Is Roman Nose Going Extinct?

Dearest reader,

In 2017 there was hardly anything so horrific in a teenager's life than having you mother point out that the bump on your nose had become more distinct.

We were, for goodness sake, living the height of the Instagram-face era: a questionable aesthetic trend, defined by the Kardashian family, that favoured high cheekbones, big lips and conveniently small, neat noses (Tolentino, Jia, 2019) – non of which I possed, least of all a pretty, little nose, but wanted one non the less.

So there I was: seventeen, hormonal, potentially body dysmorphic and syddenly thrown into a world where people started openly talking about what they had had done and what they wanted to get done in terms of plastic surgery. And these were not just celebrities but seemingly ordinary people – the worshipped YouTubers – could have their lips filled by their next vlog where the whole process of effortless tweakments would be revealed with a personalized discount, so everyone else insecure enough could follow.

Beauty wasn't simply vanity anymore riding on rumours of supposed operations, but a case of business, personal integrity and brand – it didn't matter if you got surgery at sixteen or how you looked afterwards as long as you let everybody know you had a fake face. No doubt, having this knowledge was exhilareting and made surgery seem like an acceptable tool for women to stay relevant in their jobs, relationships and the world in general.

And then, somewhere in 2020, began the nonsurgical nose job boom that sweeped through my instagram feed like the 8th wonder of the world. Can you imagen it! Not having to go under the knive to get rid of a bumpy, downward curving roman nose (Dr. Cat Plastic Surgery, 2023), just a needle full of hyaloronic acid trategically injected and 15 minutes later you could walk out of the doctor's office wearing a new nose with fraction of the price and barely any recovery time compared to traditional rhinoplasty (Kester, Sarah, 2020).

Needless to say, I thought "a bump free nose is practically within an arm's reach". But what held me back? First, I was under-age and my parents would never let me do it. Then I was eighteen but penniless. And then, I was a university student in depth and there simply were never extra money to spend on something so frivolous as a nose job, even a nonsurgical one. Not to mention, having way more important things to think about than noses.

Consequently, as I was developing as a human and was exposed to life's responsibilities previously shielded from me as a result of happy and privileged upbriging, one starts to realise the true priorities in life and that your nose shape is at the bottom of the list (literally).

Yet, there I was living another three years with my Roman nose, trying to accept its nontrendy existance and getting increasingly vexed by the fact that everytime before and after pictures of either a nonsurgical nose job or a rhinoplasty would pop up the patient almost always had a Roman nose that needed to be fixed – seriously, again! What is so wrong with Roman noses anyway?

The year 2023 came and I was now mostly unbothered by my nose as one should be. That was, however, before I had an opportunity to visit Paris with the women from my mother's side of the family.

Namenly, Paris, while usually refered to as a city of romance, also turned out to be a city of roman noses which suddenly were present – and insted of dispised, almost glorified – everywhere you looked: they where painted and sculpted; they were immortalized and sat proundly on the faces of Kings and Queens, nobels and peasants; most of all, roman noses walked in the streets of Paris in daylight and in masses I had never seen before in Finland or on social media.

To my family (four of us possessing a roman nose) it was like coming home to a place where being extented and big was preferrable and natural; where your image was mirrored back as desirable and good; and where you could glance around at Versailles and say, "look Marie Antoinette has the same nose as grandmother".

Extraordinary how cultural visibility, a degree to which a culture or ethnic group is represented in public spaces, media and society at large (fiveable, 2025), can affect you. Altough, my situation as a white, western, Roman nose woman is certainly not an adequate or real example of an underrepresented ethnic group. On the contraty!!! But, if someone like me can occasionally feel a sense of being left out, even irrelevant, because of her nose shape (ridicilous, I know), imagine how invisible a person from a truly marginalized community can feel and has felt since forever really.

Nevertheless, after leaving Paris, I was fascinated by my family's link to Roman noses and inspired to do some research on the subject, and this is what I found:

The term Roman nose – that is sometimes reffered to as aquiline nose which means eagle-like – describes a nose that has a high bridge and visible hook shape sloping downwards with a bump (Adams, Mikaela M & Theda, Pertude, 2009). The name also indicates regal Roman lineage (Dr. Cat Plastic Surgery, 2023) and was a typical aristocratic feature in Europe (Belorens Medical Content Team).

