Christmas Cleavage

What festive cleavage are you wearing this holiday season? Next to finishing up the gift shopping, I'm sure the first thing on your mind is how to dress up your breasts. At the cocktail party I attended last weekend, I was accused of a Madame X look, a reference to John Singer Sargent's infamous 1884 portrait of the American-born Paris socialite, Judith Gautreau. Her arsenic white décolleté and scandalous slipped shoulder strap drove Sargent (and the painting) out of town.

Think times have changed? Last July, when Hillary Clinton displayed even a very modest amount of chest the blogosphere went wild.

Cleavage is simply the cleft created by the partial exposure of a woman's breasts in a low-cut neckline. Or, if you're a surgeon, it's the intermammary sulcus (fun people, aren't they?). So what gives it the power to shake the world, century after century? Context, context, context. That and men are irrational over it.

Breast cleavage has been a modern, clothed phenomenon; it didn't exist in the Garden of Eden. Any tight, well-structured bodice can lift the breasts upwards and inwards (that was the wonderful in Wonderbra – as opposed to Maidenform lift and separate promise).

Prior to the advent of implants, a large busted woman's breasts merged together under pressure; cleavage became a crevice. Think Bette Midler. A really well engineered bodice can cantilever the breasts in such a way that this is minimized. Think Isaac Mizrahi observations about Scarlett Johansson's Golden Globes dress.

But when it comes to breast implants, the width of the sulcus area (cleavage) is determined by the attachments of the skin to the peri-osteal tissue covering sternum (breast bone) and by the medial attachments of the pectoralis major muscle when implants are in the sub-muscular position.

If those natural attachments are lost a host of uncorrectable deformities distort the cleavage including synmastia, the "uniboob" deformity. This can result from over aggressive dissection towards the midline, particularly in a subglandular (over the muscle) placement. Very large implants, repeated over time can have similar results. Think Pamela Anderson.

Some women have very little fatty tissue overlying the sternum so there's nothing to soften the contour transition from breasts to sternum. This causes the space between the breasts to appear wide. Since the implants must be centered behind the nipples, it's very hard to camouflage, particularly with a subglandular placement. Think Victoria Beckham. (This is something she previously denied until court papers were released in 2005 proving she had undergone augmentation surgery; it's rumored she had revision surgery prior to touring this month. Looks like it to me.)

One woman has written a tome on doing it right. Elisabeth Squires, author of Boobs: A Guide to Your Girls, thinks even older women can attractively show off cleavage, as Helen Mirren (61) does at every awards show. But beware: "If a woman of a certain age squeezes her girls together, she'll get the wrinkled, crepelike look. That's not good." Mirren's plunging bodices carefully avoid that.

Now back to the festive part. Here we have our Christmas party Goofus and Gallant example. For the office holiday party, author Squires's advice is: "[i]f cleavage isn't in your job description, don't put it in." Sorry, Britney. But the adults-only cocktail party? You've got it, Paris. Shake their world: tasteful cleavage and heels are the way to go (but put on the other stocking, puh-leeze).

Be sure and tune in FM107.1 to hear an expanded exploration of celebratory cleavage with Colleen Kruse this Thursday at 10:00am CST, subbing in for Kevyn Burger.



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Blinded By the White: Hollywood Teeth

Usually just one glimpse tells you those chiclet choppers aren't original equipment - but not always. Cosmetic dentistry has of the famous has evolved a long way since George Washington put his wooden teeth in a bedside glass each night. (Alright, they weren't wooden. When Washington was inaugurated as president in 1789, he had only one natural tooth left in his head. His dentures were made of a hippopotamus ivory base carved to fit his gums with ivory uppers and 'donated' human teeth in the lower plate, all fastened to it by gold screws. The whole thing was held in place in his mouth by spiral springs.)

Hollywood does a better job of preparing the stars for their big moment, but sometimes not by much. When something is out of proportion, the human eye picks up on it in a split-second and tells us so. Thousands of years ago, the Greeks set out to explain beauty as a mathematical relationship: the 'Golden Ratio' expressed as 1 to 1.618. This is not to say that you can't make it in Hollywood without your teeth. Just ask Walter Brennan!

Who has the most ridiculous fake teeth these days? Oh, the choices.

