness in aesthetic treatments
• Trends in aesthetics are influenced by social media and change quickly
• Examples of fast aesthetic trends include buccal fat removal, Brazilian butt lift, Fox eyes, and Russian lips
• Practitioners need to understand societal trends and consider reversibility of fast aesthetic treatments
• Time, consultation, and a stepwise approach to treatment are essential in dealing with fast aesthetics

Episode Transcript

Dr. Teri Fisher: [00:00:00] Hey there and welcome to this week’s episode of the podcast. I’m excited today to continue our journey with regards to the Galderma NEXT trends that we are seeing in aesthetics. If you haven’t listened to the last previous podcast episodes, then I encourage you to do so. Back in episode 67, I talked about the three major trends that Galderma has identified, and those are the macro movements, and they include increasing accessibility, advancements in science and technology, and social community. In episode 68, I talked about a couple of the individual trends and we talked about proactive beauty. In episode 69, we talked about mindful aesthetics. And today in episode 70, we are talking about the next trend that Galderma has identified, and this is called “Fast Aesthetics”.

It’s all about the desire for novelty and newness. And that goes as fast as it comes. And that’s the key aspect [00:01:00] here. This is all about trends that are coming and going very quickly. This can be a challenge for practitioners because it’s an issue of what is a trend that’s here to stay relatively longer than a trend that is here today and gone tomorrow. So that’s the focus today. We’re going to talk fast aesthetics, and what does fast really mean when it comes to the aesthetic treatments that we can perform, and also really the mindset of people that are looking for these aesthetic treatments.

The fact that trends in the fashion world rise and fall, well, that’s not really anything new. But what is driving it is becoming more and more dependent on what people are observing in social media. In fact, we are very much influenced by what we see and as a new type of aesthetic treatment is discovered in social media, this can lead to the popularization [00:02:00] of that particular treatment, which in turn creates a trend. But interestingly, very quickly, these trends change.

When you look at the data of what is a trending hashtag for example, on X, previously Twitter, we saw that hashtag stayed in the top 50 for an average of 17.5 hours in 2013. By 2016, this had decreased to 11.9 hours, and that shows that people have more of an appetite for newness regardless of what they are looking at.

So I want to give you a couple of examples today, and then we’ll tie things up with regards to where we are for these fast aesthetic trends. Again, these are some of the examples that were identified in the Galderma NEXT report.

The first one was for buccal fat removal, and this procedure involves removing fat from each cheek. And what was noticed is that this search [00:03:00] term, buccal fat removal, peaked at the end of December, 2022 before dropping by 87% by early July, 2023. That’s very interesting because there was a huge increase in the interest and then a quick decline . And that exemplifies what I’m talking about when I say fast aesthetics. These trends, these interests, rise and fall very quickly.

Another example is with regards to the Brazilian butt lift surgery. What we saw when you look at the data here, is that surgeries for BBL increased by 90% from 2015 to 2019, but fell by 27% in 2020. And this seems to coincide with a desire for more subtle lifts and enhancements that are achieved with less invasive treatments, things such as Sculptra or other [00:04:00] biostimulatory treatments.

A third example that was identified in the report is the idea of Fox eyes. This is where the eyebrows are lifted and extended to create an enlarged Fox eye look. And what we saw here is that there was a demand for Fox eyes, but now people are seeking advice and consultations with regards to how to reverse it. It is a trend that was very popular, but now seems to be going out of fashion. So again, it’s one of these aesthetic treatments that rises very quickly and then seems to fall off very quickly.

Let me give you a fourth example as well, and this is with regards to Russian lips. And this is designed to have the shape of a Russian doll where the lip shape is raised in height with a pronounced Cupid’s bow. Searches for Russian lips peaked in February, 2022 before starting to decline. And what we have [00:05:00] seen again is that many people seeking treatments for their lips would prefer to have something that is much more subtle. And again, this fits with this idea of fast aesthetics.

So, what does this mean for practitioners? Well, as I mentioned at the outset, it makes things a little bit more complicated. Because as practitioners, we need to figure out if this look is truly a “fast look” or whether it is here to stay, and how does this affect what we do with regards to our treatments? We are also likely going to see more and more people that want to have their treatments reversed if they have chosen to get one of these “fast” aesthetic treatments, and now they realize that they would like to not have that treatment and would like to reverse what was done.

So it’s really important I believe for practitioners to have a good understanding of not only how to technically do a procedure, how to do a treatment, but also the societal trends with regards to these treatments. [00:06:00] Time and consultation is critical, and the stepwise approach to treatment, I think, will become more and more important.

So that’s a little bit of information about the fast aesthetics trend. I hope that’s helpful and useful to you and interesting. Next week I will dive into another trend identified in the Galderma NEXT report. But until then feel free to connect with me on Instagram or on my website at Dr. Teri Fisher, D R T E R I F I S H E R. And until next time. Be well, and I’ll talk to you soon.