Olfactoral Enlightment

I wore glasses from the age of about 7 until I was 13. Once I began wearing contact lenses, I discovered something...I didn't like my nose.

It looked fine from the front and I knew I should be thankful for its smelling capabilities, but once the bridge of my nose was liberated from the burden of spectacles I saw that the bridge had a distinct bump. Since then, I have tried to face cameras straight on when my picture is taken to keep my shameful feature from being accurately documented.

Something happened a few days ago that lessened my mortification over my bumpy profile.

I read an article about a new cosmetic procedure on noses that costs a fraction of rhinoplasty (aka a nose job) and doesn't require any cutting of bone or cartilage. It's for people who don't want to whack off major portions of their face, but rather who would like to smooth out little bumps or fill in little divets.

That's me! I thought and read on.

This is achieved by injecting "fillers" such as Restylane into specific spots around the unwanted bump to smooth out the overall line. I guess that technically you're making your nose a little bigger!

The cost of this procedure was low enough for me to at least want to educate myself more, so I googled (you have to love the availability of info online) some cosmetic surgeon's offices to see before and after pics.

Now comes the shocking part. (Shocking to me anyway.) Looking at picture after picture, I saw a bunch of decent looking noses in the before shots and a bunch of slightly altered noses in the after shots that certainly would not be described as vastly improved.

There were some testimonials, too. One gal said that catching sight of her profile used to send her into a tail spin for the rest of the day (or something to that effect).

Wow! I thought, seeing that her before looked just as good as her after. I guess I need to get over myself. So my nose isn't perfect. So what?

Additionally, I looked at pictures of rhinoplasty patients. The funny thing about that was that it appeared they had all been given the same nose! Apparently, the surgeon only had one pattern to follow when wielding his scalpel and reshaping noses. Seriously, all the patients looked like they could be siblings.

Please don't misunderstand...I'm not anti-cosmetic surgery. I understand a very unendowed woman wanting to actually look like a woman and I have witnessed some afters that made me want to give the surgeon a standing ovation, but looking at all those photos made me realize that my nose isn't hideous...and the bump probably keeps my sunglasses in place, too. :)

(However, you will notice I did not include a picture of my profile in this post!)