Glossy goes for cutting edge

Finally, there’s a magazine that publicly acknowledges a woman’s right to gauge her potential by the number of surgical procedures she’ll need to achieve it. Newsstands everywhere just welcomed NewBeauty, the first national consumer glossy devoted exclusively to cosmetic enhancement.

It debuted last month from its headquarters in Boca Raton, Fla., as a no-nonsense guide for terminally body-conscious women of all ages. The magazine is the size of a phone book, with 650 pages of advertising, a claim of 500,000 circulation, a newsstand price of $9.95 and headlines that cut to the chase: “I Want Luscious Lips,” “I Want a Sexy Butt,” “I Want Prettier Eyes.”

But don’t be deceived by those whimsical sound bites. NewBeauty takes itself very seriously. There are no close-ups of overripe cleavage, no chirpy articles enumerating celebrity surgeries. Instead there’s earnest discussion of injecting one’s own body fat into one’s face to remove wrinkles and detailed analysis of saline versus silicone breast implants. Its clean design, accented in tangerine and sage, is inviting and suggestive of health and well-being, as if a preoccupation with ablative lasers, anesthesia and recovery times is as natural as a yoga class. And just as essential for peace of mind.

Publishing academics heralded the debut as a milestone. It’s been about 15 years since a magazine launched with as much advertising as NewBeauty, a sure sign that a slew of copycats is on the way. “It’s one of those made to reflect our nip-and-tuck society,” says magazine expert Samir Husni, a University of Mississippi journalism professor. “When you look at our public and see all these parents giving their kids for graduation breast implants, nose jobs.... You have to wonder.”

But even nip-tuck-ers need a dream, one that NewBeauty aims to satisfy. It’s aspirational, says Abe Peck, chairman of Northwestern University’s magazine program. And it accelerates society’s acceptance, he says, by saying “cosmetic surgery is out of the closet and it’s perfectly fine to have this interest and we’re going to mediate it for you.... It wouldn’t be a sin to read in public. It’s a magazine that both beautifies and normalizes [cosmetic procedures], which is a very interesting psychographic.”

NewBeauty’s 36-year-old publisher Adam Sandow, who comes from the world of bridal tomes, sees the magazine as just the crest of a wave he’ll ride for years. Along with the national edition, Sandow has published 13 regional editions. By next year, his company Sandow Media will publish the magazine quarterly and soon there will be a NewBeauty book series and regional NewBeauty seminars.

“We saw the growth in the industry,” he says. “The amount of people that were actually having procedures done was staggering.... You can figure there are probably double that amount that are actually thinking about it.”

Since the late 1990s, cosmetic procedures have skyrocketed 293%, according to the American Society of Aesthetic Plastic Surgeons. And that trend has shown no signs of slowing, particularly since 2002 when the FDA approved Botox for frown lines and ABC first aired “Extreme Makeover.” The number of procedures continues to jump more than 20% annually.

The field is now so competitive that it’s common for plastic surgeons, dermatologists, even cosmetic dentists to have their own publicists. “Medi-spas” that pair microdermabrasion with massages and mani-pedis are cropping up all over the country. And politicians in New Jersey and Illinois are trying to tax cosmetic procedures to help balance their budgets and fund state initiatives.

Not since the PC craze of the late 1980s and the launch of PC Resources magazine has a publication had such a promising start, says Husni. Naturally, he says, a debut of this magnitude begs the question: Can this trend sustain itself?

“We’ve been to the top of the mountain,” says Husni. “Now, it’s how slowly can we descend?”

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From skin to mind

NewBeauty is a slick book, published on expensive paper. The design is airy and sophisticated, with breakout quotes from Lebanese poet Kahlil Gibran (“Beauty is eternity gazing at itself in the mirror”) and Abraham Lincoln (“If I were two-faced would I be wearing this one?”) and gauzy close-ups of perfect roses.

The 184 pages of editorial content are divided into five sections -- Skin, Face, Smile, Body and Mind -- and offers articles that are thorough, practical and provide clear pros and cons of each procedure, accompanied by before-and-after photos. The goal, says Sandow, is to offer options, not recommendations.

“This magazine is designed to be a resource as much as it is a fun, sexy, beauty magazine,” he says. “It’s something that people will buy and keep.”

Remarkably, only two pages feature celebrities. In an article about anti-aging creams, Jessica Simpson, Ashley Judd, Heather Locklear and Jane Seymour define beauty at every age. Everywhere else, the magazine features demure images of young natural beauties with lineless, honey-colored skin, posed on beaches, in tide pools and verdant fields.

Articles in the current issue detail misconceptions about liposuction, the FDA’s stance on silicone breast implants and the difference between tooth bonding and porcelain veneers. The next issue, in May, will discuss last year’s Botox scare in Florida and mine the endlessly fascinating subject of breast augmentation just as the FDA hears testimony on the safety of implants.

Sandow says he and his editorial staff worked hard to maintain the integrity of the articles by establishing a nine-member advisory board, chaired by La Jolla aesthetic plastic surgeon Robert Singer, that includes five surgeons, a dentist, a dermatologist, a consumer advocate and, well, hairstylist Frederic Fekkai.

“This is not a magazine where you can buy an ad and write your own article,” Sandow says. “If you’ll notice there are no doctors writing articles. On the before-and-after photos, we don’t even credit doctors.... It blurs the line a little bit.”

However, the before-and-after images are credited in a two-page layout that appears just five pages into the book; the 15 doctors and their locations are named at the bottom of a page. And a quick cross-check shows these doctors are among those advertising in the 600-plus-page “special doctor section” that features artful black-and-white portraits and promotional mini profiles of plastic surgeons, cosmetic dentists and dermatologists from 15 regions.

An introduction to their profiles reads like a disclaimer, explaining each one was “custom-written” to promote the doctor and doesn’t represent an endorsement by NewBeauty magazine “of the doctors, practices, procedures or technologies” in the section. Yet, in that two-page spread in the front, the magazine thanks these same doctors, calling them “extraordinary” because they “share our vision.”

Still, Sandow says NewBeauty strives to be objective. For example, he says, if a doctor claimed to invent a procedure, he or she had to produce a patent before NewBeauty published that detail in an ad.

“We had a doctor that claimed ‘I was rated the No. 1 dermatologist by Vogue magazine,” says Sandow. “The guy sent an advertorial he ran in Vogue.... We have lost 25 ad pages because doctors wouldn’t change to meet our criteria.”

Doctors who have seen the magazine praise its content but are skeptical that it will last. They’ve watched smaller, regional publications similar to this one struggle to survive. But they say Sandow’s strategy is smart. He chose a generic name that could endure any cosmetic surgery backlash and he created a business plan that provides incentive for advertisers. Still, some worry NewBeauty just feeds the already bloated egos in the aesthetic industry.

“It’s almost addicting,” says James Wells, spokesman and past president of the American Society of Plastic Surgeons, which publishes a trade journal. “Once you get your name out there, there’s this perceived need that you have to keep your name out there.”