Narrator: In LA, lifelong dreams come true, when the surgeons to the stars make it their mission to transform the looks and lives of a group of self-confessed ugly ducklings from the UK.
It's a dramatic and emotional journey that will change them forever.
Jane: This is an experience I'm never, ever gonna have again.
Narrator: This trip will make the ordinary extraordinary. It's not just the story of Hollywood talk, it's the reality of creating a Brand New You.
This is Jane's story. 35-year-old Jane Lowes is from Stephanage, and is one of the thousands of women who applied to Brand New You.
Jane feels self conscious about her looks, and has never felt sexy in her life.
Jane: I don't think I'm very attractive, I think I'm quite plain. I was 14 and a half stones. Now I'm 8 and a half stones, but I've been left with loose skin, and things left over from having a weight problem all through my life.
Narrator: Having lost more than a third of her body weight, she despairs that no amount of diet or exercise can give her the shape she desperately wants.
Drastic weight loss and childbirth has left her with layers of excess skin, and her shrunken breasts hang like spaniel's ears.
To create the Brand New You, Jane Lowes, will cost an incredible $160,000.00.
Working mom Jane has a mission: to rebuild her looks, and her self esteem.
Jane: I don't really like much about my appearance, I don't really like looking in the mirror very much. I've felt like this since I was a child. I had an impairment, which means I went to health classes, and that drove my self image, and I had bad teeth, and I had a weight problem. So it really did cause a lot of scarring, I suppose.
I would love to become a new person, a new me. But to become a new me, looking like this, I need better.
Narrator: Jane's already transformed herself, having ballooned to an enormous 14 and a half stones, she adopted a strict diet and fitness regime. It took her a year and a half, but she reached her target weigh.
Jane: I don't think I've reached my best yet. But when I lost that six and a half stone, I felt elated.
Narrator: Jane's determination to transform herself was further motivated by the split from her partner of 20 years.
Jane: I'm so open for change now, it's like something that used to scare me before. It's one of those things you have to grasp with both hands.
Narrator: With her kids now in their teens, she's ready to do things for herself. She wants to feel sexy and vivacious, something she's never known in her life, and believes the only way she can achieve that is with surgical intervention.
Jane: I wanna look like me, but I wanna look the best me that I can be.
Narrator: The quest for the body beautiful is a pipe dream, unless she's chosen for Brand New You. And she's been on tender hooks waiting for the news.
Jane: Thank you Jackie, oh my god!! Thank you so much!! Oh god!!
Narrator: For the next six weeks, Beverly Hills will be her home. But chasing the Hollywood dream will be a rollercoaster ride.
Jane's life and looks are about to be changed forever. In Los Angeles, the Brand New You team is already planning radical intervention. We've assembled a team of the world's leading cosmetic surgeons. They earn millions by transforming the looks of Hollywood 's rich and famous. And they've made it their mission to create the woman Jane always wanted to be. Charged with rejuvenating her face and nose, one of the worlds leading facial cosmetic surgeon, Dr. Paul Nassif.
Dr. Paul Nassif: My initial thoughts of Jane is that her nose doesn't fit her face. When I take a look at her nose, I see a very asymmetric deviated tip, and when I look at some of her profile shots, her nose just comes out too far for her face.
Jane: I'd like my nose straightened out at the bottom, and thinned out. There are a couple of scars from acne.
Dr. Paul Nassif: The goal with her is to make her stunning. We'll make her look fantastic.
Narrator: The guru transforming her body is leading edge cosmetic surgeon, Dr. Gerald Minniti.
Dr. Gerald Minniti: Jane's lost 70 pounds, which is five stones, and has breastfed two babies. She's a perfect candidate for breast augmentation. Her breasts shrank.
Jane: My stomach has been left quite saggy from the weight loss as well.
Dr. Gerald Minniti: She is a great candidate for a tummy tuck. This is a procedure where we're gonna remove yards of skin, and make her tight as a drum. We can bounce a quarter off her belly.
Jane: I would change my skin, because I have quite poor skin.
Narrator: Sorting out her skin problems is pioneering clinical dermatologist, Dr. David Amron.