Gary Busey probably has the scariest: "[m]y teeth have been identified as a piano farm." Showing too many new and improved teeth can also be disconcerting in a big-bad-wolf way: the leering smiles of Dyan Canon and Sally Kellerman in Boynton Beach Bereavement Club (2005) or latter-day Loretta Swit all come to mind.

Of course, the British are famous for bad teeth. Tony Blair perhaps exemplifies that nation's trend to go with what you've got. And it certainly works in character parts and comedy. As Mike Myers knows, yeah baby! he can get a laugh just by opening Austin Power's lips.

But there are plenty of celebrity Brits who went in for extreme mouth makeovers with their first paycheck. David Bowie wasted no time. A long-time heavy smoker, his porcelain crowns and veneers are impervious to staining. Victoria Beckham, the poster child for healthy body image, reputedly forgoes smiling because she dislikes her teeth so much– despite having had work done.

It goes without saying that no one in Hollywood can brush their teeth without wearing sunglasses to prevent being Blinded by the White. America Ferrera had her smile insured for $10 Million through Lloyd's of London. Aquafresh White Trays is sponsoring the insurance and donating $1 for every box sold between now and August 31 to a program which provides dental care for women in need. Dental bleaching can also be done professionally in the dentist's chair using light- or laser-assisted procedures using higher-concentration peroxide gel or take-home teeth molds and application instructions.

Getting porcelain veneers is a more intensive procedure. A veneer is a thin shell of porcelain with a color, translucence, and texture that is similar to tooth enamel. It is bonded permanently to the tooth, usually the front ones, by resin cement after acid etching or filing of the damaged, discolored, or misshaped tooth. They're the up-to-date version of the crown, which goes over the whole tooth and preserves less of the original tooth.

One mistake people make is mismatching their tooth color with their skin tones, hair and age. "When somebody's teeth jump out and seem like a night light in a dark room, that's porcelain veneers or crowns," said one high-profile Beverly Hill's cosmetic dentist. "The Regis Philbin Chicklet look, that opaque white that looks ridiculous, you're not going to get that with bleaching."

Generally, veneers are used when a star's grin has spaces or crooked, chipped or small teeth. For example, Hilary Duff recently got porcelain veneers to go over at least six of her front teeth. As Duff explained, "[m]y teeth aren't the strongest, and I kept chipping them on the microphone."

The changed proportions of Hilary Duff's smile have been widely commented on. The veneers break that 'Golden Ratio' and the viewer's mind rejects the look as horsey. Another example is Jessica Simpson's fake front teeth: her ever-so-slight overbite brings on images of a rabbit once you've placed overly bright veneers over them.

Although not known for his on-camera grinning, Michael Douglas been smiling a lot after marrying again. He also has had a less-than-subtle procedure that harks back to the days of dentures look. (Catherine Zeta Jones had her own pearly whites done while performing in The Darling Buds Of May series in the early '90s.) Teeth tend to wear down due to osteoporosis of the upper/lower jaw as well as discolor with age. There is a loss in facial fat in the mouth region, a deflation of the lips as well. Look at any photograph from the turn of the century to see what tooth loss does for the over-40 mouth.

Male actors seem to have a thing for taking their teeth on and off for a part. Denzel Washington has porcelain veneers and he removed them for Malcom X (1992). Brad Pitt allegedly broke a tooth while opening a beer bottle with his teeth to get into character for Kalifornia (1993), reviewed as: "[h]alf-assed in its edginess but full-on trashy, this blood-drenched road movie features an over-the-top Brad Pitt in his Method actor phase..." And he supposedly voluntarily visited a dentist to have pieces of his front teeth chipped off for the role in Fight Club (1999); more likely a veneer was accidentally damaged during filming. Pitt's teeth were once again restored each time filming concluded. Jim Carrey's chipped tooth in Dumb & Dumber (1994) is real. He just had the cap removed for the duration of the filming.

