Plastic surgeons wrestle with requests for 'Mar-a-Lago face': 'You're going to look like Maleficent' [View all]

Picture a plastic surgeon’s office. You might imagine a sleek Los Angeles practice, with discreet entrances meant to conceal celebrities from the paparazzi. Maybe a Dallas high-rise, where monied housewives spend on postpartum “mommy makeovers”. Or a Miami location, where influencers and OnlyFans stars film TikToks of their BBLs. One city you might not think of is Washington DC. But its buttoned-up reputation belies a newly buzzing industry.

Much has been made of the so-called “Mar-a-Lago face”, or the uncannily smooth and artificially voluminous features seen on the likes of Maga elite such as Kristi Noem, Kimberly Guilfoyle, Laura Loomer and Matt Gaetz. The bee-sting puffy lips, frozen brows and taut necks have been compared to Real Housewives stars, sleep paralysis demons and – ironically, considering the Republican party’s anti-LGBTQ+ culture war – drag queens (minus the campy fun).

As of January, plastic surgeons in Washington DC have seen a “surge in ‘Mar-a-Lago face’ requests from Trump insiders”, Axios recently reported. Surgeons told the outlet that more Washingtonians want their procedures to be not unnoticed but obvious and overdone.

Axios attributed the aesthetic shift to the influx of transplants from south Florida (where Mar-a-Lago, Trump’s gaudy private club, is located), who are no strangers to nip-tuck tune-ups. Others theorize that going through these procedures is a calculated act of political deference to Trump’s preferred (and unnatural) beauty standards.

Dr Anita Kulkarni is a plastic surgeon who practices out of DC’s West End neighborhood and specializes in postpartum body contouring. Enter her office, and you will be greeted by staff who look good, but not worked on – and that is the effect most of her clients have gone for. “Before this second Trump term, I just didn’t see a lot of patients coming in making unreasonable requests,” Kulkarni says. But since the inauguration, she has fielded half a dozen or more – not a large sample size, but enough for the surgeon to take note.

https://www.theguardian.com/society/2025/nov/18/mar-a-lago-face-plastic-surgery

Some of them, Guilfoys and Loomer in particular, just look STUPID.