Dr. David Amron: Quite honestly, Jane's skin needs improvement, it's in pretty bad shape. She's got a lot of redness, broken blood vessels, she's god bad rosacea. And I can make a fantastic improvement in her. She needs my help.
Jane: I would change my teeth, because lots of things have gone wrong with them.
Narrator: And giving her a dazzling Hollywood smile, dentist of the stars, Dr. Bill Dorfman.
Dr. Bill Dorfman: The British don't have the greatest reputation for taking care of their teeth.. That being said, Jane's teeth aren't that bad. This is purely cosmetic though, and I'm going to get her teeth to look at least ten times better, and when we're done, I know she'll be hot.
Narrator: Coming up, Jane arrives in LA to begin her Hollywood nip tuck. She goes under the knife in a series of extreme procedures that dramatically transform her and give her a centerfold figure.
Jane: Oh my god!! I've got boobies!
Narrator: But Jane's Hollywood dream may not have a happy ending.
Narrator: Jane has come to LA for a radical makeover.
Jane: This is an experience I'm never, ever gonna have again and I'm so lucky to be here.
Narrator: She's here to have $160,000.00 worth of extreme plastic surgery, and she knows exactly what she wants.
Jane: Pamela Anderson's got lovely shaped breasts as well, and I wouldn't mind something like that actually. But maybe not quite so big.
Narrator: In pursuit of her perfect body, Jane has to cope with a dramatic and life-changing journey. And the surgeons who will transform her face a challenging and difficult road ahead.
Today is Jane's first day in LA, and she's already scheduled to meet her surgeons. They'll examine her and come up with a radical plan to transform her.
Her first appointment is on Spalding Drive, LA's equivalent of Harley Street. She's here to meet leading facial cosmetic surgeon, Dr. Paul Nassif.
Dr. Paul Nassif: In regards to her face, surgically, I'm not gonna do much. We are gonna do some skin treatments, maybe fill in some of the lines, and her smile lines, also make her lips more plump, but the most important thing we're gonna fix on her face is her nose.
Let me see your profile, look straight for me. The tip of your nose sticks out just a little bit. Okay. You have a great jaw line, great chin.
Narrator: At 35, Jane doesn't require drastic intervention. But her nose needs to be fixed.
Dr. Paul Nassif: So besides us trying to push the nose closer to your face in your profile, one of our goals will be to actually take some of this cartilage if possible, and put it in here, so we can try to symmetrize the nose. The nose just comes out too far from her face.
In addition, her tip is collapsed. I'm sure she can't breathe. This is the main problem I see with her nose, and I know I can fix it. I can make it a lot better.
Dr. Gerald Minniti: What I want is to enlarge her breasts and do a small lift. And by taking that new edge and bringing it together, it drives everything up into a prettier position.
Jane: Oh, okay.
Dr. Gerald Minniti: And I think that probably, because your breasts are relatively small and light, in conjunction with an implant, I will be able to get away with just a circumaeorlar lift.
Jane: Oh fantastic.
Dr. Gerald Minniti: There's always the possibility that I may need to extend that lift with a little vertical component, and I'm not ruling that out for you.
She's gonna do very well with the saline implant. Saline implants are bags of rubber, essentially, that are filled with saltwater. And what it is, is a very thin rubber shell, and what I do, I deflate it, take all the water out, and I roll it up like a cigar, and I make an incision in the belly button and insert the implants under her muscles in her chest, through her bellybutton, and then re-inflate it.
Narrator: Jane's belly is also going to be transformed.
Dr. Gerald Minniti: I see that you have excessive skin here. Now, in order to achieve a flat look for you, what we need to do is the full abdominalplasty. Which means that we need to make an incision that goes all the way around the bellybutton, so that we can release all the skin and fat of your belly from the bellybutton. And at that point, I start pulling on the skin. And I wanna pull it down as far as I possibly can.
Now mind you, this skin I'm pulling on has a little hole in it.
Jane: Yeah.
Dr. Gerald Minniti: The hole that used to be attached to the belly button.
