Brazilian Butt Lift Calculator

Why the Brazilian Butt Lift Calculator Was Made

The Brazilian Butt Lift Calculator was made so a surgeon and a patient can point at the same buttock size and the same buttock shape before any fat is moved. It was built because patients referred after a Brazilian butt lift were unhappy with the size they ended up with, or with the shape. A conversation that only says larger, or only says round, was not specific enough. The fix was a set of caricatures that change size and shape, so the patient can mark the style she wants.

A Brazilian butt lift takes fat by liposuction and returns it as fat grafting to the buttock. The American Society of Plastic Surgeons describes buttock augmentation with a patient's own fat as a change in size and shape. That graft is placed over the glute, in the subcutaneous tissue, not in the muscle. The grids do not choose the plane. They choose the width and the projection the patient is asking to see.

The Back View of the Brazilian Butt Lift Calculator

Seven Columns of Buttock Width

From the back, size is buttock width. The images are arranged in 7 columns, from the smallest width to the largest width. Shape is a separate choice, arranged in 5 rows. The row is where the maximum width sits: the upper buttock, the upper middle buttock, the middle buttock, the lower middle buttock, or the lower buttock. The top row is the upper pole. A wide upper pole is not the same mark as a wide lower buttock, even when the column, the overall width, is the same.

Width on this view is how far the buttock extends toward the hip. A patient can want that hip-side width to be modest and still want the fullest part low, or want the width large and the fullest part in the middle. Marking only a column, or only a row, leaves the other choice blank. The back view is finished when both the column and the row are marked.

The Side View of the Brazilian Butt Lift Calculator

Five Columns of Projection

From the side, size is projection. The images are arranged in 5 columns, from the smallest projection to the largest projection. Shape is again 5 rows. The row is where the maximum projection sits: upper, upper middle, middle, lower middle, or lower buttock. A large projection at the lower buttock is a different side view from a large projection at the upper buttock, even in the same column.

The side view does not repeat the back view. A patient can mark a wide buttock from the back and a modest projection from the side, or a narrower back view and a long side view. Writing down only larger collapses those two choices into one. The calculator is finished when the back-view column, the back-view row, the side-view column, and the side-view row have all been marked.

What One Cell on the Grids Means

A mark is one cell. The column is the size. The row is where that size is fullest. On the back view the size is width, so a cell in the largest column and the lower row is a wide buttock whose fullest point sits low. The same largest column on the upper row is still a wide buttock, and the fullest point sits high. Those are different shapes. The caricatures exist so those two cells can be pointed at, instead of being described with the single word round or the single word larger.

The same rule applies on the side view, where the column is projection. A large projection whose fullest point is the lower buttock does not look like a large projection whose fullest point is the upper buttock. The patient marks both views because a wide back view can sit beside a modest side view. One word cannot hold both choices, and both cells have to be marked before the request is specific.

Using the Grids Before Surgery or for a Revision

The grids are used in three ways. They let a first operation be planned to the size and shape the patient marked. They let a revision patient mark the buttock she has now and the buttock she wants next, so the gap between those two marks is visible. They also give a before-and-after comparison that is a pair of marks, not only a feeling that the buttock changed. What BBL means, as a fat transfer, is a separate definition. The fee for that transfer is a separate question, and it comes after the shape is marked.

The marks patients choose have varied with age, with ethnicity, and with religion. The grids record the mark the person in the room makes. They do not assign a column or a row from a group. Two patients of the same age can mark different rows. The useful record is the mark, not the category. A standing exam at the offices where these operations are done is where the marks are compared with the buttock that is actually there.

Fat transfer in Newport Beach follows the same idea: the shape is chosen before the fat is placed. If the donor sites cannot supply the column the patient marked, the mark has to be revised before surgery, not discovered after. The calculator does not create fat. It only names the width and the projection being requested.

The Three Records the Grids Hold

The first record is a first operation. The patient marks the cell she wants, and that mark is what the grafting is being asked to approach. The graft is still her own fat, taken by liposuction and placed over the glute. If the marked column is larger than the donor fat can support, the mark is changed before the operation. The chart does not promise a column the body cannot supply.

The second record is a revision. She marks the cell that matches the buttock she has, then marks the cell she wants. The gap can be a change of column, a change of row, or both. A change of column is a change of width from the back, or a change of projection from the side. A change of row moves the fullest point up or down. Seeing both marks on the same chart is what makes the request specific.

The third record is the change itself. After surgery the buttock can be marked again. The comparison is those two marks. It is not a claim that every patient reaches the cell she first circled, and it is not a score of the operation. It is a way to say, in the same columns and the same rows, where the buttock started and where it sits now.

What the Chart Leaves Out

The chart does not measure the waist. Liposuction of the flanks can narrow the waist, and a narrower waist changes how wide the buttock looks beside it. Waist narrowing is not one of the seven columns, and it is not one of the five. The photograph shows flank and back work on one woman. It is not a filled-in grid, and a waist change should not be read as a width column.

The chart also does not assign a shape from age, ethnicity, or religion. Those factors have coincided with different marks among the patients who used the chart. The coincidence is an observation about marks already made. It is not a column the chart fills in for the next person. Each person marks her own cell, on both views.

The chart does not choose where in the tissue the fat is placed. Placement stays over the glute, in the subcutaneous tissue, not in the muscle. A patient can mark any row from the upper buttock to the lower buttock, including the upper pole, and the plane of the graft does not change with the row. Width toward the hip and projection from the side are the choices. The plane is not a choice on the chart.

What the Photograph Records

The photograph is a 50-year-old woman after liposuction of the upper back, the middle back, the lower back, and the flanks, with Renuvion skin tightening. Flank removal changes the waist. That waist change is not a column on the calculator. The photograph is a back-contour record. It is not a before-and-after of a width column or a projection column, and it is not evidence that those grids were marked on her case. The grids remain the two charts: 7 columns of width with 5 rows, and 5 columns of projection with 5 rows.