Due to the number of historical artifacts missing a nose, it is likely that noses in general were considered a symbol of authority, and that a nose's central positions on the face as the organ of smell meant that it was directly linked to a person's brain and, therefore, her character (Lovatt, Helen, 2014). Hence, breaking a statue's nose would (at least symbolically) deprive a person's spirit from her powers, or so believed ancient Egyptians (Dr. Cat Plastic Surgery, 2023).

Furthermore, the ancient Romans also connected prominent noses to qualities of strenght and intelligence, while in Native American cultures "an eagle nose" promised courage (Belorens Medical Content Team) and Victorian England saw it as a sign of stoutness and vigour (Lovatt, Helen, 2014).

All admirable features indeed. But what more a nose could tell, was the degree of elegance and fertility possed by a woman: the bigger, the longer and more crooked a nose the better (Dr. Cat Plastic Surgery). So, is it any wonder that one Pascal once said that 'if Cleopatra's nose had been shorter, the whole face of the earth would have been different' (Lovatt, Helen, 2014).

On the whole, what my research revealed was that previous civilations everywhere were as obsessed with noses as our own time; that a nose is not only an organ to sniff about but a key facial feature attracting symbolism and meaning. In words of Helen Lovatt 'noses carry telling and pervasive set of properties and associations: they can be an index of race (the snub African nose, or the hooked Jewish nose); age (noses continue growing outwards until mid/late adolescence, and cartilage stretches and droops in the elderly); gender (male noses are typically longer and bonier than female noses); family (noses are a telltale index of genetic continuity); profession (boxers and fighters are typically identified by fractured or broken noses); and even class (the aquiline nose of nobility is surprisingly far-reaching, and aristocratic ‘bearing’ is often defined by an upturned nose)'.

But what this view into history doesn't explain is why a Roman nose – that attracts such positive adjectives as courage, strenght, vigour and even elegance; that sits on the faces of the likes of Cleopatra – has suddenly turned into the least desirable nose shape ultimately staring every single rhinoplasty advert on social media? Is this disgust just a trend or could it be a racist movement against Jews, Arabs and Asian people as someone in Reddit suggests? But even that doesn't really make sense, since Roman noses are also a Christian European feature, just think of Elizabet I or Marie Antoinette.

Baffled as I may have been, after learning some of the history of Roman noses, I began to treat mine as a family treasure and heritance I would not want to erase. In fact, I started to feel bad for the people that had denied their lineage by diminishing any traces of this unique family history by succumbing to a set of obnoxious rules of facial harmony by Hollywood doctors – a face, not even the Kardashians could keep up with.

And just like that, the previously adored beauty content turned argueable and so boring I started skipping those parts in YouTube and even unsubscribing creators who no longer could provide ethical content in my standards – altered and filled noses now appear almost ridicilous and so embarrasing I could not bear to see them and even a mention of injectables set my eyes rolling.

All things considered, life was better without thoughts of plastic surgery and it certainly felt rebellious to be drastically oppose to something so toxicly American. And soon, I discovered I was not the only one feeling this way.

Somewhere in 2024, all of a sudden I would go to places like Instagram just to see people disolving their lip fillers, embracing Roman noses and moving toward a more natural way on existing: Pamela Andersson had stoped doing full glam, a movie Subtance was released, a major influencer Chloe Crane-Leroux made makeup tutorials for Roman noses gathering millions of views and my comment under Verona Farrell's post about how her sister saying that 'getting a nose job isn't very rock and roll' changed her, accumulated over 200 likes. It seemed that other people were tired and furious too. It must have meant that things were finally changing. And they were – are – but not as expontentially as I thought they were.

Naturaly, it was not long after when I got into a late night conversation with my own sister about beauty standards and discovered that part of the more "natural" beauty movement online wasn't necessarily due to a sudden wave of self acceptance, but only a shift in trends – the plump, heavy and exotic instagram-face had been replaced by a fresh, light and cutesy K-face.