Jane: Yeah. (Laughter)
Dr. Gerald Minniti: Now ideally, we wanna pull hard enough and it should be able to come far enough so that that hole travels down below the point at which I'm going to trim.
Jane: Oh, okay.
Dr. Gerald Minniti: And of course now, you're bellybutton is buried under that skin. So I gotta make a new hole for the bellybutton.
Jane: Okay. (Laughter)
Dr. Gerald Minniti: And then we'll reattach it.
Narrator: It's another sunny day in Tinsletown. Jane's next consultation is on the other side of Beverly Hills, with America's top dental surgeon, Dr. Bill Dorfman.
Jane: I feel very excited about meeting Dr. Dorfman, but I'm a bit worried because I know he's the best in his field, and it's just, it's like meeting a celebrity. So I'm a bit nervous.
Dr. Bill Dorfman: Hello Jane.
Jane: Hello.
Dr. Bill Dorfman: I'm Dr. Dorfman.
Jane: Really nice to meet you.
Dr. Bill Dorfman: Nice to meet you too.
Narrator: Jane is hoping he can give her a perfect smile.
Dr. Bill Dorfman: I think what we can do for you is definitely get rid of a lot of this metal for you, and make them white fillings.
Jane: Oh, fantastic.
Dr. Bill Dorfman: And I'd like to give you a much prettier smile. What I'd like to do is using porcelain veneers, we'll go ahead and we'll give you a nice even uniform smile.
Dr. Bill Dorfman: The first thing we need to do is change all of her silver fillings. I wanna get them white. And then we've got to whiten her teeth. With Zoom whitening, I can get her teeth eight shades whiter in an hour, and then I'll make her six porcelain veneers across the top here to match the new color. Her teeth will be perfect, and she'll be hot. Really hot.
Narrator: With her smile taken care of, it's time to find out what can be done to improve the condition of her skin. Dr. David Amaron is a groundbreaking clinical dermatologist, and he has pioneered a revolutionary new laser treatment.
Dr. David Amron: She has quite a good case of rosacea. She has redness, her face, her nose, forehead, cheeks, chin, and then we'll come back and do the nose. What we're going to do now is just slightly painful, but not too bad.
Narrator: The laser works in conjunction with a photosensitive compound applied to the skin.
Dr. David Amron: Jane, go ahead and turn your head all the way to the left. Now this is a newer type of treatment that I'm doing on Jane called photodynamic therapy, and I'm combining the V-beam laser with a topical solution called Laevulin, which is a photosensitizing solution that helps a lot with the acne.
Narrator: Jane's face will be red and swollen for a few days. But it will lessen after each treatment, and after a few weeks, she'll see dramatic improvement.
Dr. David Amron: Good Jane, that's it.
Jane: Brilliant. Thank you.
Narrator: It's been an incredible couple of days. Jane's hardly stopped since she arrived in LA. Tomorrow she goes under the knife in a dramatic double operation.
Jane: I do have some pre-operation nerves for tomorrow, the surgery, because it's going to be quite a long one, at least five yours. I spoke to Dr. Minniti yesterday, and he seems very reassuring. But obviously he's told me all the risks and things, and I know that there are some, but he's showed me that should go fine.
Narrator: With the transformation tomorrow, her thoughts turn home, reassuring her children she'll be okay.
Jane: Hello darling, how are you?
James: I'm fine thank you, you? Are you okay?
Jane: Yes I'm fine poppet. James, I'm going off now.
James: Okay.
Jane: Okay, and I'll be fine, and I'll ring you soon as I can.
James: Okay, be careful.
Jane: Oh darling, of course I'll be careful. I'm in the best hands, I promise, okay?
James: Yeah.
Jane: Alright darling, I love you very, very much.
James: I love you too.
Jane: Alright darling, I'll see you later.
James: Okay.
Jane: Okay you take care of Beth for me.
James: I will.
Jane: Alright sweetie I love you.
James: Love you too.
Jane: Okay, bye.
James: Bye.
Jane: Bye.
James: Bye.
Jane: Bye.
Narrator: It's D-day. James looks and life are about to change forever. She's still a little red from the V-beam treatment, but eager to get going on the main stage of her transformation.
