[IFOP survey] 10% of French women have already had cosmetic surgery in 2018 – Happiness and health

With summer, the opportunities to show off your body multiply and the experience is not easy for everyone. This is often the time when the complexes and difficulties of accepting your body as it is resurface. Breasts losing their hold, signs of aging suddenly more visible, sometimes invading hairiness, so many subjects, almost forgotten, which suddenly become worrying.

In a society where physical appearance has become a central element of self-assertion and social integration, is resorting to surgery or aesthetic medicine the solution?

Have we all become addicted to cosmetic surgery? What do French women think?

 In order to answer these questions, the team of Happiness and health decided to dig into the topic.

True to our desire to provide serious and objective information, we wanted to know more. So we asked theIFOP polling institute to interview a representative sample of 1317 women, over 18, to find out what they thought about it and if their point of view had changed since 2002, the date of a previous survey on the same topic.

• 1 in 10 women have already had cosmetic surgery in France in 2018
• The most common operations: breast modifications and laser hair removal
• All ages are today concerned from 18 to 65 without distinction.

• 82% of people who have had cosmetic surgery say they are satisfied

• 14% of women say they are ready to use it one day 

Still as strong demand

The demand for cosmetic surgery hasn’t exploded as some might have thought at one point, but it hasn’t dropped either. It has stabilized at a level which remains high.

They were 6% to have had plastic surgery in 2002 and 14% in 2009. Today, they are 10%. The decrease seems significant compared to 2009, but 10% of the female population over 18, this represents approximately 2,5 million people.

This figure is far from anecdotal. Compared to 2002, it’s still 1 more people!

This stabilization at a high level is all the more solid as it is accompanied by a very positive degree of satisfaction and a consequent potential demand.

Practically, for 15 years, the level of satisfaction has remained the same and leveled at record heights, with 4 out of 5 women rate their experience of cosmetic surgery very satisfactory or satisfactory.

Therefore, it is not surprising that those who plan to do so are still so numerous. They would be 3,5 million. It’s not nothing !

But a reasoned request

However, demand has changed. There are interventions that are popular and others that are no longer. Undoubtedly, breast contouring and laser hair removal have a strong side. Conversely, it is the tumble for the correction of the belly, the correction of the nose or the facelift.

Breast modification and laser hair removal: the 2 big winners

49% of requests concern a breast modification. Almost one in two! Fifteen years ago, in 15, only 2002% of interventions concerned the breasts, but as of 9, the shift was taken and with 2009%, breast modification moved to the top of the list.

Not only is it still there, but its positioning is largely confirmed.

THElaser hair removal was still in its infancy in 2002, but very quickly, it emerges from the shadows to reach 8% of interventions in 2009 and 24% in 2018. A closer look, this latest development is undoubtedly far from being finished.

Stability of other practices

La belly correction rose from 15% of interventions, to 9% and then to 7%. The evolution is the same, but more sensitive, with the nose correction. This fell from 18% of interventions in 2002 to 5% in 2018, after an intermediate stage of 13% in 2009.

Finally, let us quote the facelift, so emblematic of cosmetic surgery. It slips from 9% in 2002 to 4% today, after having, for a while, maintained at 8% in 2009.

Of course, some interventions such as eyelid correction or wrinkle smoothing have remained stable after experiencing jolts.

These very interesting internal evolutions are explained, above all, by a strong movement back to naturalness, because the fashion effect now plays a much less decisive role in the decision to resort or not to cosmetic surgery.

here is a particularly interesting fact highlighted by our survey: all social categories, as well as all age groups and all regions are concerned, without real distinction.

In the collective imagination, cosmetic surgery is often seen as reserved for older women. A well-anchored image but which today is revealed very far from reality.

The same is true for educational levels and political orientations.

All age groups and regions are affected

The difference between the most represented and the less represented is overall only 4 points.

9% of Less than 35 years had recourse to cosmetic surgery compared to 11% for over 35 years. The levels hardly change when we go into more detail on the age groups: 8%, the lowest rate, for 25 to 34 year olds, 12%, the highest rate, for 50 to 64 year olds.

The same goes for thegeographic origin. The rate of use of cosmetic surgery is similar (10%) in 3 out of 4 regions. The rates for Paris (10%) and the Province (11%) are almost similar. Only the south-east stands out with 13%.

