The Pride of Being the Only One in Hollywood Without a Nose Job: Barbra Streisand

Many cult movies, two Academy Awards and famous all over the world, Barbra Streisand never had a nose job and she is proud of that -- and rightly so. A cute button nose profile wouldn't have enhanced her natural personality.
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Many cult movies, two Academy Awards and famous all over the world, Barbra Streisand never had a nose job and she is proud of that -- and rightly so. A cute button nose profile wouldn't have enhanced her natural personality.

Gisele Bündchen was told she would not have a successful career as a model due to the fact that her nose was considered "too big" for her face. She never had a nose job and she is the most highly paid model in the world. Anjelica Huston -- 65 movies and an Academy Award. Meryl Streep -- 17 Oscar nominations and three wins. And Uma Thurman -- a highly commendable trio of actresses who never had their nose re-touched and their decision against this did not prevent them from being beautiful and famous, and it certainly did not prevent them from achieving success.

It appears that Italian women like to undergo cosmetic surgery procedures more than anybody else, with the nose jobs being high in demand. It's enough to type key words such as "rhinoplasty," "nose reshaping" or "nose complex" on Google to come across lots and lots of results on the topic including some barmy tips and information such as replacing the traditional surgery with some strange devices to straighten the teeth or injections of various substances. There is also plenty of information on costs and surgeons providing online advice. All you have to do is send a picture and get an image of what you could look like once the nose procedure has been carried out. It all feels so hit-and-miss that one can't but wonder whether the best solution is to keep your nose as it is or, at least, entrust the task to somebody who truly knows what's what and doesn't re-do noses by "chopping" off the tip because too long with the result that the person ends up coming away with a "piggy" appearance rather than with an interesting face with charisma and personality about it.

Moreover, there is no need to point out that most of the time "surgical re-touching" are pretty easy to spot and they are never a pleasant sight. What is needed are professionals and experts and not dubious providers that claim to have know-how and expertise through ads on the web or on papers. Stay away! Surgeons who are truly good don't need to advertise themselves like a washing-up liquid.

Regardless of whether you have already read it or you are approaching it for the first time, a good read on the topic of nose is Pirandello's Uno, nessuno e centomila (One, No One and One Hundred Thousand):

"What are you doing?" my wife asked, seeing me linger, unusually, in front of the mirror. "Nothing," I replied. "Just looking at myself, at my nose, here, inside this nostril. When I press it, I feel a little pain." My wife smiled and said, "I thought you were looking to see which way it tilts." I wheeled around like a dog whose tail has been stepped on. "Tilts? My nose?" And my wife said, serenely, "Of course, dear. Take a good look, it tilts to the right." I was 28 years-old, until then I had always considered my nose -- if not actually handsome -- at least quite decent, like all the other parts of my person generally. So it was easy for me to accept and assert what is usually accepted and asserted by all those who haven't had the misfortune of being given a deformed body: namely, that is foolish to be vain about one's features. Hence the sudden and unexpected discovery of this flaw irritated me, like an undeserved punishment.


Feeling affected by people's opinions and judgements can, at times, lead to make huge mistakes like the many young girls who bring the surgeon the picture of the their favorite star and use it to show their idea of an ideal nose which could, in fact, not suit their faces. Moreover, our opinion of ourselves can easily change from one day to the next: at times we are horrified about the image the mirror sends back to us, while some other days we find we are quite beautiful.

Perhaps, the best explanation is, once again, provided by the protagonist's wife in "Uno, nessuno e centomila": "My dear friend, the truth is this: they are all fixations. Today, you fix yourself in one fashion, tomorrow in another."

Think carefully about it before undergoing a surgical procedure that could turn out to be wrong and think about the above mentioned women, all beautiful and famous with their un-retouched nose!

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