Beauty Takes Pain

Cosmetic surgery is expensive, but beauty-conscious Japanese girls and women (especially those obsessed with a more “Western” look) have low-priced workarounds to choose from — as uncovered in January by the fashion blogger Liz Katz. To wit: $63 Face-Slimmer Exercise Mouthpiece (insert it for three minutes a day, make vowel sounds and watch a “saggy” mouth turn taut); the Beauty Lift High Nose nostril clip, which emits electronic vibrations to raise the proboscis’s profile; and an altogether different but similarly painful-appearing Nose Straightener (insert for 20 minutes a day for added “perkiness”).