PCS + are certainly the best represented

Obviously, it is the professions and socio-professional categories with the greatest concentration of acts of representation such as the self-employed (16%), senior executives (12%) or business leaders (14%) who use the most plastic surgery.

They are also those who have the greatest financial capacity. manual workers (6%) are the smallest category, including behind the unemployed (9%) or retirees (11%).

It confirms the emergence of another look at the body

It is not for nothing that 13% of the French population under the age of 50 is tattooed. More or less important and more or less visible, the tattoo can be usefully compared with the two previous observations concerning the use of cosmetic surgery.

Tattooing is by nature an act of assertiveness and the expression of a claim or quasi-tribal belonging.

The expression of a personal choice

The use of cosmetic surgery in 2018 also conceals, in another way, its share of individualism and claim. This is reflected in the motivations that lead to it.

More than 2/3 of the people questioned indicate that their use of cosmetic surgery was motivated, first and foremost, to please themselves.

The trend is heavy, because it was already present, practically at the same level, in 2002 and 2009. To this, is added the fact that more than half of them (55%) also want to put an end to a physical complex .

Social pressure is undoubtedly present in these choices, but less than the gaze carried by oneself, on oneself.

The gaze of others less taken into account

Therefore, it is not surprising that, on the contrary, the views of others are hardly taken into account. The evolution is even noticeable compared to 2002.

Pleasing your companion (5%), being more comfortable in your professional environment (6%), being young in today’s society (2%) are motivations that no longer appeal to a few people whereas in 2002 , these were still important motivations, for respectively 21%, 11% and 7% of the people questioned.

The desire to stay young

For oneself, not for others. This desire represented 15% of motivations in 2002, 12% in 2009 and remained at 13% in 2018. It is not contradictory with the rejection of wanting to stay young in order to satisfy social codes and an ambient youthism.

Paradoxically, it is not contradictory either with the people questioned who do not intend to resort to cosmetic surgery and for whom, at 73%, aging does not pose a problem. Claiming your senior status also means asserting that time has no hold over you.

According to a report published by IPSAS, 4,2 million cosmetic surgery procedures were performed in 2016 in the United States, placing it at the top of the “countries addicted to cosmetic surgery” (1).

The market then represented around 8 billion dollars (5) in 2, an increase of around 2016% compared to 8,3.

At the top of the chain of countries most concerned by plastic surgery is the United States with 44% of the global figure, followed by Europe with 23%.

France is not to be outdone and occupies the tenth position of the most frequented destinations by the followers of plastic interventions.

This increase in global consumption is attributable to strong demand from Asia with 22% of the market.

From less invasive medical techniques to facial surgeries and body reshaping, cosmetic surgery procedures have grown in complexity over the years. It is interesting to take stock of the different types of cosmetic surgery in their proportion of use.

Injectable solutions

More accessible, because less expensive, these medical techniques have far fewer side effects than the others. The results remain satisfactory, even at lower cost, thanks to more innovative and efficient technologies.

It is in this register that the face lift by injection is located, a surgery performed to reduce the signs of aging. This injectable solution is often accompanied by laser treatments which are beneficial for the skin.

Face surgery

As in previous years, face surgery remains a widely practiced phenomenon around the world. Rhinoplasty (cosmetic surgery of the nose) accounts for 9,4% of the market, while cheekbone reshaping is also very popular in Asia.

Body contouring

Fat reduction and body contouring are also the most common cosmetic surgery practices. Body contouring or lipofilling aims to inject fat into certain areas of the body to reshape them.

Breast augmentation and buttock implants

These surgical interventions remain stable compared to previous years. During 2016, an increase in patients practicing CoolSculpting was noted.

Le CoolSculpting

It is about a new method of aesthetic medicine which makes it possible to overcome the small bulges by the cold or process called cryolipolysis. It therefore does not require mutilation of the body and arouses greater interest.

For a long time, breast augmentation was considered the most performed operation in the world.

Yet it is liposuction that tops the list (4). Liposuction represents 18,8% of all cosmetic surgery procedures worldwide.

Breast augmentation occurs directly after liposuction and concerns 17% of surgical operations.

The global breast prosthesis market is 570 million euros, with an increase of 7% each year, from 2010 to 2014.

Next comes blepharoplasty (eyelid surgery) which concerns 13,5% of all surgical operations.

Rhinoplasty, when it comes to 9,4% of operations and abdominoplasty, 7,3%.