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미학
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Koreamaxxing: A guide to plastic surgery in Korea
I know people are familiar with surgery being very normalized in Korean society but few people here ever recommend Korea.
My understanding is that non-Asians are hesitant to go to Korea for plastic surgery but it's really not that big of a deal.
A big pro of Korea is that the prices are pretty low compared to the West, both because their currency has been in decline but also because the market is very competitive.
Also Korea is pretty safe compared to other sketchy places that people choose to get plastic surgery in and you most likely won't get your organs harvested lol. Also by law, every operating room in Korea needs to be equipped with CCTV so there's little room for fuckery.
Finding Clinics
If you're curious there's an App called Gangnam UNNI where you can find all kinds of clinics offering all kinds of procedures, sometimes even with limited time event pricing which is often lower. Oftentimes the special event prices come with the obligation to post a review with your before and after results. You are usually allowed to blur parts of your face irrelevant to the procedure. What's good about this is that it means that every clinic has a ton of reviews that you can sort through and oftentimes you can also find other Western people that have gotten the particular surgery you're interested in with that clinic before. Also while those event deals obligate that you leave a review, it obviously doesn't mean that the review has to be positive. From my understanding there are barely any fake reviews as the reviews are verified with a receipt from the clinic.
Most clinics have English interpreters available, either in house or they'll call them for your appointment. And most clinics will also have done work on other foreigners as well so you most likely won't be the White person to get a particular surgery. In some cases, for smaller clinics that haven't had that many foreigners, they will cut you a better deal if you agree with them using your before after pics for advertising purposes etc.
UNNI let's you apply a lot of filters so that you can find a clinic that is offering the procedure that you are looking for.
From there you can select an offer and just look through all the reviews. All the reviews are translated to English but in some cases you can also find reviews in English that foreigners have left. Here's one on the first result for example. A White woman that got lower and upper blepharoplasty for example.
From the offer page you can also reach out to the clinic via their whatsapp number or their Kakaotalk ID that they provide. Usually they have English speaking staff assigned to answering those messages and they reply fairly quickly, mostly within an hour during Korean working hours. You can then ask them for a quote for your surgery, or book an online or in-person consultation. The rest is fairly self-explanatory.
Staying in Korea
This obviously depends on what procedures you want to get because some surgeries may require more checkups than others but in general you should book your flight to Korea once you've set a surgery or at least one or multiple consultation dates with clinics. I recommend staying at least 2 weeks just to also explore Seoul a bit.
In general, I recommend staying in Seoul, because that's where most of the clinics are even if Seoul is just slightly more expensive than the rest in Korea. Speaking of clinic locations, if you're gonna have a lot of consultations and checkups you should be staying in Gangnam District because that's where almost every clinic is, otherwise you will be traveling two and from the clinic for like an hour constantly.
For finding places to stay I recommend Enkostay cause you can get places for relatively cheap but you must book for 2 weeks at least. To give you an idea you can find places for like 800$ a month but also much more if you wanna live the high life
Taxis in Korea are also super cheap so you can basically take it to and from the clinic if you wish.
My Experience
I happened to be in Korea on business in January so I did not have anything planned surgery wise prior to coming. This guide simply outlines what I'll do the next time I come back to Korea.
The good news is that even if you don't have a plan, you can basically get surgery dates super quickly. I only got two surgeries done with two different clinics but both times I basically messaged a clinic, got an in-person consultation booked 2 days later and ended up getting the surgery the week after.
The first surgery I got was Under Eye Fat grafting (not really much that can go wrong with that). A lot of clinics are super specialized in fat grafts so sometimes that's all they do basically. It was also dirt cheap, I paid like 250$ for it but I am required to leave a review and update it with pictures 2 weeks after the procedure, 1 month after the procedure, and 3 months after the procedure.
The second surgery was rhinoplasty to make my nose less wide. It was also fairly cheap because it included, nasal osteotomy, alar reduction and tip reduction and reforming with my ear cartilage. I'm not sure how it will turn out but so far it looks promising. I'm still super swollen because I got it done earlier this week and I have yet to get the splint and stitches taken out. For these procedures I ended up paying about 4500$ in total but this is the price cut in half because I agreed with the clinic to let them use my before and after pictures.