This South Korean beauty ideal, promoted by K-pop mega stars, featuring double eyelids, a high-bridged nose, a v-shaped jawline and flawless skin (Mytrofankina, Mariia, 2025), was now the new normal packed in sleek skincare and sheer, glass-like formulas, and certainly did not include anything so asymmetric as a Roman nose.

But when my sister mentioned that getting a nose job as a gratuation gift also wasn't uncommon in Korea, I was utterly flabbergasted and couldn't help but wonder: would I have accepted such a gift at 19? Had I been Korean, could I be sitting here right now with a nose that I was not born with?

Followed by a quick google search into the subject and a world of absolute horror opened in front of my nose. Namenly, 1.17 million tourists yearly travel to South Korea to recieve dermalogy or aesthetic surgery. A country that performs 25% of world's plastic surgeries and whose goverment eagerly supports the industry, therefore, is not only in the forefront of latest surgical advancements and patient care but also reinforcing cruel, social expectations – for Koreans beauty is a practical investment that can affect your career, marriage and social opportunities (Mytrofankina, Mariia, 2025).

Sadly, beauty as social capital is not solely a Korean invention leaking into western societies through K-pop and Korean skincare.

According to New York Time columnist Jia Tolentino (2019) contemporary mainstream feminism has adopted a similar idea that self objectivation is progress because your appearance is profitable and calculable in the number of likes and engagement on social media.

Furthermore, this idea is endorsed in every public disclaimer aimed at justifying each little surgery as "something that just makes me feel better" or "wanting to be the best version of myself", when we all know it's capitalism speaking with a voice of a surrendered victim.

In fact, we simply need not look further than the number of plastic surgeries performed in the USA in 2024 and do the math: 48 000 nose jobs X 7 500 to 12 500 dollars = 300 to 600 million dollars (American Society of Plastic Surgeons) exluding the profits from nonsurgical nose jobs and all other surgeries that the well oiled beauty business accumulates. And they don't even try to hide their impact: "social media has helped bring plastic surgery procedures to younger patients and started reshaping the generational landscape" (American Society of Plastic Surgeons). Gosh, soon there isn't any Roman noses left to lift and smooth over!

So when you hear people justifying surgery by saying that beauty is "personal preference" or that plastic surgery is "personal choice" they are not only wrong – beauty, according to Umberto Eco, has never been absolute and immutable but has taken on different aspects depending on the historic period and the country (Eco, Umbersto, page 14, 2004) – but also actively masking a system that is greedy and unethical, and offers only one option: to be beautiful according to us or ugly according to us.

Yet, if beauty is not personal preferrence but a cultural, historical and societal phenomenon, can we blame people for pursuing it? Are individuals responsible for the things they do for beauty? And can we as a society control the things we will find beautiful in the next decade?

On the other hand, it would also be too bold to claim that apperance doesn't matter, so where does one draw the line between altering or accepting yourself? Because, ultimately, genetics don't go away no matter how many rhinoplasties you have whereas trends will shift and, eventually, fade away like the Instagram-face. And if you have/are having children what will you tell them when they develop a Roman nose while you have decided to diminish yours. Are you going to start giving nose jobs as graduation gifts also?

I don't have awnsers but it seems like a never ending cycle to me.

So finally, in 2025, and after a lot of hard conversations with myself, I stopped fantasizing about changing my Roman nose to suit some unattainable aesthetic feeding on insecurity and fear of occassionally standing out.

Like my grandmother said it, "having this [a Roman] nose has never limited my life". And I doubt any facial feature (unless you have a serious medical condition or have been to an accident) will ever limit what you can do if you don't let it. After all; you, me, us – the people – have a power to change so much if we want to, even beauty standards. And while I am not against all beauty trends or all aspects of the beauty industry or feeling beautiful, surgery for the sake of societal or self acceptance is too far, too dangerous, too addicting in my opinion.

More than anything, I find it difficult to admire anyone opting for plastic surgery over doing the hard mental work on their self image. It seems incredibly lazy – why would you choose to succumb when you could be revolutionary? But then, maybe, I simply just do not get it. And maybe, all the people who have altered their apperance are actually way happier and more incontrol than they were or I am. And maybe, I may never understand.

