Most people have re-emerged from the COVID lockdown in one of two states: Looking haggard with a few extra pounds, or looking better than ever. There seems to be very little in between.

As vaccine needles find our arms and restrictions are lifted across the country, you’re probably getting ready to see people that you haven’t seen in the flesh in over a year.

How do they look? Is there something different about them that you just can’t seem to put your finger on?

Maybe they started a new juice cleanse, or maybe they got a rhinoplasty procedure. In fact, hundreds of thousands of people flocked to plastic surgery clinics during the lockdown.

Here’s why.

The Zoom Effect

The pandemic saw a record number of people working from home, and a truly staggering number of video calls every single day.

The sheer number of people having to look at themselves on video calls every day has had a very real impact on the plastic surgery industry, which some are calling The Zoom Effect or The Zoom Boom.

In fact, The American Academy of Facial Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery (AAFPRS) polled their members during the pandemic (June of 2020) and revealed that 70% of those surveyed reported an increase in business during the lockdown, and 83% of those respondents attributed their growth to clients wanting to look better on video calls, or the so-called Zoom Effect.

The same survey showed that rhinoplasty was the most popular procedure and it saw the biggest uptick during the pandemic. According to their data, the most popular procedures were:

  • Rhinoplasty (78%)
  • Facelifts (69%)
  • Eye lifts (65%)
  • Neck lifts/treatments (58%)

Not surprisingly, all of these procedures focused on webcam-facing areas of the body.

Save Your Vacation Days

People are not just getting plastic surgery because they hate video calls. They’re doing it because the pandemic lockdown actually created a very unique window to get plastic surgery.

Millions of people are now working from home, while they wear masks to run their daily errands. This basically creates a perfect storm of opportunity to discreetly recover from facial plastic surgery.

This means that a lot of people that were previously on the fence about a possible surgery prior to the pandemic got that last little bit of encouragement they needed.

At the same time, some people may have been thinking about a non-surgical or non-invasive procedure (Botox for example) because they didn’t want to deal with a lot of downtimes, or they didn’t want to use all of their hard-earned vacation days.

Now, a lot of those people have decided to go all-in because they can recover from home while working from home and saving their vacation days for a real vacation.

So don’t be surprised if you meet a friend for dinner and notice that they look a little different, or 10 years younger. It’s very possible that they had a plastic surgery procedure while they were in lockdown.

If they give you the last push you need to get the procedure you’ve always wanted, you had better act soon!