Cosmetic surgery queen Cindy Jackson is reflecting on the time the tabloids used to call her the ‘human Barbie doll’. “I’m old enough to be Barbie’s grandmother!” chuckles the eternally youthful 68-year-old as she recalls unexpectedly finding herself in the record books in 1999 for supposedly being the most cosmetically-enhanced patient on the planet, “spending $99,600 (then £60,000) on 27 operations over a period of nine years”.
How did this come about? “It’s a long story but basically I ended up in the Guinness Book of Records, where it said I had the most cosmetic surgery in the world, which is ridiculous,” she sighs. “It’s true to say I was the first extreme makeover, pioneering using surgery to completely change my looks. Instead of just having a facelift or a nose job, I had everything done. But they [the Guinness Book of Records] counted every salon facial, Botox and filler injection, permanent make-up application and even teeth-whitening sessions as surgical procedures. I will never have 27 cosmetic surgery operations as long as I live – I’d look like a patchwork quilt!”
Having decided in her mid-30s that “my face and my proportions were not attractive in an artistic sense”, the straight-A student, who is a member of Mensa, embarked on a journey of cosmetic reinvention in 1988, armed with a $100,000 inheritance from her father. The path to self-improvement took her from the small farm community in Ohio where she grew up to dishing out aesthetic advice to “A-listers, rock stars and captains of industry”.
“I advise some very high profile, high net worth individuals so I know the world’s facelift secrets,” she admits. “Most people in Hollywood have had a lot more surgery than me. For some perspective, model Katie Price says she’s had 16 boob jobs. That is more full-scale operations on her breasts alone than I have had on my entire face and body in 36 years, and more than I will ever have in my lifetime. For me it’s always been about quality, not quantity. I was very scientific and very careful. I never got botched.”
Being 100 per cent happy with the results of her various procedures is not only an achievement with regard to all the work Jackson has had done. (She refuses to list everything but as well as a facelift and two nose jobs, she admits to having maxillofacial surgery to reset her jaw, breast implants – which she later had removed – and liposuction). In fact, Jackson’s “unparalleled experience from both sides of the scalpel” has also given her a unique perspective on all that can so easily go wrong on the operating table – and how to avoid some of the most common mistakes.
Having spent the past four decades advising clients on “how not to get botched”, she has now published a book detailing how she improved her looks “better and more believably than most”, as well as sharing what she describes as her “groundbreaking futuristic anti-ageing and longevity methods”.
“That’s the part of my story people are fascinated with nowadays,” she admits. “Nobody wants to grow old.”
While the number of cosmetic surgeries taking place in the UK may have decreased by 7.5 per cent since 2018, according to the British Association of Aesthetic Plastic Surgeons (BAAPS), the rise in popularity of non-surgical treatments such as fillers means Jackson, who moved to London in 1977, is now busier than ever.
“When I first began consulting back in the 1980s, dissatisfied patients were uncommon,” she explains. “But there were also fewer aesthetic patients, fewer doctors, fewer procedures from which to choose, and fewer sources of information. Things have changed beyond recognition since then. Aesthetic procedures are now mainstream. And despite having unlimited choice and endless amounts of free information on the internet, little by little the number of dissatisfied patients has crept up to the point that it’s now an epidemic.
“There are people who have spent too much or are unhappy because they don’t look any different, all the way through to people who have been severely disfigured for life. The vast majority of all patients, whether or not they are famous, deny what they’ve had done for fear of ridicule, so crucial information is not shared. Most keep quiet due to embarrassment, and many blame themselves.”
Celebrities including Leslie Ash, Meg Ryan and the late Pete Burns have all famously suffered from so-called “trout pout”, but as Jackson points out, the dangers even of non-surgical procedures go well beyond disfigurement.
“Some of the worst problems I’ve ever seen are from permanent fillers,” she says, revealing she gave up having both fillers and Botox years ago for fear of “injecting something foreign into my face. They can cause systemic infections, which are very very difficult to deal with. People have been on very strong antibiotics for years with some of these fillers and they’ve had to have repeated surgery to have them removed. You can’t always remove fillers when they’re dispersed throughout your skin underneath the dermis.
“People think if it’s legal and doctors are doing it, it must be safe but you can buy fillers on [e-commerce site] Alibaba. People can set themselves up as an injector without having any medical training, without using the name brand products and you don’t know what’s being injected. I go to medical conferences and watch webinars and hear about the complications from things that are allegedly safe – it’s frightening.”
It’s not that Jackson has suddenly had a damascene conversion away from cosmetic enhancements – far from it. But as she carefully details in How Not to Get Botched, she has heard too many bad experiences “from astute, intelligent people who considered themselves well-informed and never dreamt it would happen to them”.
A 44 per cent increase in the number of patients being treated for severe complications following botched cosmetic surgery abroad is only part of the problem. As Jackson points out: “I’m not seeing people who have been to Turkey; I’m seeing people who have gone to fully qualified practitioners in the UK.
“These are patients who thought they’d done everything right. They’d ‘done the research’. But actually the biggest problem with people having unsatisfactory procedures is misinformation, often from supposedly ‘trusted’ sources. You have to double-check, triple-check everything you’re told. You don’t just see something online and say – I’ll act on that. That is rife even among people who should know better. There are so many red flags to look for.”
As well as patients routinely signing up for “costly and unsuitable procedures after viewing virtual content that may be false, incomplete or outdated”, another frequent error is patients “confusing equal qualifications for equal ability” and “unknowingly choosing the wrong treatment by the wrong practitioner within the wrong speciality”.
She cites as examples one client who chose to have a nose job with the same surgeon who performed her successful liposuction and another who was persuaded to have a facelift with the surgeon who performed her friend’s successful breast implant surgery.
“Even the same facelift surgeon is not suitable for everyone,” she says. “That fact does not occur to most patients. One of the secrets to my success has always been loyalty to the aesthetic goal, not to any one doctor.”
Expectation management is also key to achieving good results. “The clue is in the name,” says Jackson. “Non-surgical facelifts give non-surgical results, mini-facelifts are not full facelifts, liquid nose jobs are not rhinoplasties.”
She also warns against setting too much store by before and after pictures due to the proliferation of digitally-altered images. “Instagram is a problem for patients who don’t realise the images have been heavily filtered. One of my clients was considering a surgeon she found on social media, until she discovered his before and after images also being used elsewhere online, revealing that they were clearly not exclusively his.”
Online reviews should also be treated with extreme caution, along with clinics that try to “rush” their patients into procedures. Those wanting multiple treatments should draw up a “master plan” first, says Jackson.
Citing the Brazilian butt lift as an example, Jackson also advises against following “fads”. “Beauty is a science, not a passing trend,” she says. “One out of 3,000 cases have ended in fatality – it’s one of the most dangerous procedures you can have.”
The unlikely Star Trek fan, who in the past has cited Barbie as well as the works of Leonardo da Vinci and Michaelangelo as her inspirations for cosmetic surgery, adds: “I always had self-esteem and self-confidence. I sang in a rock band for 10 years so I was not a shy person. If you’re a shrinking violet, cosmetic surgery is not going to give you a different personality. All I ever wanted was to look better and that’s what I also want for my clients.
“I’ve been portrayed as someone who has no respect for health and wellbeing but actually, nothing could be further from the truth. I’m very risk-averse, which is why I was so scientific and careful in my approach.
“The whole Barbie tag was used to make me look like a bimbo. But actually I was just a nerd who wanted to look pretty.”
How Not To Get Botched is available for download at www.cindyjackson.com, priced $19.95 (£16)
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