GLOWER OUTAGE
‘Resting bitch face’ surgery surges
Hope Davis didn’t realize the hard truth until her pals uploaded a batch of unflattering photos to Facebook and Instagram — she had “resting bitch face.”
“I was like, ‘Oh, great, I look mad in the middle of the party,’ ” says the 42-year-old Red Bank, NJ, resident and ex-New Yorker of 17 years. “I looked like a sourpuss.” Davis, whose job as a medicalequipment sales associate depends on appearing approachable, turned to a plastic surgeon.
“This is actually a common request from patients — I get several each week,” says Dr. David Shafer, a double board-certified plastic surgeon and medical director of Shafer Plastic Surgery & Laser Center in Midtown.
“They may not always use the words ‘resting bitch face,’ but if I mention ‘RBF,’ they say, ‘exactly.’ ”
To achieve the look, doctors use techniques such as the injection of fillers into the face and sometimes Botox, medical experts said. The procedure takes about 10 to 20 minutes, costs between $500 to 5,000 and typically lasts up to two years.
Although the term RBF entered the cultural lexicon about six years ago, requests for the procedure “more than doubled” over the last year, Shafer said.
It’s because of a public shift in focus from the upper to lower face — “popularized by the Kardashians,” he said, and their affinity for lip injections.
He said selfies are also a factor: They force people to “look down at their phone, [which] accentuates the resting bitch face.”
“Nobody can quite put their finger on it, but they notice something’s different,” said Davis, who had the procedure on Sept. 4. “People have definitely complimented me, saying, ‘Oh, you look so pretty and cute today.’ ”
That makes sense to Park Avenue plastic surgeon Dr. Melissa Doft. “People gravitate to women who they perceive as happy,” she said.
Doft said she injects fillers into women’s so-called marionette lines — from the lip’s corners to the jawline — and underneath their lips to plump and re-angle their mouths.
The needles contain hyaluronic acid dermal fillers such as Juvéderm Vollure, which helps replace lost volume, contour soft tissue and support the lips.
It helps “make [patients] look less sad,” Doft said.
Every specialist has a different technique, but Shafer also likes to add Botox to the jowl area.
“The worse the bitch face, the more effective the Botox,” said Shafer. “If you always look dumpy or unfriendly . . . people are going to react to you differently.” mlicea@nypost.com