Brazilian Buttock Augmentation ~ Does It Work?

How is a Brazillian butt lift different from any other type of butt lift?  How many types are there?  Is there some sort of regular butt lift that is different or better? I just want my booty to look rounder and more of the Apple Bottom look... is that Brazillian? 

Doctor Answers (35)

They are very different


A regular butt lift will take sagging buttocks tissue and lift it up by cutting out and tightening loose skin. It typically will not add volume to your bottom end unless an autoaugmentation procedure is used at the same time. An autoaugmentation procedure uses the deep tissues over the gluteus muscles and fold them up to bulk up the newly lifted tissues. The scarring and downtime can be significant. It is a good procedure for patients with loose skin (eg. massive weight loss, etc.) A Brazilian butt lift is actually a procedure that takes fat harvested during liposuction of other areas and after preparation it gets injected into the gluteal area to volumize the buttocks. The scarring is minimal and the so is the down time. Survival of fat is variable so it is possible to need additional touchups down the road.

Denver Plastic Surgeon
5.0 out of 5 stars 21 reviews

Brazilian butt lift


Buttock augmentation in the form of fat injection or the Brazilian butt lift is a fat surgery. Fat is the storage compartment. When you take in calories that you do not burn that very second they are stored as fat. What you do with the Brazilian butt lift is to liposuction fat away from places we do not want fat and move it to the buttocks, to lift shape and shade the buttocks.
What you are physically doing is liposuction in the abdomen, back and flank, collecting this fat, removing the blood, fluid and ruptured fat cells and then re-injecting the fat into the buttocks using multiple small volume injections in multiple planes. If you remove 3000 mL of fat with liposuction all of this is not available for injection approximately 1/3 of which liposuction is good enough to be used for injection. This would leave about 1000 mL from the injection. 65% of the fat you inject should survive to give a permanent change in the buttocks.
The hardest part of the Brazilian butt lift is preserving the injected fat. This requires 10 days of not sitting and sleeping on the stomach. Sitting and putting pressure on the buttocks will kill the fat cells and cause an suboptimal result. The pain of the procedure is essentially the pain from liposuction. The patient will have a hard night the first night but then much better by the second of the night. Most patients require pain medicine for only 4 to 5 days. There is no exercise for two weeks, after that, light treadmill level of exercise can be done. Four weeks must pass before heavy exercise can be done. It takes 2 to 3 months before all the swelling resolves and you get the final look. Lymphatic massage is the best way to speed up the resolution of the swelling and ensure the best results.

Wendell Perry, MD
Miami Plastic Surgeon
4.5 out of 5 stars 174 reviews

Different techniques, different goals


Hi there-

A traditional butt lift involves excision of loose skin from the upper buttock and lower back area, in order to reshape the buttocks in a patient who has experienced a significant weight loss and who has experienced sagging of the butt as a result.

A Brazilian Butt Lift involves removing unwanted fat by liposuction and injection of this fat into the buttocks. This is best for women who have good skin tone, but lack the buttocks volume, shape, and fullness they desire.

Based on your described goals, it sounds like a Brazilian Butt Lift would be more likely to achieve your goals for you. Find a surgeon certified by The American Board of Plastic Surgery, and with experience performing these procedures, and discuss your goals with them.

Hope you get the butt you dream of!

Armando Soto, MD, FACS
Orlando Plastic Surgeon
5.0 out of 5 stars 114 reviews

Brazilian Butt Lift Works


There are several different ways to change the shape and size of the gluteal region:

1.  Brazilian Butt Lift (performed with liposuction and fat transfer to the buttocks)

2.  Gluteal Augmentation With Implants (placed under the muscle or fibrous covering of the gluteal muscle)

3.  Lower Body Lift (performed through long incisions placed around the back and sometimes waist)

With advances in the Brazilian Butt Lift technique, most plastic surgeons are steering away from gluteal augmentation with implants and performing a Brazilian Butt Lift to improve the appearance of the buttocks.  A lower body lift is generally reserved for patients who have lost a lot of weight, have excess skin of the back and flanks, and need to raise a drooping buttocks.  

For most patients like you who want a rounder, fuller buttocks and a sexy waist-to-hip ratio, a Brazilian Butt Lift is the ideal procedure of choice.   First liposuction of the abdomen, back, flanks, and thighs is performed to obtain fat for later injection injection into the buttocks and to shape a sexy silhouette.  Next, the harvested fat is injected into the buttocks in the upper, medial region.  This added volume improves the shape and projection of the buttocks giving the appearance of a lift.  Depending on the desired gluteal shape/size and available fat, approximately 350 to 1000cc of fat is injected into each buttock.  

A Brazilian Butt Lift, unlike the other procedures listed above, is performed through tiny incisions and avoids the use of prosthetic implants.


Jaime Perez, M.D.

Brazilian Butt Lift Specialist in Tampa, Florida

Plastic Surgery Center of Tampa, Florida

Jaime Perez, MD
Tampa Plastic Surgeon
5.0 out of 5 stars 32 reviews

Brazilian Butt Lift is Most Natural


The Brazilian buttock enhancement technique uses the bodies own fat cells to add volume and to shape and enhance the buttocks. Regular buttock lift is a vague term that can refer to large incisions that may be required to lift the buttock skin. This is best for patients that have lost massive amounts of weight who need lifting of the loose skin and soft tissue of the buttocks.

Only tiny liposuction type incisins are require dto move the bodies own fat cells from where they are not needed to enhance the buttock shape. Transferring the fat throughout the different layers of the buttocks will add and enhance the shape and volume of the buttock without being very invasive.

While this technique can be combined with implants, it is more often best to perform the procedure by itself. Implants are rarely a natural feel and do not last very long. A lot of complications have been reported with implants.


Ashkan Ghavami, MD
Beverly Hills Plastic Surgeon
4.0 out of 5 stars 59 reviews

Brazilian butt does not work


Butt augmentation with fat injection defies logic. Injecting 700 - 1000 cc of fat in the butt is unlikely to survive. Most of that fat disappears. It might take a year for it to disappear and the small amount that remains, does not justify the cost and the possible complications. Most importantly, the patient are disappointed with the very small increase in butt size. Butt implants in the sub-fascial location give a significant increase in butt size and complication rate is very small. With the new , very soft implants, they are not palpable and the result is very natural. Many of my patients refer their friends because they are very happy.

Shlomo Widder, MD
Washington DC Plastic Surgeon
4.5 out of 5 stars 65 reviews

A very rewarding procedure


Brazilian butt lift definitely works for suitable patients.

It is not just about augmenting the buttocks, it is rather about shaping them, making them firmer and sculpting problem zones "around" them (especially the love handles and unsightly deposits just in the folds).

The Brazilian butt lift procedure is just about to become alive in Europe, in Spain it has been popular for quite some time, but it has been virtually unknown in the UK until very recently.

For my practice, the Body Jet lipocollector system has made this a very pleasant procedure with excellent fat graft take rates and very good patient satisfaction.

The jet technology has also cut down surgery times for Brazilain butt lifts by half.

However, patients will need some fat to spare, without fat the brazilian butt lift doesn't work.

Alexander Aslani, MD, EBOPRAS
Spain Plastic Surgeon
5.0 out of 5 stars 95 reviews
