You know a model has had one nip/tuck too many when…

While waiting for Catwalk to send me official pictures of Sanam Chaudhri and Maheen Karim’s official Bonanza launch (which was originally my blog post), I got sidetracked and decided to blog about fashion models instead.

Long limbed Amna Ilyas has the attitude, the tone and the poise of a fashion model, without the nips and tucks.  Photo: Faisal Farooqui

Aamina Sheikh, our dusky beauty, is a natural born thriller. Photo: Maram Aabroo

We keep complaining about how much Photoshop is done on pictures but any hard working photographer will tell you that these models looks scary without it! What they do (as a virgin procedure) is get a nose job, which involves breaking down the bridge of the nose. Then they get implants in their cheeks for a higher cheekbone. The result, under harsh camera light, is a horizontal depression in the structure of the face. It’s caused by the high cheekbones dipping into a lack of nose. Has to be evened out in Photoshop!

Other favourite procedures are lip plumps. From something as commonplace as a collagen injection to something as complicated as fat taken from the buttocks for the lips (which gives ‘kiss my ass’ an altogether new meaning!) , our models like their lips looking bee-stung and pouty. And I hate to point fingers but if you’ve noticed, one of our top models can’t even close her mouth anymore. I’ll call this perpetually wet-lip-pout the Megan Fox syndrome.

You know your favourite model’s had a tad bit too much work done when…

1. She looks nothing like she did in January 2013

2. Corporations start refusing to sign her, saying they don’t know what she’ll look like after summer.

3. Her pictures need more and more Photoshop even though she just turned 19.

4. Her limbs look thin but her fingers and toes are still podgy. Instant giveaway of body sculpting.

5. She prefers to work with only one or two makeup artists who know how fragile her skin is after repeated thermage, skin resurfacing, chemical peels etc. I’ve been told that there’s one model who has to protect her face with a plastic bag every time she puts clothes on or takes them off. Her skin, after so much work, has become so delicate that it starts peeling off even if scratched!

6. She says she lost the bridge of her nose in an accident (what…boxing?)

7. She has an ‘accident’ every few months (which explains her eye patches and bandages).

Ultimately you know your favourite model is more of a Frankenstein when she starts looking like Denise Richards or Joan Rivers. Or Michael Jackson, may his soul rest in peace.