‘Cinderella Surgery’ On The Rise In US; Women Reshape Feet To Better Fit Into Expensive Heels

Tummy tucks, breast augmentations and nose jobs are among the most popular plastic surgeries in the U.S., but there’s another cosmetic procedure whose popularity is on the rise: the so-called Cinderella surgery.

According to a report from the New York Times, a growing trend among wealthy U.S. women involves altering the shape and size of their feet to fit more easily into designer shoes. Women are increasingly getting their toes shortened or lengthened, their bunions removed, and the bottoms of their feet injected with fat (as a permanent sort of soft insert) just to slip more easily into “peep-toe” footwear.

Fox 2 reported that one woman asked a surgeon to amputate her little toes (he refused) so she could wear designer shoes. Another patient asked her podiatrist for toe liposuction.

So, is the newest trend in cosmetic surgery the epitome of high-class vanity? Well, if the Louboutin fits …

“My practice has exploded because of Manolo Blahnik, Christian Louboutin and Nicholas Kirkwood,” Neal Blitz, a podiatrist who specializes in esthetic and reconstructive procedures in Manhattan and performs surgery at Mount Sinai Hospital, told the New York Times. “There’s nothing like opening a shoe closet that’s been closed to somebody for years.”

According to the New York Times, women are getting Cinderella surgeries, a term coined by Beverly Hills podiatrist Ali Sadrieh after female patients of his began requesting esthetic foot surgeries 13 years ago, to correct things like “high-heel foot,” “hitchhikers toe” (when an unusually large big toe sticks out like a hitchhiker holding out his thumb) and “toebesity.”

Reshaping a foot to fit expensive heels is certainly an extreme form of plastic surgery, but it’s not the only unusual cosmetic surgery trend that’s on the rise. In South Korea, a procedure called the “smile lipt” surgery has grown in popularity over the past few years.

It involves creating small slits in the corners of a patient’s mouth to create the look of a permanent smile.

Then there’s the bagel head trend, a kind of body modification with roots in Canada that caught on among underground fetish communities in Japan. The look is achieved by injecting saline into the forehead, then pushing a thumb into the middle of the swollen area to give the appearance of a donut or bagel under the skin.

The bagel head procedure isn’t permanent and lasts between 16 and 24 hours.