Not By the Hair of My Chinny Chin Chin

Chin implants are the fastest-growing cosmetic procedure according to The America Society of Plastic Surgeons (or called the “chinplant”) in 2011. Of course, as aging happens and things begin to drop, the chin is something that helps hold the face in place. A lack of a chin can make the lower half of a person’s profile look weak and unattractive. And now that everyone’s pictures are being plastered all over the internet with Facebook, twitter, and videos like Facetime, it’s no wonder chinplants are on the rise. The humorous part of this tale to me is that I sort of smugly smile. I have a chin. In fact, I have enough chins for a couple of people. I lovingly refer to my chin as a Jay Leno chin, and on a female, it’s not necessarily something so desired.

I used to not think a thing about my chin. I obsessed over my upper lip which sort of dips down like a cupid’s bow (ever see Little Albert on Little House on the Prairie back in the 1980’s?). I remember kids (oh, aren’t they mean?) who would call me bird lip. Even the husband of a friend I haven’t seen in YEARS remarked at dinner just a couple of years ago, “You don’t even have a top lip.” Stop. Where does that even COME from considering he was carrying around an extra forty pounds, and I would NEVER dare say a word about their weight. It just didn’t seem fair.

What was even less fair was the time when I was at the local orthodontist’s office getting my braces off for the second time. I was thrilled. No more cross bite. My teeth were SO straight! The orthodontist to the local celebrities flashed his over whitened straight smile and brought with him the x-ray of my skull. Creepy. He showed it to me and then said while pointing his golden pen toward my chin, “Now if you would just have a smaller chin HERE, you would have the PERFECT profile.” No. He. Didn’t.

I couldn’t believe he said it, but it sent me into a google searching frenzy at home, “Chin reductions, chin shortening, etc….” I tried them all, but all in all, I’ve never had anything changed about my chin.

So today’s news about chinplasty being the fastest rising surgery of today really makes me smile and stick my chin out even further!