Tiktok has discovered that the Brazilian Butt Lift (BBL) procedure, which has surpassed even breast enhancement surgery in popularity, comes with an unwelcome side effect: a bad odor.
Experts have since weighed in on the furor, claiming that smells associated with the surgical enhancement, which entails the use of excess body fat to enlarge inpatients’ behinds, are the result of a number of issues, including improper hygiene.
Highlights
- Surgeons confirm that foul odor can result from fat necrosis or poor hygiene post-op.
- One woman reversed her BBL after a year due to persistent odor and fluid drainage.
- Surgeons cite Miami as the global hotspot for Brazilian Butt Lifts.
Dr. Eric Anderson from Chicago’s Impressions Face + Body clinic confirmed this when he told the press, “The BBL smell is real.”
One of the causes of “BBL smell” is the injected fat dying off
Image credits: Jacopo M. Raule/Getty
Blood is then unable to circulate the entire area, which then leads to fat necrosis, or, in lay terms, the fat dying off.
Situations like these often result in complications leading to the need of antibiotics or hospitalization.
America’s Society of Plastic Surgeons has since weighed in on the trend and published a list of symptoms, which, along with foul odor, includes bruising, bleeding, scarring, numbness, and swelling.
Another cause that IG models are not talking about says one surgeon, is improper hygiene
But it is not only due to the lack of circulation, says plastic surgeon, Dr. Roger Tsai.
Image credits: donpsoundsoff
In a TikTok posted in March 2023, he pointed out that one of the most common challenges faced by women after the procedure is wiping off after using the bathroom.
“Wiping down there is going to be a lot more difficult because there is more to reach around,” he said
According to GetSnatched, a cosmetic surgery outlet in Miami, smell is not always a negative sign.
Image credits: donpsoundsoff
Its website notes that “many patients are caught off guard by an unexpected side effect: an unfamiliar, often musty smell,” it said of the procedure, which originated in Brazil, hence its name.
It further claimed that the odor is “common and usually harmless,” and “part of the healing process.”
One woman with a personal experience had the procedure reversed because of the smell
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In her three part series she speaks of how she reversed her BBL because her “sit down” was stinking “real, real bad.”
“BBL stinks, do you hear me?,” she asked, before saying that the odor did not emanate from either of her orifices but rather from the incisions made during the procedure.
She acknowledged the backlash from commenters, and addressed it, saying, “I don’t care what ya’ll say, it stinks!”
“And if it’s not healing properly and your body is rejecting it the [incisions] will remain open and the drainage will continue.”
The tiktokker, who claims to have tolerated her BBL for a year before having it reversed, emphasized the stench, saying that leaking fluid “will stink up your linen, stink up your underwear, and stink up everything.”
Hospitalization is not the worst that can happen
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According to America’s Society of Plastic Surgeons, the stench and even the risk of illness is not the worst-case scenario.
In a paper published in the digitized Nationalized Library of Public Medicine, it noted that 1 in 20,000 butt augmentation operations result in d*ath.
Image credits: donpsoundsoff
This article was published in the context of a 90 percent increase in the practice between 2015 and 2019.
Post COVID, the demand bounced back, an anomaly David Sieber, a plastic surgeon practicing out of San Francisco credits to the world’s ability to travel again.
“People are going to a lot of places where they're in swimsuits, where they're enjoying warm weather, and they want to look good and feel good, and because of that, more people are seeking out surgery,” he said.
The U.S. outweighs the rest of the world with its demand for BBL
Image credits: Getty Images
The United States far outweighs the rest of the world in its demand for the BBL.
Another practitioner in the field, Dr. Josef Hadeed, MD, FACS, confirmed this when he said, “Miami is often regarded as ground zero for BBLs.”
There is a growing dislike for the procedure