I know people are familiar with surgery being very normalized in Korean society but few people here ever recommend Korea.
My understanding is that non-Asians are hesitant to go to Korea for plastic surgery but it's really not that big of a deal.
A big pro of Korea is that the prices are pretty low compared to the West, both because their currency has been in decline but also because the market is very competitive.
Also Korea is pretty safe compared to other sketchy places that people choose to get plastic surgery in and you most likely won't get your organs harvested lol. Also by law, every operating room in Korea needs to be equipped with CCTV so there's little room for fuckery.
Finding Clinics
If you're curious there's an App called Gangnam UNNI where you can find all kinds of clinics offering all kinds of procedures, sometimes even with limited time event pricing which is often lower. Oftentimes the special event prices come with the obligation to post a review with your before and after results. You are usually allowed to blur parts of your face irrelevant to the procedure. What's good about this is that it means that every clinic has a ton of reviews that you can sort through and oftentimes you can also find other Western people that have gotten the particular surgery you're interested in with that clinic before. Also while those event deals obligate that you leave a review, it obviously doesn't mean that the review has to be positive. From my understanding there are barely any fake reviews as the reviews are verified with a receipt from the clinic.
Most clinics have English interpreters available, either in house or they'll call them for your appointment. And most clinics will also have done work on other foreigners as well so you most likely won't be the White person to get a particular surgery. In some cases, for smaller clinics that haven't had that many foreigners, they will cut you a better deal if you agree with them using your before after pics for advertising purposes etc.
UNNI let's you apply a lot of filters so that you can find a clinic that is offering the procedure that you are looking for.
From there you can select an offer and just look through all the reviews. All the reviews are translated to English but in some cases you can also find reviews in English that foreigners have left. Here's one on the first result for example. A White woman that got lower and upper blepharoplasty for example.
From the offer page you can also reach out to the clinic via their whatsapp number or their Kakaotalk ID that they provide. Usually they have English speaking staff assigned to answering those messages and they reply fairly quickly, mostly within an hour during Korean working hours. You can then ask them for a quote for your surgery, or book an online or in-person consultation. The rest is fairly self-explanatory.
Staying in Korea
This obviously depends on what procedures you want to get because some surgeries may require more checkups than others but in general you should book your flight to Korea once you've set a surgery or at least one or multiple consultation dates with clinics. I recommend staying at least 2 weeks just to also explore Seoul a bit.
In general, I recommend staying in Seoul, because that's where most of the clinics are even if Seoul is just slightly more expensive than the rest in Korea. Speaking of clinic locations, if you're gonna have a lot of consultations and checkups you should be staying in Gangnam District because that's where almost every clinic is, otherwise you will be traveling two and from the clinic for like an hour constantly.
For finding places to stay I recommend Enkostay cause you can get places for relatively cheap but you must book for 2 weeks at least. To give you an idea you can find places for like 800$ a month but also much more if you wanna live the high life
Taxis in Korea are also super cheap so you can basically take it to and from the clinic if you wish.
My Experience
I happened to be in Korea on business in January so I did not have anything planned surgery wise prior to coming. This guide simply outlines what I'll do the next time I come back to Korea.
The good news is that even if you don't have a plan, you can basically get surgery dates super quickly. I only got two surgeries done with two different clinics but both times I basically messaged a clinic, got an in-person consultation booked 2 days later and ended up getting the surgery the week after.
The first surgery I got was Under Eye Fat grafting (not really much that can go wrong with that). A lot of clinics are super specialized in fat grafts so sometimes that's all they do basically. It was also dirt cheap, I paid like 250$ for it but I am required to leave a review and update it with pictures 2 weeks after the procedure, 1 month after the procedure, and 3 months after the procedure.
The second surgery was rhinoplasty to make my nose less wide. It was also fairly cheap because it included, nasal osteotomy, alar reduction and tip reduction and reforming with my ear cartilage. I'm not sure how it will turn out but so far it looks promising. I'm still super swollen because I got it done earlier this week and I have yet to get the splint and stitches taken out. For these procedures I ended up paying about 4500$ in total but this is the price cut in half because I agreed with the clinic to let them use my before and after pictures.
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