Korean Cosmetic Surgery

If I told you that there’s a street in America dedicated to large institutions that like to make money you’d probably look at me as if I just told you that the sky was blue and there are stars beyond Earth at night. Well, what else would you expect from a society that seems to deify capitalism right? Of course!

Now, what if I told you that South Korea is so obsessed with Korean cosmetic surgery that there’s actually a street in the capital city of Seoul that’s nicknamed “Plastic surgery street”? Would you believe me now? That’s how obsessive Korean cosmetic surgery has become. We’re talking about a country were over 50% of the people in their 20′s have had some work done.

It doesn’t matter if they’re a business owner who thinks that looking good will make them feel more confident and attractive to coworkers or whether they’re simple trying to send the right subconscious messages to their clients to instill trust. Everyone’s in on trying to look gorgeous. (Interestingly enough, American studies have shown that we’re most likely to trust a portly bearded individual when doing business than we are someone that looks like David Beckham.)

Many businesspeople in South Korea go to Korean cosmetic surgeons for acne scar correction, mole removal, regrowth treatments, Botox injections, and laser skin resurfacing. The older businessmen go in for facelifts, hair transplants, and eye-jobs so they can come off as nubile and full of life. (I guess they have that whole old lion-young lion complex thing going on. Which ironically enough is the opposite of how businessmen treat appearances in Japan. Japanese businessmen prefer to do business with older, more seasoned individuals.)

A lot of this obsession with looking as young and fertile as possible stems from the media. Most Korean entertainers have Korean cosmetic surgery done to look better in the eyes of their fan base. This practice is so widespread that there are literal fansites dedicated to showing the before and after of some of pop’s biggest Korean icons. (Don’t think that this is just a Korean phenomenon either, when you get a chance I want you to Google “Lady Gaga old pictures” just so you can see that American artists are doing it too! Hint.. She had a nose job!)

Now, because Korean cosmetic surgery is so commonplace there have been numerous advancements in the technologies and methodologies pioneered by the surgeons. These have led to faster healing times and more subtle as well as effective results. The popular double eyelid procedure (the eye rounding one) is a great example as it’s recovery time is only a couple of weeks at best. Many Koreans also get nose jobs, while quite a few also shave their jaws (this is an attempt to make the face look more pointed).

Of course any cosmetic surgery talk isn’t complete if we didn’t mention that women are also getting breast implants as well as butt injections, but let’s keep this PG shall we?