|
 In popular clinics the wait for a new you can be long.
At Santé in São Paulo, for example, appointments for a
consultation aren't available until July, 2001.
By Elma Lia Nascimento
Self-appointed national conscience weekly newsmagazine Veja (circulation: 1.2
million copies) sounded the alarm: there is a shortage of silicone in Brazil. The warning
came in a full-page article illustrated with the semi-covered breasts of eight Brazilian
female celebrities and the reader was invited to match a face to every mammary with
correct answers shown in a little box.
Since 1998 the number of Brazilian women turning to plastic surgery to improve on their
bosoms has jumped from 10,000 to more than 20,000. The implant fever has been triggered by
a series of well-publicized breast enhancement procedures done by famous women like
children's entertainer Xuxa, veteran movie and TV actress Vera Fisher and dancer-presenter
Carla Perez, whose claim to fame until now has been a prominent derriere that she has
frequently exposed in Brazilian Playboy.
Silicone implants have become a coveted Christmas gift in some quarters. The SBCP
(Sociedade Brasileira de Cirurgia Plástica—Brazilian Society of Plastic Surgery)
estimates that there was an increase of 30 percent in silicone implants this past
December, many of them as gifts from fathers to daughters and from husbands to wives.
Veja cites Luiz Carlos Garcia, president of SBCP, commenting on the crisis:
"It's not like an outbreak or calamity, but some people are being forced to postpone
this surgery up to 10 days. Celebrity surgeon Ivo Pitanguy wasn't spared the inconvenience
and the silicone stock in his clinic is dangerously low. "Since July the number of
patients has doubled," revealed Pitanguy. "And these clients are not only new
ones, but returning customers who decided to further enlarge their breasts."
While Xuxa has added a modest 150 mg of silicone and model Luma de Oliveira opted for
175 mg, the national preference nowadays is 175 mg, which, according to those in the know,
is enough to give breasts that coveted hilly roundness that gives tactile and visual
pleasure to women and men alike. All this implanting furor has even earned a term to
designate women improved by silicone: they are the siliconadas (the siliconated
ladies).
Webzine No. told the story of Juliana Gentil Limas, 32, an architect from São
Paulo who got new buttocks as a Christmas gift from her boyfriend. Juliana revealed that
she was thrilled with the gift: "I wasn't offended. Au contraire! I laughed and
jumped at the idea. I hated my butt that was turned to the inside." She had the
operation and was planning to have a premiere of the results on a beach in Bahia by the
first of the year. "The new derriere doesn't look bad at all," she said.
"If actresses can go for the works why can't I?"
Prices haven't deterred those Santas willing to give silicone as gifts. New breasts
cost anywhere from $2500 to $4000. A new bumbum, however, is considerably more:
from $6000 to $8000. With this kind of money you can buy a new car. In popular clinics the
wait for a new you can be long. At Santé in São Paulo, for example, appointments for a
consultation aren't available until July, 2001.
Much of the silicone used in Brazil has to be imported because the country has only one
manufacturer. Rio's Silimed is producing 1200 breast prostheses a year, more than double
what they were making five years ago. Some of the material is exported, though, and
Brazilian clinics have to look for the product overseas. In all this booby-enhancing craze
some doctors have detected what most see as a disturbing trend: an increasing number of
teens enlarging their breasts.
Send
your
comments to
Brazzil
 |
Subscribe to this comment's feed