The Most Popular Men’s Plastic Surgery Procedures Right Now

This might make the average person queasy, but on a recent day at the Park Avenue office of facial plastic surgeon Sean Alemi, a male patient was completely awake as a surgical blade met his jawline. He wasn’t just conscious; he was actively co-directing the procedure.

To help his patient achieve a stronger, more masculine look, Alemi had made a small incision on the underside of the chin under local anesthesia. He then proceeded to insert an assortment of chin implants, one after another. “I had ordered 20 different implants and sizers, which are dummy mock implants,” recalls Alemi. “And you basically just try them until you find one that has the features that you really like. You put one in, and then I put a stitch in the chin to close it, and I handed him a mirror.” The doc popped in various sizes. After a few swaps, the patient settled on the perfect fit, widening his jawline to his exact satisfaction.

“The patient was really actually able to participate in the surgery, which was fun and unique,” says Alemi.

It’s a striking example of the lengths American men are going to optimize their faces in the era of “looksmaxxing” — the hyper-fixated, internet-born subculture dedicated to maximizing one’s physical attractiveness. It exists alongside a more general current obsession with projecting masculinity, advocated by everyone from the tech-bro elite and Trump administration members to Joe Rogan-adjacent podcasters and social media influencers. The message to men is clear: Power begins at the jawline.

It’s not just jaws and chins that are getting attention, though. In early June, prominent looksmaxxer Clavicular livestreamed his two-hour rhinoplasty procedure. But it’s still rare for men to be open about cosmetic procedures, let alone document it online. While Hollywood has done much to normalize plastic surgery and other aesthetic work, it’s typically female celebrities who have been in the conversation, from the Kardashian family all the way back to Phyllis Diller speaking publicly in 1971 about having a facelift.

Lately, though, it’s almost impossible to think of a high-profile male celebrity who hasn’t sparked at least some rumors about what work he’s had done, whether it’s jawline reshaping (Elon Musk, Bad Bunny, Barry Keoghan, Zac Efron), a facelift (Brad Pitt, Tom Cruise), eye surgery (Adam Levine, Justin Theroux, Bradley Cooper) or fillers (Ryan Gosling, David Beckham). There are male celebs who look jarringly different (Jim Carrey), while others appear to have had subtle glow-ups where no single change stands out (Matt Damon). It’s impossible to know exactly what’s been done, and the talk is all speculation. Men are particularly mum about work they’ve had done. “For men, you really can’t have the stigma of plastic surgery,” says Beverly Hills facial plastic surgeon Dr. Babak Azizzadeh. “It’s just very, very difficult to tolerate.”

While they might deny having work done, the hypermasculine Hollywood ideal still sets the bar for what many patients want. “When you look at pop culture, when you look at celebrities, overwhelmingly the men are very masculine. And so I think this creates kind of a very desirable aesthetic that a lot of guys specifically come in and ask for,” says Dr. Alemi.

For this story, I spoke with four plastic surgeons and a top aesthetic practitioner about what men are requesting these days. Their consensus? The pool of patients is expanding faster than ever. But two procedures in particular offer a fascinating window into how gender expectations shape these decisions and how the results are perceived. The first is jaw redefinition (which can enhance masculinity) and the upper blepharoplasty (eyelid surgery), which when done incorrectly can sometimes make a man’s face look more feminine.

That Strong Jaw

As a signifier of masculinity, the Hollywood jawline is conspicuous. Think Henry Cavill. Or Gaston in Beauty and the Beast. The typical patient seeking a face that more emulates that look either has what’s traditionally been called a weak chin or they have a lower face that’s more oval- or V-shaped than blocky. Some don’t want dramatic changes, instead seeking more of a nearly imperceptible boost in rugged proportions.

“I do get a lot of patients saying, “I want my jawline to be more masculine. I want it a little more squared,’ ” says board-certified nurse practitioner Natalia Guzman of Beverly Hills’ Atelier Aesthetix, adding: “It’s become a little bit more mainstream for men to come in for procedures. I think it’s less of a taboo for guys now, especially with social media.”