And then there are the roles that don't call for snaggle teeth....Russell Crowe landed his first film part after being persuaded to replace a front tooth. According to Crowe:

"[u]ntil I was 25, I had one tooth missing. When George Ogilvie cast me, he asked me about it, and I told him the story and that I thought it was very false of me to go and get a tooth cap. He was very nice about it, listened to it all, and said, 'All right, well, let me put it this way, Russell. You're playing the lead character in my film, right? The character of Johnny has two front teeth....' "

Johnny Depp donned gold caps for his Captain Jack Sparrow role in Pirates of the Caribbean (2003) and then wore them back to France because he was in a rush to get home. Diamond gold grills are available for the modern gangsta look. Check it out. Rappers Lil Jon, Snoop Dogg, Slim Thug, David Banner, Paul Wall, and the Ying Yang Twins layout $10,000 or more for a jewelry box of a mouth. Nelly's smash hit Grillz is an an ode to oral ostentation: "I got my mouth lookin' something like a disco ball/ ... I got the diamonds and the ice all hand-set/ I might cause a cold front if I take a deep breath." A consumer adviser for the American Dental Association says non-stop wear traps bacteria under a grill, which can result in cavities, gum disease and even bone loss.

Who else has snap-on teeth? There actually is a product called Snap-On Smiles for those who don't have $20,000 for a reconstruction. Said the dentist-inventor:

"In the beginning, it made me sick. I thought I invented some serious medical device, but all people wanted to do was use it to make themselves look like celebrities!"

Many consumers request Sarah Jessica Parker's perfect smile, not realizing it hasn't always been so. According to one interview with the star, during a Broadway performance of Annie she knocked part of her tooth out with a scrubbing brush while singing Hard Knock Life.

When it comes to hard knocks, Eddie Van Halen went Britney and Lindsay one better when he went through rehab this spring. He got new teeth as well! (Can you pick out the before?)

Just remember, boys and girls, do what your mother says: floss and brush for 2 minutes after every food or drug.

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Women & Tatts

It all comes down to Cher. Back in 1972 when she was 27 years old and newly separated from Sonny, she got her first tattoo:

"I thought it would be something different, a statement of freedom. Good girls didn't have tattoos then, no one was doing it...It was really the first step of an experiment to state making decisions on my own....I had made so few real decisions that I was bound to be bad at it. I was right."

Now all the A-list (and A-wannabe) celebrities are inking their bodies. The tattoo has become a female fashion accessory, rather than the rite of passage. It's no longer taboo, but still a little risque– different but accepted. It's almost difficult to name an actress who hasn't got a tatt. Everybody's doing it, from girl-next-door Jennifer Aniston to Bay-babe Pamela Anderson.

The subject matter of body art has undergone a revolution of sorts. The old stereotype of sailors and marines – and who doesn't know an aging WWII veteran with a blurry rendering on his bicep – are of a generation who never dreamed of finding their own name tattooed across the flesh of their stateside sweetheart. Today that's all changed. Women are elbowing out young men to get in the door of the tattoo parlor. In a recent survey, 22% of the UMass undergraduate women sports a tatt, twice the rate of the male students.

While "Mom" and the names of sexual partners still rank high in frequency and gang symbols are widespread amongst the prison-bound populace, the upsurge is in young women. Estimates are as high as 36% of all American women ages 21-32 now sport a tattoo. They seem to be indulging in tattooing as more of a journal of sorts. And the celebrity women are no exception. According to Angelina Jolie:

"Usually all my tattoos came at good times. A tattoo is something permanent when you've made a self-discovery, or something you've come to a conclusion about."

Okay, not counting the blue-tongued dragon she got when she was drunk and dropped trou in Australia a few years back (now covered by the black cross/dagger handle). Perhaps the most prominently tattooed actress today, Jolie has 13 tatts at last count and several older ones that were converted or removed. She has stated she’s just a “punk kid with tattoos” at heart, but dressed and strutting the red carpet, she is radiating more of a regal tribal look these days.

Some stars go so far as wearing it, literally, on their wrist. Not satisfied with a cement star in the sidewalk, Eva Longoria and Ashlee Simpson both sport small black outlined stars on their left wrists. Victoria Beckham has five stars on her lower back. Perhaps it’s part of the Michelin rating system?

And then there are those who want to commemorate their childhood. Nicole Richie sports a pair of ballerina slippers, as if her father’s composing Ballerina Girl for her wasn’t enough. But the little pair of angel wings on her back? You decide. Christina Ricci decided on having Aslan, the lion god of Narnia tattooed onto her left scapula to symbolize her emancipation from a hellish childhood – and seven more to go with it.

