When I had my rhinoplasty last August, I never imagined that I would be taping my nose every single night for almost a year following my surgery, but it was for good reason. Nose taping can help reduce swelling, promote proper healing of the nose and allow the skin to conform to newly shaped cartilage. Since being diligent and dedicated to my medical tape, over the past couple of months, I’ve started to see pre-cut nose-taping kits pop up on my social feeds and in PR packages I’ve received as a beauty editor. The catch—they weren’t so much for post-rhinoplasty patients, but for taping your nose each evening so that by morning, it would appear more sculpted and smaller.
Curious, I dug deeper. Similar to the “Accutane Nose Job”, taping your nose sans rhinoplasty was going viral as a way to give yourself a sort of “mini nose job.” Because this simply seemed too good to be true (and considering everything I had to go through to actually permanently get a smaller nose), I spoke with doctors to get their take on whether this trend has any merit.
Featured experts
- David W. Kim, MD is a board-certified facial plastic surgeon in San Francisco
- Steven Curti, MD is a board-certified facial plastic surgeon in Palo Alto, CA
What does it mean to tape your nose?
After a surgical rhinoplasty, taping your nose nightly is a temporary compression technique used to minimize swelling, prevent fluid buildup and help the skin settle over newly structured cartilage. “Post-surgery taping acts as a compression garment to manage post-surgical fluid buildup,” explains San Francisco facial plastic surgeon David W. Kim, MD, California. Depending upon your anatomy, post-surgical results and surgeon, it’s advised to wrap your nose for several months or up to a year post-rhinoplasty.
Are there benefits to taping your nose outside of having a rhinoplasty?
“Outside of rhinoplasty, there is no good scientific evidence that taping your nose every night can permanently reshape it or act as a ‘mini nose job’ as seen on social media,” says Palo Alto, CA facial plastic surgeon Steven Curti, MD. Taping it, he explains, can help compress soft tissue, making the nose look smaller, but this effect is temporary and does not lead to any permanent change. Though there’s no harm in taping your nose sans rhinoplasty, especially if you’re prone to swelling, just don’t expect long-term results. “Similar to wearing compression socks, it can help, but the effect will last for hours, not weeks or months,” he says. At best, what you’re doing, Dr. Kim says, is “temporarily displacing normal fluid.”
Managing the hype
As with many social media trends, some are worth the hype, and some aren’t—the latter being the case here, but with a caveat. The “mini nose job,” as it’s been referred to, can help to counteract the effects of edema or swelling caused by excess fluid. If you are someone who is prone to swelling, be it from allergies, hormonal imbalance, sleeping flat or traveling, taping your nose can help to reduce excess fluid in the area and, in a way, make the nose appear smaller briefly. Taping the nose simply pushes out fluid, making the nose appear smaller for a brief period of time. “It alters the skin’s water weight, not the nose’s actual architecture,” says Dr. Kim.
Dr. Curti says that the smaller appearance is more evident in the mornings when people tend to have more gravity-induced swelling. The nose will look slightly more sculpted, but within minutes to a couple of hours, circulation returns to the nose and the “mini nose job” disappears, explains Dr. Kim.
“The internet loves a quick fix, but anatomy is anatomy. Your nasal shape is formed by bone and structural cartilage. A piece of tape simply does not possess the same mechanical force required to remodel human cartilage. If it did, sunglasses would permanently change the shape of our noses, too,” says Dr. Kim.
Though it can help with swelling, there are some negative side effects to taping your nose, including skin irritation, increased risk of acne, redness and clogged pores.
