Cosmetic Blogosphere

Updated 3/2017-- all links removed as many no longer active as it was easier than checking each one.

I received the June edition of the PSP Journal a few days ago. I was pleasantly surprised to see that I was included in the Editor's Message on "Canvassing the Cosmetic Blogosphere". I knew of most of the blogs he mentioned, but had missed a few including theirs (The Aesthetic Blog -- I have added it to my reader and sidebar).

At another end of the spectrum, Suture for a Living (rlbatesmd.blogspot.com) is a very personal kind of blog, written by Ramona Bates, MD, a plastic surgeon in Arkansas. Bates provides well-written accounts of surgeries, her take on the profession in general, and an almost parochial view of the aesthetic arts.

Plasmetic.com describes itself as "obsessively covering the latest procedures in plastic surgery and cosmetic surgery," with a focus on the costs—medical, economical, and otherwise—of such surgery.

The personalized nature of blogging makes for some opinionated and somewhat irreverent sites, such as Plasticized.com, which divides its coverage of aesthetic surgery between hard news and celebrity-oriented "awful surgery" gossip.

In the same vein, blogs by individual physicians can be problematic. A large majority of physicians' blogs are nothing more than "puff pieces" that promote a particular practice.

Exceptions to this rule include Cosmetic Celebrity Surgery (celebritycosmeticsurgery.blogspot.com), which despite its moniker is a serious look at all things cosmetic.

Another good physician's blog, Plastic Surgery 101 (www.plasticsurgery101.blogspot.com), seems to always disseminate the relevant issues of the day.

A large number of plastic surgeon blogs mix commentary with blatant self-promotion—for example, the Plastic Surgery Institute of Los Angeles blog (psicalifornia.blogspot.com).

Thanks for the notice Jeffrey Frentzen (editor of PSP). To see the entire list, check out the article here.