This essay mainly addresses the similarities and differences between plastic surgery and cosmetic surgery.

Both plastic surgery and cosmetic surgery are medical specialties concerned with the “correction” or restoration of form and function. Surgeons in these two fields are devoted to improving the health, wellness and life experience of their patients. Nevertheless, all procedures in both surgeries, even the less invasive ones like fillers and lasers, carry risks and side effects.

Cosmetic surgery, which is also called aesthetic surgery and includes such specialties as breast augmentation, nasal surgery, eyelid surgery and so on, is the best-known kind of plastic surgery, that is, the latter one carries a much broader sense. Cosmetic surgery is an optional procedure performed on normal parts of the body with the only purpose of improving a person’s appearance and/or removing signs of aging, whereas plastic surgery, which can be divided into several sub-specialties like reconstructive surgery, cosmetic surgery, craniofacial surgery, the treatment of burns, etc., mainly corrects and rectifies the deformed and any physical abnormality.

Although plastic surgery and cosmetic surgery are both products of people’s obsession with beauty, yet they differentiate from each other in many aspects.