The 'bagel head': Japan's strange new beauty trend

Tattoos too passé? A hardcore new body-modification trend plants a lumpy welt right in the middle of the forehead

The bagel-head look.
(Image credit: YouTube)

The video: Insufficiently fulfilled by tattoos and piercings, Japanese body-art fans are taking things to another level with a bizarre practice called "bagel heading." As demonstrated on a new National Geographic show called Taboo (take a look below), a bagel-head artist gives a willing participant the look by pumping 400 cc of saline into his forehead until a large welt forms — then presses a finger into the lump to create a bagel hole-like dent. Unlike other forms of body modification, the procedure isn't permanent; the face bagel deflates in about a day as the body absorbs the saline. "People who like extreme body modification want to find their own way of doing things, and they're always looking for new ways to do that," Keroppy, a Japanese body modification artist, told Vice back in 2009. "The more progressive the scene gets, the more these people have to experiment and go their own way."

The reaction: First it was horn implants and eyeball tattoos, says Australia's Herald Sun. But this? It's a "hole" new trend. And, "oh boy, is it a lunch-ruiner," says Carmel Lobello at Death and Taxes. I'm not sure if one person getting paid to have the procedure done on television constitutes a trend, but it really does look like "bagels are bursting out of your brain." It's an intriguingly empty gesture, says Tracie Egan Morrissey at Jezebel, "There's no point to the whole thing, other than to wear a skin bagel." Watch it below:

Subscribe to The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE
https://cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/flexiimages/jacafc5zvs1692883516.jpg

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

Sign up
To continue reading this article...
Continue reading this article and get limited website access each month.
Get unlimited website access, exclusive newsletters plus much more.
Cancel or pause at any time.
Already a subscriber to The Week?
Not sure which email you used for your subscription? Contact us