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Top 3 Plastic Surgeons

An independent publication on aesthetic and plastic surgery

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The Lead · Procedure Deep-Dive

Alar Base Reduction: Two Millimeters at the Nostril, a Scar That Lives in a Crease, and the One Part of a Nose Job That Cannot Be Put Back

Alar base reduction, the narrowing of the nostrils by removing small wedges of tissue where the nose meets the cheek, is the shortest step in rhinoplasty and the one with the least margin. Patients ask for it by name, often after being told their nose is too wide by a rule of proportion that was measured on one population, and it is done in a few minutes at the end of an operation that has just changed everything the nostrils are attached to. The excision is counted in millimeters, the scar sits either just above a crease or inside it and looks entirely different in each case, and tissue removed from the alar base is the one thing in rhinoplasty that no revision reliably returns. Here is how flare and width differ, what the anthropometry actually says about normal, how the excisions and the cinch suture work, why the base is cut last, and what the injectable menu cannot do.

September 3, 2026

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By The Editorial Desk

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17 min

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Procedure Deep-Dive

The Mons Pubis Lift: The Fat Pad the Tummy Tuck Forgets, the Stitch That Decides Where the Hairline Sits, and the Pull That Spreads the Labia

The mons pubis lift, or monsplasty, is the trimming, thinning, and re-suspension of the fat pad over the pubic bone, and it is the part of body contouring that patients describe in a euphemism and surgeons often leave out of the quote. It became a common request for two reasons: rapid weight loss, now on a prescription, empties a fat pad that does not tighten on its own, and a generation of tummy tucks flattened the abdomen and left a mound below the scar. The operation is small and the geometry is unforgiving. Take too little and the bulge stays. Take too much or pull too hard and the pubic hairline migrates up, the labia are drawn apart, and the swelling lasts longer than anywhere else on the body. Here is what the mons is, why it drops, how the suspension stitch works, what goes wrong, and what liposuction and the non-surgical menu can and cannot do.

September 3, 2026 · 19 min

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Procedure Deep-Dive

Saddlebag Liposuction: The Fat That Diet Reaches Last, the Two Lines Where the Cannula Has to Stop, and the Dent That Is Harder to Fix Than the Bulge

The saddlebag, the fullness on the outer thigh below the hip, is the fat women are told to exercise off and cannot, because it is built to hold. It is also the site where liposuction has its longest track record and its most recognizable failures: a hollow where a curve used to be, a buttock that drops once the shelf beneath it is gone, and a ripple in skin that no longer fits. Here is what the saddlebag is and how it differs from the hip dip above it, why diet reaches it last, how the operation is planned standing up and where it has to stop, what goes wrong, and what the one device cleared for this site actually does.

September 3, 2026 · 19 min

The City Guides

Top surgeons, city by city.

Short, considered editorial picks for the cities where aesthetic medicine has the highest concentration of practitioners doing distinct work. We add a city when we have done the reporting, not before.

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§ 01 · Editorial Standards

Choosing a plastic surgeon is among the few decisions that cannot be appealed. It deserves real reporting, not advertising dressed as a recommendation.

Top 3 Plastic Surgeons is an independent publication covering aesthetic and plastic surgery: the procedures, the advances in technique, and the surgeons doing the most considered work in the field. We report on it. We do not sell placement within it.

We do not accept paid placement, and we do not rank by advertising spend or by the volume of five-star reviews a practice can solicit. Our reporting draws on board records, peer interviews, outcomes data, and direct patient testimony, revisited as the field changes.

§ 05 · The Letter

One letter, every Sunday.

Each issue carries one new surgeon profile, one dispatch from the reporting desk, and an editor's note on whatever question we could not stop thinking about that week. No sponsors. No partner content. No reason to exist except the subject.

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