Doctors, whether they employ fillers or implants, typically focus their jaw work on two areas: the chin, which can be given more projection, more width or more height (or some combo of the three); and what anatomy books call the gonial angle of the mandible — or, in layman’s terms, the literal corner of the jaw.

An initial visit at Guzman’s practice typically lasts 90 minutes, during which she uses an Aura 3D Imaging System (which is outfitted with 13 cameras) to assess the angles and measures of a patient’s face. Based on that analysis, Guzman decodes the strict geometry of the modern male ideal: “For the jawline for males … the width of your cheekbone to the width of your jawline is meant to be a one to one, so you’re more squared out. It’s more masculine. For women, we’re meant to be a 1.5 to one, more in a slighter V.”

To bring a patient’s face closer to that standard of purported perfection, Guzman prefers using a filler called Juvéderm Volux, which is made primarily from hyaluronic acid. 

“For men, I would be doing about two syringes in the chin. And then for the jawline, I’d be doing maybe about two syringes to start with. You come back about four to six months later; we keep building slowly. So it’s a process. It’s not just a one-and-done, which is what a lot of people think,” says Guzman, who prefers hyaluronic-based fillers because “we can dissolve it if there’s a problem or let’s say for example the patient doesn’t like it — I don’t inject anything that I can’t get rid of.” Adds Dr. Alemi, “We’re basically doing what we call a liquid chin implant.”

Post-procedure swelling can occur for 24 to 48 hours, and results typically last 12 to 18 months.

In Beverly Hills, one of the most prominent facial plastic surgeons is Dr. Jason Diamond, who’s long had a significant male clientele who seek the doc out for his proprietary Diamond Facial Sculpting technique. “It’s my injection technique where I’m injecting right on the bones to create what is essentially similar to putting an implant in. This is different than the usual fillers done widely by most people, which is under the skin or between the skin and muscle,” says Diamond. “It’s a micro-droplet technique, little droplets that can accumulate to take a shape. It’s not one big squirt of something.” 

Diamond adds that “nonsurgical results can be dramatic.” Surgical results — which do run a risk of complications, including infections and nerve damage — can be even more so. Top doctors these days will create customized jaw and chin implants, which are typically made of silicone and can run $10k. A more aggressive treatment also exists to create Gaston-like chins. “It’s called a sliding genioplasty,” says Dr. Alemi. “This is a surgery where you actually cut the bone of the chin and slide it forward and then you screw it in place with a plate. So obviously another degree of invasiveness — and permanence.”

Often, older men will opt for a treatment to address a sagging neck at the same time that they are seeking better jaw definition. “I see a lot of men in their 50s and 60s who are bothered by the way their jawline is aging because they’re losing definition. But when I look at the bone structure of these people, it’s not necessarily because they need a chin implant or jaw augmentation, they need a face- and neck lift, and they need their deep neck sculpted,” says Alemi. (A full overhaul that includes surgical male jawline contouring along with a deep plane facelift and deep neck lift can start at $80,000.)

And what about the current rage for mouth exercises, like chewing a jaw exercise ball or a special type of gum, which purport to bulk up mandibles? Diamond pooh-poohs the idea. “The face does not have weight-bearing muscles. Those are muscles that respond to weights and resistance training by getting bigger,” says Diamond. Because muscles in the face are different, “it doesn’t work,” adds Guzman. “It’s just a great way to make money on TikTok.”

The Eyes Don’t Have It

“The trend is really booming,” says Azizzadeh, of the demand among older men for eye surgeries to address aging. In later years, the under-the-eye area often gets puffy or baggy, while eyelids and brows can sag, creating what’s known as a hooding effect. 

At Azizzadeh’s practice in the past five years, he says he’s seen a 50 percent rise in the number of men coming in to address dissatisfaction with how their eyes look.

Yet, as the rush to fix eyes accelerates, a cautionary tale is playing out under the glare of the red carpet. In Hollywood, where the pressure to look perpetually youthful is acute, a rash of high-profile male celebrities have emerged from eye procedures with mixed results. Many appear to have exchanged their naturally rugged looks for a wide-eyed smoothness that can be perceived as more feminine. Male celebrities can also have a startled look.

