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Top 3 Plastic Surgeons

An independent publication on aesthetic and plastic surgery

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Close-up portrait of a woman's lower face, chin, jawline and neck in neutral repose, head turned slightly, plain dark grey knit sweater, soft natural lighting, bare grey background, no text or logos

The Lead · Procedure Deep-Dive

Chin Dimpling, 'Orange Peel' Chin, and the Mentalis: The Smallest Muscle in Cosmetic Injecting, the One Most Often Injected Wrong, and Why a Cleft Chin Is a Different Problem Entirely

The pebbled, cobblestoned texture that appears on some chins during speech comes from a single small muscle called the mentalis, and a few units of neuromodulator placed correctly will soften it. The same few units placed a centimeter too high can weaken the lower lip for three months. Meanwhile the patients asking to have a cleft chin injected away are asking about a notch in the bone, which no injection has ever touched.

September 17, 2026

By The Editorial Desk

12 min

The 'Non-Surgical BBL': What Biostimulator and Filler Injections Into the Buttocks Actually Do, Why the Volume Arithmetic Almost Never Works, and What FDA Has Specifically Warned About

A category of injectable buttock treatment has grown up alongside surgical fat transfer, sold under names that borrow the Brazilian butt lift's vocabulary while promising to skip its operating room, its cannulas, and its mortality statistics. The products involved are real and one of them is approved for something. The gap between what it is approved for, what a vial of it physically contains, and what the before-and-after photos imply is where patients lose money and occasionally lose a great deal more.

September 17, 2026 · 12 min

Procedure Deep-Dive

Septal Perforation and Saddle Nose: The Two Rhinoplasty Complications That Announce Themselves Years Later, Why a Whistling Nose Is the Least of the Problem, and What Can Honestly Be Repaired

A hole in the nasal septum and a collapsed nasal bridge are usually discussed as separate problems, one functional and one cosmetic, but they are frequently two stages of the same structural failure. The septum is not just a divider between the nostrils. It is the load-bearing beam the bridge and the tip sit on, and once enough of it is gone, the outside of the nose follows the inside down. This is what causes each of them, why the whistle patients notice first is rarely the finding that matters, and why the repair conversation is one of the few in aesthetic surgery where an honest surgeon will quote a closure rate rather than promise a result.

September 17, 2026 · 10 min

A gloved clinician holds two plain, unmarked white silicone electrode pads against a seated patient's cheeks in a bright clinical treatment room, patient in a robe with eyes closed, soft neutral background, out-of-focus equipment, no visible text or logos

Procedure Deep-Dive

EMFACE and Facial Muscle Stimulation: What High-Intensity Electrical Currents Actually Do to a Facial Muscle, Why That Is Not the Same Device Category as Skin Tightening, and What the Evidence Actually Supports

A new generation of devices promises a lifted, more defined face by running electrical current through the muscles under the skin rather than heating the skin itself, and the pitch borrows heavily from the body-sculpting devices that came before it. The mechanism is real and distinct from radiofrequency or ultrasound skin tightening, but the facial evidence base is thinner than the marketing implies, and knowing exactly what is and is not being measured is the difference between a reasonable add-on and an expensive disappointment.

September 16, 2026 · 11 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.

2 featured · California

Beverly Hills

An editorial guide to the city's aesthetic medicine scene.

3 featured · California

Los Angeles

An editorial guide to the city's plastic surgery scene beyond the Beverly Hills triangle.

3 featured · New York

New York

An editorial guide to the city's plastic surgery establishment.

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

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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Top 3 Plastic Surgeons

Chin Dimpling, 'Orange Peel' Chin, and the Mentalis: The Smallest Muscle in Cosmetic Injecting, the One Most Often Injected Wrong, and Why a Cleft Chin Is a Different Problem Entirely

The 'Non-Surgical BBL': What Biostimulator and Filler Injections Into the Buttocks Actually Do, Why the Volume Arithmetic Almost Never Works, and What FDA Has Specifically Warned About

Septal Perforation and Saddle Nose: The Two Rhinoplasty Complications That Announce Themselves Years Later, Why a Whistling Nose Is the Least of the Problem, and What Can Honestly Be Repaired

EMFACE and Facial Muscle Stimulation: What High-Intensity Electrical Currents Actually Do to a Facial Muscle, Why That Is Not the Same Device Category as Skin Tightening, and What the Evidence Actually Supports