How Does Ethnicity Affect Desired BBL Shape and Size

A Survey of 422 Patients

How does ethnicity affect desired BBL shape and size when there is no single standard for an ideal buttock? The Brazilian buttock lift has become a common way to change the female silhouette, and the preferred size and shape still vary from patient to patient. Goals for size and shape can be subjective, and ethnicity is one of the differences that showed up when 422 patients who wanted a BBL were surveyed. The survey groups are Caucasian, Asian American, African American, and Hispanic.

The buttock assessment tool is how those preferences were asked. Patients looked at altered sizes and shapes and chose the fullness they wanted. The finding is not a universal template. It is a record of what this group of 422 patients asked for, sorted by those ethnic groups. A Brazilian buttock lift can then be planned against that request rather than against a single posted ideal.

The Peach Butt at Mid-Butt Fullness

Every group in the survey wanted maximum fullness of the BBL at the mid-butt level. That mid-butt maximum is what this practice calls the peach butt. How does ethnicity affect desired BBL shape at that level? It does not split the groups. The shared request is projection at the middle of the buttock, in line with filling of the lateral hip.

The Tilde Curve is the contour line named for that shared aim: a gentle curve with smooth transitions. Fullness that stops abruptly at the thigh, or a waist that never meets the cheek, misses that curve. The peach butt is the mid-butt part of the request. The ethnic differences show up in what patients will also accept below that middle, and in how large they want the buttock to be beside the waist.

Lower Pole Fullness and the Heart-Shaped Butt

Hispanics and African Americans showed a tolerance for lower pole fullness that Caucasians did not match to the same degree. That lower pole fullness is what this practice calls the heart-shaped butt. It is a second preference, not a replacement for the mid-butt maximum. Hispanic and African American women desired lower pole maximum prominence in the posteroanterior view as that second preference, more than Caucasian women did.

The same graphs show a preference among African American and Hispanic patients for maximum lower BBL fullness when they are compared with Caucasian and Asian clients. Asian American patients sit with Caucasian patients on that comparison: the overlying preference that everyone shared is still the middle fullness lined up with the lateral hip. The extra lower pole request is the Hispanic and African American finding.

The first two charts record that middle fullness and the lower pole difference. One is the shape comparison. The other is the contour of the legs and the buttock those choices are trying to meet. They are read as the survey result, not as a required volume for every patient who shares an ethnicity.

Waist-to-BBL Size

African Americans preferred larger BBL-to-waist differentials than the other groups. A larger fat transfer to the lateral buttock and the lateral hip is how that differential is described. The fat grafting that creates it sits in the subcutaneous tissue over the glute, and the muscle is left alone. Liposuction is the harvest that supplies that fat. No transfer volume is assigned here, because the survey recorded a preference for a larger difference between waist and buttock, not a dose.

The next chart shows that waist differential, with African Americans preferring a larger BBL-to-waist gap than the other ethnicities, using the lateral buttock and the lateral hip.

African Americans and Hispanics also showed an affinity for larger BBL volumes, which produces a greater difference in waist-to-BBL ratios. African Americans preferred larger BBL sizes in the posteroanterior view. African Americans and Hispanics preferred a larger BBL size in the lateral views than Caucasians did. The following chart is that volume preference.

How the Four Groups Sorted

Caucasian patients in this survey wanted the mid-butt maximum. As a group they did not share the request for maximum lower pole fullness, and most of them found very full lateral thighs undesirable. Asian clients are reported with Caucasian patients on that lower fullness comparison. The survey does not give Asian American patients a separate size beyond that pairing.

African American patients wanted the mid-butt maximum, and they also wanted lower pole fullness, a larger buttock in the posteroanterior view, a larger buttock in the lateral view, and a larger gap between the waist and the BBL. The larger fat transfer named for that gap goes to the lateral buttock and the lateral hip. Hispanic patients share the mid-butt maximum, the lower pole as a second preference, the affinity for larger volumes, the larger lateral-view BBL, and the very full lateral thigh. The waist differential and the larger posteroanterior size are named specifically for African Americans.

A group average is not an order. In the exam, how does ethnicity affect desired BBL shape? It is a starting description of what similar patients have asked for. The person in front of the surgeon still chooses the peach butt, the heart-shaped lower pole, or a smaller waist-to-buttock gap on the assessment tool. Two patients in the same ethnic group can leave with different marks on that tool.

A Smooth Transition Into a Larger Thigh

These findings line up with earlier published observations of a favored larger ideal BBL for African Americans, and of very full lateral thighs, called here the lower hip, for both African American and Hispanic women in the United States. Most Caucasian women in the survey found those same features undesirable. The desire for lower pole fullness and for larger BBLs is tied, on this account, to larger thigh girths among African Americans and Hispanics.

Ideal female contour lines need smooth transitions. A fuller lower pole, as a second preference, can make a more harmonious transition from the BBL to legs that are already more generous. How does ethnicity affect desired BBL shape when the thigh is already large? The lower pole is the additional request, so the buttock can meet that thigh without a step. The glute is still fullest at the mid-butt for every group.

The photographs are a 43 year old woman after a Brazilian buttock lift. They are not labeled with an ethnicity, and they are not a chart. The charts are the survey. A consultation uses the assessment tool so the peach butt, the heart-shaped lower pole, and the waist differential can be chosen by the patient rather than assumed from a group average. Fees for the fat grafting are explained on the buttock augmentation cost page, and where to be seen is listed with BBL locations. The American Society of Plastic Surgeons describes buttock augmentation with a patient's own fat as one form of that surgery.

The harvest itself is liposuction, and the placement is fat grafting. That pairing is the Brazilian buttock lift this survey is about. Shape words the photographs and the charts let you compare are projection of the glute, the waist beside it, the hip, and which pole carries the maximum fullness.