To be clear, the problem rarely lies below the eyes. Surgery to address droopy and puffy lower eyes — known as a lower blepharoplasty — is generally a safe zone for aging leading men. Docs can lift tissue, trim away excess skin and shift fat, smoothly erasing bags. “A lot of times we’re doing a lower bleph to look refreshed and less tired,” says Azizzadeh.

The real aesthetic landmine is the upper blepharoplasty, which is done to address excessive hooding in the eyes, meaning that the upper lid is sagging. 

“The upper bleph is actually a deceptively challenging artistic procedure. A lot of individuals in the aesthetic medicine space think, ‘OK, you just take a little skin and you’re done,” says Azizzadeh. “But the artistic and gender-specific approach to it is really critical. And I always say this: A lot of people comment on celebrities saying, ‘My God, this person had the worst facelift.’ But if you really look at them, they had a really bad blepharoplasty.”

Adds Dr. David Samimi, an oculofacial plastic surgeon with Eyesthetica (which has offices in Encino and Santa Monica), “There’s a lot of interest [in upper bleph procedures].” But seeing some less-than-ideal results on red carpets “instills a lot of fear in people that would like to get something done. They’re like, ‘Wait a second, if this guy who’s a celebrity looks like that, I shouldn’t do anything because he obviously has access to the best resources.”

So what’s going amiss with some male celebs’ eyes? It’s usually an upper-bleph procedure that simply does too much. Either too much skin has been removed, or an incision in the upper eyelid was made too high, or too much fat was taken away. The eyes can then look skeletonized or simply wide-eyed, which is often perceived as a feminine trait. 

The sweet spot is where just the right amount of skin is excised along with fat redistribution to avoid a hollowed look. A talented doc will reduce some of the hooding that comes with age without removing it entirely since hooded eyes tend to be seen as a masculine trait. Think Brad Pitt’s iconic bedroom eyes.

“For men and women, there’s a huge divergence of how we want this entire area to look. What works on women is going to be different on men,” says Azizzadeh. “You need to tread really, really conservatively for men. Less is more. If you don’t do that, you get the results that people are talking about on social media. If your surgeon does it really well, no one should know you’ve had an upper blepharoplasty.” It’s similar in a way to how men often will go easy on Botox and retain some lines on their forehead.

Both Samimi and Azizzadeh recommend that men avoid an overaggressive brow lift as well. That’s because a brow that’s too high can not only contribute to that deer-in-the-headlights look but can also read as more feminine. “A man should have a relatively low brow and a relatively low eyelid,” says Samimi. He says he’s shifted to doing less surgical brow lifts. Instead he prefers fat grafting (harvesting fat from elsewhere in the body) and using it to plump the brow area, including the temples. “It’s more brow contouring, restoring the lost volume in the upper third of the face,” he says.

Azizzadeh advises a go-it-slow approach. “A lot of times, men go in for a blepharoplasty, and a surgeon’s knee-jerk reaction is, ‘Let’s do your brows too,’ because that’s what we often do in women. But for men, don’t make the mistake of doing too many things. Maybe we do your eyes first, then next year we’ll do your face and neck. Maybe we’ll do your brow at a different time. So it’s a very gradual evolution, and they just look like they haven’t had anything done.” (According to doctors interviewed for this article, costs for eye procedures run from $9,000-$20,000 for an upper bleph, $6,000-$25,000 for a brow lift and $5,000-$9,000 for brow conturing with fat grafting.)

Ultimately, the booming market for male procedures proves that men are just as susceptible to the pressures of the mirror as anyone else. “A lot of people are doing this because they want to have put their best foot forward. It honestly is no different than someone wanting to go to the gym to get bigger shoulders and a six-pack,” says Diamond.

But men seem to have a narrower target to hit — and it’s a deeply paradoxical one. By definition, rugged masculinity implies a certain roughness or asymmetry, while cosmetic perfection demands smoothed-out edges. The sweet spot lies somewhere in between the two.

This story appears in The Hollywood Reporter’s July 2026 issue “The New Face of Hollywood.” Click here to read more.