Dr. Gerald Minniti: I see you've created Fort Knox back here.
Jane: (Laughter)
Dr. Gerald Minniti: Wow. Good.
Jane: Just in case.
Dr. Gerald Minniti: Nobody's gonna accidentally open this.
Jane: No way, huh.
Narrator: Dr. Minniti's markings are the blueprint for his part of the operation. They 're his guide for fitting the implants and creating the shape of her new breasts.
Dr. Gerald Minniti: I'm just gonna draw a line underneath where your breasts exists along your chest wall.
Jane: Okay.
Dr. Gerald Minniti: And then all of the extra slack will be taken up by the lift.
Jane: Perfect.
Dr. Gerald Minniti: Okay, good. And we are gonna place these trans-umbilically. Alright.
Narrator: He now marks up for the tummy tuck.
Dr. Gerald Minniti: The marking, the last thing we need to do, is mark out your new scar. What it's gonna do for this is gonna be phenomenal.
Jane: Brilliant.
Narrator: Her old cesarean scar will be removed with the excess skin during the operation. Dr. Minniti will operate a tag team system with Dr. Nassif during today's surgery. When he's finished the body work, Dr. Nassif will take over with the rejuvenation and reconstruction.
Dr. Gerald Minniti: She's very excited about her surgeries, but she's probably most excited about her breasts. Not to put down Dr. Nassif, because all the things he's going to do for that are going to make her face look wonderful and bright an youthful, but she's told me that she's real exited about her breasts, and I'm really excited about her breasts, and I'm really excited about that because I think today's plan from my standpoint is relatively straightforward.
Narrator: The first procedure will be the breast implants.
Dr. Gerald Minniti: Jane is going to have a transumbilically placed implant, placed underneath these muscles and her chest called the pectorals major muscle.
Narrator: Dr. Minniti is one of only nine surgeons in the world who've perfected placing implants via the belly button.
Dr. Gerald Minniti: And so what I'm doing here is I've just created a tunnel with these large scissors just above the muscles of her abdomen. So I've lifted the hole, and you can see Jane is very thin.
[Audio skips]
Narrator: The nipple position will be an inch higher on the mound. With the nipples sutured into position, all he has to do is fine stitch the areola.
Dr. Gerald Minniti: So the breasts are done.
Narrator: Now he's ready to begin the next procedure.
Dr. Gerald Minniti: I'm gonna go ahead and start the incision.
Narrator: The tummy tuck will remove the excess skin Jane's been left with since her dramatic weight loss. The hip bone to hip bone incision will remove her cesarean scar. When the excess skin is excised, the new scar will be concealed in her bikini line.
Dr. Gerald Minniti: Right now I'm up to here, I've almost gotten to her rib care, and I need to get to it. And that's gonna allow me to really pull this down.
Narrator: The skin he's removing is excess fat and tissue Jane couldn't shift through diet or exercise.
Dr. Gerald Minniti: So we've been able to remove about a good four or five inches, about ten centimeters.
Narrator: He can now reposition the naval.
Dr. Gerald Minniti: So I've relocated that varied bellybutton, so I go ahead now and make my incision. Hmm. So I'm gonna take a little core of fat too, to get a little depression, so it looks like her real bellybutton.
Narrator: He sculpts it into shape. Now all that remains is to fine-stitch the incision from the tummy tuck.
Dr. Gerald Minniti: There's a nice new flat belly.
Narrator: As Dr. Minniti finishes, Dr. Nassif scrubs in for his part of the operation.
Dr. Paul Nassif: You do beautiful stitching.
Dr. Gerald Minniti: The surgery went perfectly. I like her new shape, and I think she'll be pleased.
[audio skips]
[silence]
Narrator: 35-year-old Jane Lois from Stephanage has reached the midway stage in her total transformation.
Female Speaker: She loves the cleavage.
Jane: Oh, it's been so long! (Laughter)
Narrator: She's already undergone major face and body surgery in her quest to obtain centerfold curves, and ditch her "Plain Jane" image.
Jane: I feel a lot like Laura Croft at the moment.
