Is the pressure of social media making the UAE males take their grooming few steps further?

“Men in this part of the world are paying more attention to the quality of their lives,” says Dr Zahra Refaei, specialist plastic surgeon at the Dubai Health Authority and director of Deparis Medical Centre. “There is a focus on greater health, including exercise and diet. The media and advertising and so forth have changed our lives.”

Refaei says men are increasingly open to the idea of going under the knife or to opt for injectable cosmetic medicine to enhance their appearance.

“We’ve overcome the stigma of certain procedures being only for women or not accessible to men. Men also want to look good, in their private lives but also for their careers,” she tells tabloid!.

Also highlighting the so-called “career-lift”, Michael Mitry, director of Dubai’s The Private Clinic, says, “Businessmen view looking good or younger as giving them the edge in the corporate world — and, of course, it just generally makes them more confident.

“Male grooming and men generally looking after their appearance has had a knock on effect to cosmetic surgery. They are less and less embarrassed to do it. And, just like women, they want to look good in pictures on all the social media platforms — Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn etc.”

Americans alone are said to have spent more than $13.5 billion (Dh49.5 billion) last year on cosmetic adjustments and enhancements. Male Plastic Surgery New York estimates 106 per cent increase in the male segment over the last two decades, while the International Society of Aesthetic Plastic Surgery (ISAPS) says men around the world accounted for 2.7 million of all surgical and nonsurgical procedures in 2014 — about 13.7 per cent.

In the UAE that figure is even higher. Prof Dr Abdulbaqi Alkhatib, consultant - plastic surgery at Burjeel Hospital Abu Dhabi, says there has been an “interesting increase in interest from men in the past two years”, with men making up 20 per cent of their clientele. “We see on average 50 male guests per month, or 600 per year.”

According to ISAPS, eyelid surgery is most prevalent among men globally, followed by rhinoplasty (nose jobs), liposuction, gynecomastia (male breast reduction) and fat grafting. In the UAE, however, Alkhatib says male breast reduction is the most common purely cosmetic — as opposed to medically necessary — procedure, while abdominoplasty also known as a “tummy tuck”, and nose jobs remain popular. He says there’s a trend in the latter of reducing the hump of the bridge and making the nasal tip smaller.

Tattoo removal, which grew about 39 per cent in the US in the last year, according to the American Society for Aesthetic Plastic Surgery, is as popular in the UAE. “Many men, especially those with tattoos on their trunks or limbs, want to have it removed when they’re looking for a job or about to enlist in the military, since they won’t be accepted otherwise,” says Alkhatib.

The UAE is also seeing a growing demand for hair transplants — including beards and eyebrows — as well as nonsurgical skin tightening, buttock lifts, microdermabrasion peels and fillers, including what’s known as the vampire filler where one’s own blood is used to smooth out wrinkles and rejuvenate the skin.

“On the nonsurgical side, botox for men has seen a dramatic increase,” says Mitry.

Medical advances means there’s an ever-expanding list of nonsurgical solutions the busy executive can go in for — or have done at the office — over lunch or in the same time it would take to do a meeting. “Medical facials and radio frequency ultra slimming can be done in an hour or so, and there is no real downtime,” Mitry explains.

Alkhatib says fillers are increasingly popular as they deliver instant results, while botox takes about a week. “Many men accompany their wives when they come for a consultation for injectables, and I can see they’re not happy about their wives having the procedure done. Then, about a month later when they see the results they come in for their own consultation! And they leave feeling more confident”.

On the subject of boosting confidence, Refaei says she consults more and more men who feel inadequately endowed down there. “It isn’t as unusual here as it once was.”