And then there are those fans that just go in for having the star himself as the tattoo: elaborate celebrity images are getting more and more popular. Reminds one a bit of those edible photographic sheet cakes.

This young female demographic is characterized by a certain exuberance of spirit that settles down as it approaches strapless wedding gowns and steady jobs. And tattoo removal. In the good old days, you died with your tattoos. Or you traded them in for horrific scars. Before the advent of lasers, a variety of treatments were tried: dermabrasion or skin sanding, X-ray treatments, chemical peel, liquid nitrogen, dry ice or CO2 'snow,' flesh-colored over-tattooing. The most common method? Surgical excision and skin grafting of the hole left behind. It wasn’t pretty.

The advent of medical laser technology has changed all that. Tattoos are created by placing drops of ink under the skin via a needle (hopefully). A Q-switched Nd: YAG laser is the one most often used to remove tattoos and other pigmented or discolored skin. The high-intensity light beam penetrates the dermis and is absorbed by the ink, vaporizing the pigment colors. It feels like rubber bands snapping against the skin. Hard. Over and over. The lymphatic system (the body’s natural filtering system) clears the dissolved particles of ink pigment. A tattoo that cost a few hundred dollars could require several thousand dollars and many laser sessions to remove.

Bright green, yellow and red inks are most difficult to remove. A new tattoo technology is available starting this fall called Freedom-2, a type of ink encapsulated in beads and designed to break up after one treatment with a special laser. It will be interesting to see if this 'removable' tattoo changes what and how often people adorn their bodies with images.

Tattoo removal clinic chains are making their mark or erasing it, so to speak: Dr. Tattoff, Tat2BeGone and Tattoo MD sprung into being on the West coast. Many states don't regulate tattooists or tattoo parlors, but do regulate medical lasers. These tattoo removal clinic chains are most often staffed by nurses. In other locales laser removal is supervised by physicians: plastic surgeons, dermatologists, or practically any physician with a laser payment to make.

Angelina Jolie has spent time in the doctor's procedure room: ex-husband Billy Bob's moniker has been lasered and the real estate tattooed over with the longitude and latitude of each of her four children. And Cher? At 61, she now thinks tattoos are "just plain stupid" and is in the process of getting them all removed.

In the final analysis, young women getting tattooed may be all about empowerment.

And power is really sexy.

What do you think? Click on the envelope icon and send us your thoughts.


(Okay, this last tattoo is made up.)


Want This Look? A professional tattoo can be had for under $100, and one that costs a few hundred dollars could require several thousand dollars and many laser sessions to remove. Dr. Tattoff charges $39 per square inch of tattoo for each treatment. Full removal takes an average of eight treatments, spaced at least a month apart, using different Q-switched lasers for different-colored inks.

Too Rich, Too Thin

Women think about their weight the way many men think about sex: all the time. So when is thin, TOO thin?

Just these last few weeks too thin has been selling Hollywood gossip rags. In Touch magazine apparently photoshopped out Angelina Jolie's (32) protruding arm veins for its May cover. The normal body fat that gives a smooth contour to the flesh is missing. Her emaciated arms reflect a significant weight drop while grieving her mother's death this past January. And Keira Knightley (22) is in and out of the tabloids. She has long denied eating-disorder rumors and in January of last year she sued a British tabloid for implying she lied about not having anorexia after losing weight during the grueling Pirates shoot. She probably is telling the truth. Neither woman appears to have a pathological relationship to food.

Last February former supermodel Tyra Banks was on the cover of People after having made a huge internet splash in an unflattering bathing suit. The very same month she was featured inside Vanity Fair channeling Audrey Hepburn. At 5’10” and 161 lbs. Banks's BMI is 23.1 and well within the range of normal health. It should surprise no one that the same woman can look fat in a paparazzi shot and stunning in a photo shoot. We all can.

Body Mass Index (BMI) is sophisticated way to calibrate height & weight (BMI=kg/m2) and do away with the "big boned" excuses. Here are the standards used in medicine:

Less than 18.5 = underweight
18.5-24.9 = normal
25-29.9 = overweight
30-39.9 = obese
40 or more = morbidly obese

We are a fat country and getting fatter. Approximately 33% of adult Americans are obese and an additional 32% are overweight. Yet we also have an peculiar national body dysmorphia, where female celebrities are ruthlessly pilloried for appearing at a normal weight. So from where does this national body distortion arise?

