Est. MMXXVIIndependent

Top 3 Plastic Surgeons

An independent publication on aesthetic and plastic surgery

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The Lead · Procedure Deep-Dive

Hair Dye and Hair Washing After a Facelift: What the Incision Actually Restricts, Why Chemical Color Waits Longer Than Shampoo, and the Blow-Dryer Rule Nobody Explains

Most facelift discharge instructions say a version of the same thing: no hair dye for a while, be gentle when you wash. Patients hear that as a vague caution and treat the first appointment with their colorist as a scheduling question rather than a wound-healing one. It is not a scheduling question. A facelift incision sits at the hairline, in front of and behind the ear, on skin that has been elevated, resutured, and in many cases left partially numb for weeks. Shampoo, hair dye, and a blow dryer are three different hazards with three different timelines, and conflating them is how patients end up with an irritated incision, a chemical burn they never felt happening, or a scalp reaction that has nothing to do with the surgery and everything to do with a colorist who was never told one occurred.

September 15, 2026

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By The Editorial Desk

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11 min

Top Stories

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Industry

SSRIs and Cosmetic Surgery Bleeding Risk: What the Platelet Science Actually Shows, Why Stopping the Medication Cold Is Its Own Danger, and How the Decision Actually Gets Made

A meaningful share of cosmetic surgery patients take an SSRI or a related antidepressant, and a smaller but real number quietly stop taking it in the week before surgery because they read somewhere that it thins the blood. The platelet biology behind that concern is genuine, but the evidence on actual bleeding outcomes is far messier than a single alarming forum post suggests, and abruptly stopping the medication carries its own well-documented risks that rarely make it into the same conversation. This is the version of that conversation a prescriber and a surgeon should actually be having together.

September 15, 2026 · 11 min

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Industry

The Deposit You Pay Before Cosmetic Surgery: What a Cancellation Policy Actually Owes You, Why the Fee Structure Mirrors Operating Room Economics Rather Than Retail Sales, and What Happens When the Surgeon Cancels Instead of You

A cosmetic surgery deposit looks like a simple hold on a calendar date, but the contract behind it is closer to booking a block of an operating room than to reserving a hotel room, and the refund rules that follow from that difference rarely get explained before a patient signs. Here is what a deposit is actually paying for, why cancellation windows are structured the way they are, the one narrow federal right to cancel that genuinely applies to some cosmetic bookings and not others, what a patient is owed when the surgeon is the one who cancels, and the specific language worth reading before money changes hands.

September 14, 2026 · 12 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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