Plastic Surgery
Cuts Like a Knife Tuesday December 21, 2004 6:00PM PT
Miss Plastic Surgery Unlike your looks, the desire to improve your appearance will never fade, and searches reflect it -- they're pumped up like Melanie Griffith's collagen-laden lips on matters regarding cosmetic procedures. Kicking off the plastic surgery parade are searches on The Swan (+476%), which soared in the wake of the season two finale. And with all the talk about the show signaling the end of womanhood as we know it, females lapped it up, outsearching men by a 3-to-1 margin. It was especially popular with women aged 35 to 44 -- this small sliver accounted for one-fifth of all Swan searches yesterday. Perhaps the possibility of a transformation begins to have an allure once you've reached the back half of your thirties. In China, a recent pageant limited only to women who've undergone cosmetic procedures garnered some buzz, causing "Miss Plastic Surgery" and "Miss Artificial Beauty" to go from no searches into the thousands. Finally, the weblog "Awful Plastic Surgery" continues to draw searches whenever they expose side-by-side photos of celebs who've supposedly gone under the knife. Right now, searches for the site are holding steady, but their piece on Tara Reid's botched augmentation helped boost their buzz. Count on the site to emit a buzzing noise whenever a nip or tuck goes awry.

- posted by Michael P. Whelan @ 6:27 PM