Dr. Sam Lam Plastic Surgery Forum

I had an alar base reduction done a little over a year ago and I do look better than I did before, but I wanted my nose to be as wide as the distance between my nose and unfortunately it's still wider than that. Can I get another reduction? How do you know when your nostrils are too small to reduce anymore? My nostrils are not big, but in relation to my eyes my nasal base is still a bit wide. When I fix that in photoshop it makes my whole face look sooo much better.

as you may know, i am not a big alar base fan. i don't like the risk of scarring outside the nose. in general, the trick to make a nose balanced is to make the tip stronger and more defined. it balances the width of the nose in most cases beautifully. how do you know if you are a candidate? two tricks i have:
1. pinch the sides of the nose. if the tip looks more bulbous then you are not a candidate. obviously i would have to see you to decide. in short, if the sides are over reduced the tip looks too round and big.
2. measure the width of the tip extending from inner nostril to inner nostril. if it is narrower than one nostril then an alar base reduction could be fine. if it is wider than one nostril then it could look too big as commented in point #1 when the alar base is reduced based on changes in proportionate size.
best,
sml