Abstract
Cosmetic surgery is often linked to the perception that women who resort to cosmetic
interventions to alter their physical appearance are vain, superficial, and narcissistic.
Few investigations have acknowledged and explored the individual’s personal
motivations and experiences of her action and choice with regards to aesthetic
surgery. By focusing on the subjective experience, an alternative insight is given to the
cosmetic procedure and to how the reshaped body influences an individual’s lifeworld
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experience. The article explores the perceived benefits and consequences of
reshaping, enhancing, and/or reducing a perceived flaw or shortcoming of the body.
From this exploration the focus moves to the individual’s subjective and
intersubjective perceptions: how she motivates and justifies her physical
transformation whilst keeping private, and at times hiding, her surgical intervention.
We attempt to understand how a group of women experience cosmetic surgery in
terms of their personal sense of self and their everyday social reality.