One finger points to the fashion industry. Unlike cigarettes and liquor, American is not protecting it's young from the influence of underweight image marketing. For example, Tyra Banks (33) began modeling on the catwalk at age 18 with a BMI of 16.2; by age 20 as she finished puberty she was curvy enough that her agency pressured her to lose 10 lbs. Instead, she switched to underwear/swim suit modeling in 1995. By 1997 she was the first black woman to be featured on a Sports Illustrated cover, then going on to Victoria’s Secret stardom – all with a BMI 18.8! That's just within the range of normal.

Drugs, diet pills, fasting, laxatives are rife in the image industry – very, very few of these women are that underweight by nature. After a spate of anorexic models died or fell ill last year, Madrid Fashion Week city council organizers enacted ground-breaking legislation: mannequins with a BMI of less than 18 (5'9" 123 lbs.) would be banned from the catwalk. About a third of the models who appeared the previous year won't qualify under the new guidelines, top models such as Brazil's Fabiana, Spain's Esther Canadas, Britain's Kate Moss and Estonian Carmen Kass. But Madrid is alone in treating this as a public health issue. The really big fashion venues – Milan, Paris, New York, London – aren't buying in.

"We worked hard to restrict advertising for alcohol and tobacco because of the potential dangers to our young people, and fashion is now the only major industry without health guidelines." –Lynn Grefe, CEO, National Eating Disorders Association

One study found 47% of school girls 5th-12th grade want to lose weight because of magazine pictures – pictures which are photoshopped out of reality (there are whole websites devoted to exposing this.) The print and film media are actively engaged in a manipulation of public perception. The female image school girls buy into is a simulacrum, an unsatisfactory imitation of, a substitute for real womanhood."Even I don't look like Cindy Crawford when I wake up in the morning," admits the famous supermodel.

How serious is it? It’s a mental illness that progressively damages the body, fatal to 15-20% of sufferers. It precipitates more deaths among females aged 15 to 24 than all other causes combined. (It caused Terri Shiavo's heart failure and brain death.) And eating disorders have doubled since 1960s. An estimated 10 million girls and women, as well as 1 million males suffer from anorexia nervosa (starves, obsessive, body dysmorphia, compulsive exercise) or bulimia nervosa (normal weight, binge/purging cycles). There is some evidence of altered brain chemistry that makes it hard to stop. For more information check ANRED.

Of course there are some famous dead Hollywood anorexics, like Karen Carpenter (32) and Margaux Hemingway (41), along with the aforementioned Audrey Hepburn (61). Several stars lived through it and talked afterwards: actress Jane Fonda (69) suffered from bulimia from age 13 to 37.

The current crop of Hollywood sufferers includes many. Nicole Richie (25) repeated bouts of fainting underscore her eating disorder/drug problem. In November, Richie told Us Weekly: "I'm not in rehab, and I don't have an eating disorder. I'm getting the help I need and taking care of my health." Denial ain't just a river in Egypt. Mary-Kate Olsen (21), Kate Bosworth (24), Victoria Beckham (33) all share the disease.

There are a few stars in Hollywood speaking out against the pervasive thin image. Cameron Diaz (34) has said:

“We get ideals from images that we see and there certainly should be more responsibility put on those people who are putting those images out into the world. Let’s be a little bit more responsible to what’s realistic.”

Kate Winslet (31), nicknamed 'Blubber' in school, has unapologetically appeared nude in six films. She describes the trend as "unbelievably disturbing." After being Photoshopped into an approximation of supermodel perfection for the cover of a GQ magazine Winslet veraciously complained: “the retouching is excessive. I do not look like that and more importantly I don’t desire to look like that.” Listen to what the GQ editor said in response and take it to heart – and tell your children:

"These days you only get two kinds of pictures of celebrities - paparazzi pictures or pictures like these which have been highly styled, buffed, trimmed and altered to make the subject look as good as is humanly possible. We do that for everyone, whether they are a size six or a size 12. It hasn't a lot to do with body size. Practically every photo you see in a magazine will have been digitally altered in this way."

Want this look? It can't be had surgically, but recovery in a facility can be expensive and ongoing.

Which Breasts Are Best?

