Breast implants are getting smaller. It’s not a win for body acceptance

After years of big boobs being the beauty standard, more women in Hollywood and beyond have decided the large breast implants they got for cosmetic reasons have lost their lustre.

Just last month, actor Alyssa Milano announced she was getting what’s commonly called an “explant” – ditching her breast implants and the emotional baggage associated with them.

It’s tempting to celebrate a wave of celebrity explants as a trend towards body acceptance, but the boob job isn’t going anywhere. Breast augmentation remains one of the most popular cosmetic surgeries among American women, with about 300,000 performed yearly. (In Australia, it is about 20,000 a year.) But plastic surgeons say they’re seeing a steady rise in implant removals and smaller breast implants, a shift that mirrors broader cultural currents: the popularity of GLP-1 weight-loss drugs, the allure of Pilates bodies and an aesthetic pendulum swinging towards smaller.

As some women come to terms with the way beauty trends pushed them to make choices they now want reversed, plenty of others continue to choose surgery in pursuit of the perfect breasts – an ever-evolving standard. Right now, based on surgical requests, the standard is small.

“I’m letting go of the body that was sexualised, that was abused, that I believed was necessary for me to be attractive,” Milano, 52, wrote on her September 24 Instagram post, where she’s smiling in a hospital gown and cap.

The Charmed star, whose magazine photo shoots from the ’90s and early 2000s heavily featured her cleavage with taglines such as “Banned by the Taliban!” and “Melrose Hellraiser”, went on: “Today I am loved, I am feminine, I am attractive, and I am successful. None of that is because of my implants.”

Milano’s post was met with overwhelming praise and support, including from Nicole Scherzinger, Lisa Ann Walter and fellow explanter Michelle Visage, whom Milano said had helped her through the process.

She’s not the only public figure wading into the explant conversation. Victoria Beckham once denied rumours she had breast implants, but she recently joked in a Sun interview that her removed implants were probably “bobbing around in the Mediterranean Sea”. In 2022, Kehlani said getting her implants out had been the “best thing ever”. A contestant on the current season of Netflix’s Love Is Blind, “Sparkle Megan”, has mentioned she had her breast implants removed.

Those who have had explants often frame it as a broader shift away from the “boob job era” of the 1990s and 2000s, reclaiming their autonomy from a cultural moment that idolised hyper-augmented bodies.

Alka Menon, an assistant professor of sociology at Yale University, describes how social media has accelerated these beauty cycles and makes trends turn faster. “What took decades to shift from Marilyn Monroe to Kate Moss now happens in a few years. The algorithm determines what version of beauty you’re exposed to,” Menon says. “Cosmetic surgery moves on a trend model. Minimalism is the name of the game now.”

In the 1990s, Garth Fisher was one of the notable plastic surgeons performing breast augmentations for Playboy models. At the time, Pamela Anderson, Carmen Electra and Anna Nicole Smith graced its pages with cleavage that would be described as anything but minimalist. Playboy “had such a tremendous and profound impact on culture and how girls wanted to have their breasts look”, Fisher says. Now, after 30 years in the business and more than 23,000 breast surgeries, Fisher has noticed fewer of his clients seeking “Playboy playmate” or “Penthouse pet”-sized implants.

“It’s really no surprise to me that for a time, breast implants were hugely popular, but they’ve lost their appeal,” says Victoria Pitts-Taylor, chair of Feminist, Gender and Sexuality Studies at Wesleyan University. “They’ve become over-present, passé and they’re not compatible with wellness and detoxifying lifestyles people are moving toward.”

Tim Neavin, the Beverly Hills plastic surgeon who performed Milano’s breast implant removal, says that over the past five years, he’s seen more and more women decide to downsize or remove their implants. Some ask to remove their implants after experiencing fatigue, headaches, rashes, joint pain or brain fog – symptoms associated with what’s been called “breast implant illness”. For others, it’s simply a change in taste, with women feeling like the implants “don’t belong on their body any more”, he says. Many opt for a fat transfer, which involves moving fat from other parts of the body, like the hips or abs, and injecting it into the breast area.

Beverly Hills surgeon Cat Begovic has seen a huge increase in women specifically asking for the fat transfer procedure over implants which will give only a subtle increase in volume to the chest and at most will increase one’s breast by one cup size.

“It’s something that I do all the time. I think probably in the last month, I’ve done probably four fat transfers to the breast, and they were all very fit, lean patients. They were extraordinarily happy just because they wanted to still be in the same bra size but just be a little more filled,” Begovic says.

She adds that implants are “not a lifetime device. Especially if we’re talking about silicone implants. It’s definitely recommended to do a replacement somewhere around 10 years, just because statistically, the rupture rate at 10 years is around 16 to 18 per cent”.

Patients come to Boston-based plastic surgeon Sean Doherty with pictures of actor Kate Hudson more than anyone else. “I feel like women in their 40s really always admired her breasts, and people like that ‘yoga breast’ look and want that natural enhancement,” Doherty says. On the opposite side, he says his younger patients usually bring in pictures of influencer Alix Earle, who has been open about her saline implants.

Despite more advanced techniques, bigger implants still tend to come with a slightly greater risk for complications, says Reza Nassab, a plastic surgeon in England. Meanwhile, the “ballerina boob job” and Motiva Preservé – a minimally invasive breast augmentation that requires only light sedation – have become trendier. Nassab says some of his swimwear model patients came to his office to downsize their implants as they set their sights on more high-end fashion opportunities.

Pitts-Taylor says individual motivations like rejecting objectification can coexist with larger cultural shifts that still reinforce beauty norms.

“Even as women like Pamela Anderson or Alyssa Milano resist objectification, they’re still asked to account for their choices. Pamela goes without make-up and has to address it. Milano removes implants and discusses it publicly,” she says.

“I think that speaks to the continued pressure on women’s bodies, the commodification and commercialisation of appearance that isn’t lessening simply because the aesthetic is turning more ‘natural’.”

There’s pressure to have a more prominent chest or to have a slimmer physique, but there’s also pressure on women to explain how society’s noise can inform their very personal medical decisions.

Nowadays, celebrities are less coy about their surgeries. Take, for instance, when TikToker Rachel Leary pleaded with Kylie Jenner to share her breast surgery details: “To me, you have got what I am looking for to have done in terms of a boob job,” Leary says in the video posted in June. “It’s the most perfect, natural-looking boob job ever.”

Jenner replied: “445 cc, moderate profile, half under the muscle!!!!! silicone!!! garth fisher!!! hope this helps lol.”

By August, Leary was shaking hands with Fisher, whose “incredible skillage” led to Leary walking away with her own “masterpieces”.

Washington Post

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