[Audio skips]
Narrator: It's now just over two weeks since she had her breast implants, and it's time for a post-op check with Dr. Minniti.
Dr. Gerald Minniti: How do you like the size, good?
Jane: Yes, yeah. When I first woke up, I thought, "God they're huge", but now they've sort of settled down so they're fine.
Dr. Gerald Minniti: Let me just take a look at the incisions and everything, since you have quite a few of them.
Well they seem to be healing nicely. They're going to change. The water that's in the implant on top of your breast is going to deflate a little bit. But that's okay, because right now it almost looks like you have two invisible hands holding your breasts up.
Jane: I know.
Dr. Gerald Minniti: And what you really want is a more natural looking slope to the breast, and you're gonna get that with time as the tops deflate and the bottoms inflate, and "fluff out". And it's gonna give you a very pretty, natural breast and it looks great.
Jane: Okay.
Dr. Gerald Minniti: Super.
Jane: No worries at all.
Dr. Gerald Minniti: Right. Looks great. The only thing you need to do at this point is to massage. And that's merely just pushing the implants together, and then driving them up.
Narrator: Jane's breasts are healing nicely. The results from her tummy tuck look pretty incredible too.
Dr. Gerald Minniti: Let me just take a peek at your scar. And good, your scar looks pretty good. It's a little red, it's pretty fine, and it feels like it's kind of lumpy, and those are all the little stitches that are still in there. You've got hundreds of little stitches, and believe it or not, they're going to come out and it will be smooth.
[audio skips]
Dr. Bill Dorfman: I'm creating the final shape that I want your teeth to be. In effect, I'm sculpting your new teeth. They're perfect, Jane. Really beautiful.
Narrator: This perfect Hollywood smile costs a cool $20,000.00.
Dr. Bill Dorfman: I'm so glad you opted to do this. Okay sweetie, we're finished.
Jane: Can I see:
Dr. Bill Dorfman: Yes, take a look.
Jane: Oh my god!!
[Audio skips]
Male Speaker: She looks amazing. I mean, the way she carriers herself, the way she stands and a new person. What an incredible transformation. And yes, of course, the nose looks wonderful.
Dr. Bill Dorfman: She just became beautiful. Her teeth were good, now they're great.
Narrator: Our gurus love her transformation.
Jane: I can't believe I've done all of this and I'm so happy and I just feel like
Male Speaker: You're just built like a brick house, let me tell ya.
Male Speaker #2: Are you ready? Close your eyes.
Jane: (Laughter) Oh my god! Oh wow, I wasn't expecting that. Oh my god!
[Audio skips]
Narrator: Jane underwent a dramatic transformation. More than $160,000.00 worth of procedures gave her the centerfold figure she could never achieve through diet or exercise. And she was euphoric.
Jane: But I seem to have the body of a playmate.
Narrator: But it wasn't the success she hoped for, and she's back in LA to find out what's gone wrong, and hopefully have it fixed.
Jane: The main problem's been my right breast. I'll show you, I'll just unhook this and let you see, because what's happened is it's, if you can see, it's sort of like rises up higher than that one. It sort of goes to that shape as well, goes to that side. And if I tense my muscles, which is like that, they just, even this one looks odd. It shouldn't move like that.
Narrator: It's likely that Jane now faces a second surgery.
[Audio skips]
Dr. Gerald Minniti: The implant gets scar tissue placed around by the human body, that's a normal phenomenon, but that normal scar tissue, which we call the capsule, is very, very thin and wispy, and elastic. In capsule contracture though, the scar tissue becomes inelastic, rope-like, and thickened. And as you can see here, this breast looks more bulbous than this one because this one's allowed to lay flat because the scar capsule, once the fluid spread out, this one is being held together like this and in like that, and it's giving a very bulbous appearance.
Narrator: Jane's original implants were placed by the belly button. To replace the encapsulated one, Dr. Minniti has to go via the areola.
Dr. Gerald Minniti: And I'm cutting through the breast tissue just below the nipple, and I've come down onto the scar capsule. I'm gonna separate this scar tissue with the implant inside it still, from the surrounding breast tissue.
