If diet and exercise don’t provide you with the kind of bottom you want, you might consider undergoing a Brazilian Buttock Lift or getting Butt Implants to enlarge and reshape your buttocks. Both procedures help add more contour to your rear, and compensate for low amounts of fat in the area. Before you make your decision, however, it’s important to know what the differences are between the two, and why you should consider one over the other.
What’s a Brazilian Buttock Lift?
A Brazilian Buttock Lift (BBL), is a type of cosmetic surgery where fat is removed from areas where it’s in excess, processed, and then injected into your buttocks to add volume, create more roundness, and give the illusion of a lift to the upper part of your butt. It also helps to add more shape to your waist, taking away love handles to achieve a desirable hourglass figure.
What are Butt Implants?
Butt Implants are an augmentation procedure (a category which includes BBLs) that can add some volume to the natural curves of your buttocks. The procedure involves inserting a silicone implant, similar but firmer than those used in breast implants, into the area of the buttocks where more shapeliness is desired. While butt implants are a more common procedure among women, more men are seeking out this solution as a permanent way to address their body issues too.
What’s the difference between Brazilian Butt Lifts and Butt Implants?
Simply put, it’s the material used to give your butt the lift!
In a BBL procedure, your own fat is removed and transferred into the buttocks, similar to a graft or transplant. The fat that’s injected into your buttocks contains cells which adapt, adhere, and react to any weight changes in the same way that fat in other areas of your body does. However, some cells in the implanted fat might not survive the transfer and will be reabsorbed and removed by your body’s immune system. This could mean that more than one fat transfer may be needed to achieve the results you are looking for.
As is the case with fat in the body generally, if you lose weight, your butt most likely will lose some volume too, and if you gain weight, well, you get the idea. A common misconception is that in order e to have a BBL, you must have a significant amount of excess fat in other parts of your body such as the thighs, love handles, or abdomen to be used for the procedure. Even the skinniest patients usually have enough fat to be harvested and transeferred into their buttocks.
With butt implants, you’re introducing artificial material (typically silicone) into your buttocks. Silicone is durable, flexible, and can stand up to excessive pressure and wear which is why it’s most commonly used in implant procedures.
But you should also consider that butt implants pose risks to the buttocks. Because of the incision that the plastic surgeon makes to insert the implants, extra special care needs to be taken to minimize any adverse conditions that could occur post-surgery such as infection and bleeding.
It’s possible for there to be some swelling following your procedure, but there is also a risk that muscle or nerve damage could develop along with bleeding and infection. There have also been reports of implants leaking and fluid buildup which then needs to be drained to prevent infection. Drains are sometimes placed within the incision to allow residual blood to escape.
Why should I consider one procedure over the other?
The Brazilian Buttock Lift has advantages over butt implants in that it’s less invasive and subsequently less painful due to the smaller size of the incisions, has no chance of being rejected because you’re using your own fat, and is subsequently less painful. Plus, when fat from other areas of their body is used to lift the buttocks, the areas from which the fat was harvested get slimmer. Excess fat removed from the tummy, waist, and thighs helps improve your overall figure — at the same time creating a more shapely, hourglass profile by adding volume to your buttocks.
BBL results have a more flattering look to them because natural fat is easier to shape and place in specific areas that need it. The incisions made to perform the BBL are also generally smaller than those made for butt implants, which helps minimize scarring.
Meanwhile, butt implants in general are considered to be safer, more reliable and even a more permanent butt augmentation procedure. The implants can be shaped to give you a more rounded rear end and better proportion from top to bottom, whereas the fat from a BBL is only able to survive in the upper third of the butt cheek. And for people who don’t have fat in significant abundance to be removed and placed in the buttocks, butt implants are a better option to avoid risk.
The permanence of butt implants is more reliable in that there’s a good chance that the fat from a BBL will not survive where it’s placed longer than a few months. Failed BBL procedures often bring patients in looking to switch to butt implants for better results, because silicone implants are semisolid and will not rupture.
Implants are also better at adding more plumpness and projection of the middle and lower portion of the buttocks in a way BBLs cannot. And if a patient has considerably flat buttocks, implants come in a variety of sizes that can create much more projection than natural fat.
The choice you make is up to you!
Every woman–and man’s–body is unique. So choosing between a Brazilian Butt Lift and Butt Implants is a decision that only you should make based on your body goals, your physical proportions, your health conditions, and what you can comfortably afford.
At Aristocrat, we have an amazing group of doctors to help you meet those standards.
Dr. Kevin Tehrani is renowned for his mastery in aesthetic surgery. He is the founder and director of Aristocrat Plastic Surgery, Chief of the Division of Plastic Surgery at SUNY Downstate Medical Center, and has been voted one of the Top 10 Plastic Surgeons in New York.
During your meetings with our doctors, they will customize a personalized surgical plan with your specific goals in mind to provide you with the buttocks you desire.