Let's go back to the question of breasts today– and get over it! This month's Jane magazine polled 600 adult women about their breasts: 74% of those surveyed said they were dissatisfied with the shape and size of their own breasts. Let's get this fixed.



























No, Jessica Simpson is not the real thing nor should any woman compare herself to silicone-enhanced breasts. It's like comparing apples and oranges. They're not the same fruit. But just to convince you, let's walk through how the all-seeing eye-of-Anne knows when those ta-tas are altered.

What gives away breast implants? Capsules, growth spurts, ripples, tunnel cleavage, adhesions, rimming, hardness, distortion, disproportion, immobility, scars, supernatural suspension. Shall we illustrate this?

Here's a candid picture of the original equipment from early in her career. Jessica Simpson's breast appear to be a small C-cup, her father's groping comments aside. She's 18 or so in this picture, about the time when breast growth is complete (pregnancy-related changes excluded). In the last eight years, however, Jessica Simpson has had some unusual growth spurts...and even more unusual circumscribed 'weight loss'...all in her breasts. They've been in, they've been out, they've been in again. Currently they appear to be out. Cue the music— "Thanks for the Many Mammaries." Does any of it make her look more or less beautiful? You decide.

In 1992 the FDA effectively took silicone breast implants off the cosmetic market and only recently re-approved them for elective augmentation surgery. Last November the FDA lifted its 14 year near-ban on silicone gel implants. None of this slowed down the current wild popularity of bigger bazooms through plastic surgery.

The viscosity of the filling material is what distinguishes the feel of the augmented breast, since all implants use silicone outer shells. Saline implants are round and filled with simple salt water. Most of what you see on inflated chests is in fact saline-filled and a poor substitute for real mammary tissue. These surgically implanted sacs can feel akin to a waterbed—especially during physical activity. Silicone implants, by contrast, are filled with a synthetic gel, a consistency not unlike a weak squeeze ball. Silicone gel also comes in a variety of shapes and conforms more closely with the natural tear-drop shape of real breasts. Saline implants have a round, balloon-ish quality and are much easier to spot with a quick glance.

A lot of women opt for subglandular placement (under the mammary tissue, over the pectoral muscle). The advantages? It can postpone a breast lift (mastopexy), by adding volume to counter mild sag (ptosis), but this is temporary. Keep in mind that the only thing supporting the implant is the elastic integrity of the skin and breast tissue.

Paula Abdul shows the perils of too much, too late. A subglandular placement requires less recovery time with less post-op discomfort, since the muscles are left intact. Actresses and strippers also prefer it for the enhanced projection. Conversely, a very large implant placed sub-muscular (without tissue expansion which is what post-mastectomy patients undergo) is agony. But it looks more natural.

Other disadvantages to a subglandular placement? Ripples and adhesions. As the implant drops, or settles into place, the surface of the shell can pull on the scar capsule, which in turn pulls on the skin. This produces traction rippling ala Beyonce.

A lot of surgeons operate through incisions you might not guess. The trendiest is transumbilical (TUBA), an approach through a naval incision. Transaxillary (armpit incision) is also popular. An incision hidden in the inframmamary fold (crease under the breast) or peri-areolar are the most common and can give truth to the lie. It also often impairs nipple sensation. Poor Tara Reid.

Placement of the breast implant over the pectoral muscle (subglandular) is very obvious in thin women with little natural breast tissue. The highly technical description is generally "bolt-on breasts." In Hollywood you really can be too rich and too thin. Just Victoria Beckham.

The most common cause of an unnatural appearance? Capsular contracture occurs when the scar tissue that naturally forms around the implant tightens and squeezes the implant into a hard, unnatural appearance. The previous older generation of silicone breast implants were particularly prone to this. No surgeon can completely control for the vagaries of healing and this has caused many stars, from Demi Moore to Courtney Love, to undergo multiple breast operations.

And most tellingly, when you squeeze on a breast– say with a tight bodice– the outline of any subglandular implant becomes more obvious, particularly in thinner, Hollywood-type women. The demarcation of the upper rim of the implant is a dead giveaway. It doesn't happen in nature.

Real, voluminous breasts look like Scarlett Johansson's "girls" in a fitted gown: pillowy with no tunnels in sight.


Hear Anne live on the Kevyn Burger show Thursdays featuring Knifestyles of the Rich & Famous.