However, there is also the fact that I honestly cannot think of a worse cause to put money in than ripping my face open for the benefit of no one. Just imagine what you could do with 12 000 euros! But, since most of us do not have that money anyway, we have no other option than go punk, stay freakish and put our faith in revolution.

All in all, what I am trying to say is this: your face is not a trendy colour palette that should be changed like a lipstick, but a piece of living family history – your roots, your heritage – which is worth preserving gracefully and celebrating its uniqueness, Roman nose or not.

Yours Truly,

Siiri

'Cause faux plastic dolls

With their hands and their ribbons

Will strangle us all

And they'll all be forgiven

I refuse to be taken

The typical way

So welcome to the freak show

I hope that you find yourself today

– Yungblud (2020), the freak show

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What are your thoughts on beauty trends?

Would you ever consider getting a nose job?

Have you ever regretted getting plastic surgery?

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Sources:

NHS. Body Dysmorphic Disorder (BDD). https://www.nhs.uk/mental-health/conditions/body-dysmorphia/#:~:text=Body%20dysmorphic%20disorder%20(BDD)%2C,in%20teenagers%20and%20young%20adults

American Society of Plastic Surgeons. 2024 ASPS Procedural Statistics Release. https://www.plasticsurgery.org/documents/news/statistics/2024/plastic-surgery-statistics-report-2024.pdf

Tolentino, Jia. (2019). The Age of Instagram Face. https://www.newyorker.com/culture/decade-in-review/the-age-of-instagram-face

Mytrofankina, Mariia. (2025). Plastic Surgery In Korea for Foreigners: A Guide to Procedures, Costs & Top Clinics. https://us-uk.bookimed.com/article/plastic-surgery-in-korea/#procedures

Shaye, David. (2019). Thinking About Rhinoplasty. Harvard Health Publishing https://www.health.harvard.edu/blog/thinking-about-rhinoplasty-2019030616112

Frankeny, Ariel. (2024). The Nonsurgical Nose Job: An in-depth Examination of Liquid Rhinoplasty. American Society of Plastic Surgeons https://www.plasticsurgery.org/news/articles/the-nonsurgical-nose-job-an-in-depth-examination-of-liquid-rhinoplasty

Ståhlberg, Kaarlo. (2025). Rhinoplasty also known as nose surgery. Mehiläinen https://www.mehilainen.fi/en/plastic%20surgery/nose%20surgery

Cambridge Dictionary. Roman nose. https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/roman-nose?q=Roman%2Bnose#google_vignette

Dr. Cat Plastic Surgery. (2023). Exploring Different Types of Nose Shapes. https://beautybydrcat.com/blog/exploring-different-types-of-nose-shapes/

The Private Clinic of Harvey Street. What are the different types of nose shapes? https://www.theprivateclinic.co.uk/blog/what-are-the-different-types-of-nose-shapes/

Adams, Mikaëla M. and Theda Perdue. (2009)   Savage Foes, Noble Warriors, and Frail Remnants Florida Seminoles in theWhite Imagination, 1865-1934. UNC Electronic Theses and Dissertations Collection. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. https://ehillerman.unm.edu/3106#sthash.dSd0SnNG.Gh1zPOFK.dpbs

Oxford Leaner's Dictionary. Roman nose. https://www.oxfordlearnersdictionaries.com/definition/english/roman-nose?q=roman+nose

Lovatt, Helen. (2014). Roman noses. University of Nottingham https://blogs.nottingham.ac.uk/argonautsandemperors/2014/04/25/roman-noses/

Belorens Medical Content Team. (2025). Roman nose: Everything you need to know. https://www.belorens.com/blog/roman-nose-guide/

Fiveable. (2025). Key term – Cultural Visibility. https://fiveable.me/key-terms/hs-ethnic-studies/cultural-visibility

Reddit. (2020). Why is the "roman nose" shape considered unattractibe in western society? https://www.reddit.com/r/TooAfraidToAsk/comments/ir9wj3/why_is_the_roman_nose_shape_considered/

Eco, Umberto. (2004). On Beauty: A History of a Western Idea. MacLehose Press 2010.