The Guide to Plastic Surgery in Seoul

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A guide for first timers coming to Seoul

South Korea is known for its unique culture, amazing food, and incredible technology, but it is also home to one of the largest plastic surgery industries in the world (TheNewYorker). With 1000s of clinics in Seoul, the capital city, South Korea hosts 100,000s of foreign visitors each year for cosmetic and other medical tourism. (PulseNews).

In this article, there are 7 common topics about plastic surgery in Seoul, South Korea.

Best Ways to Figure Everything Out

While many people visit South Korea for plastic surgery, figuring out which clinics to pick for a consultation, navigating language differences, and understanding the industry as a whole can be difficult. The best way to figure out what to do is to become informed.

There are usually two different groups of people seeking for medical services in South Korea. People in the first group tend to want to look for everything on their own, including comparing clinics and tour information. The other group tends to look for someone to provide information about the whole trip, like a tour package. If you are in the second group, medical tourism concierge providers are for you.

Shin Medical

Shin Medical is one of the top medical tourism concierge providers in South Korea. Since they specialize in helping patients with their entire medical journey, including: connecting with plastic surgeons through online consultations, planning their trips to South Korea, on-the-ground transportation, payment solutions, pre and post procedure care, and longterm communication with their doctors.

You can simply get started with a consultation here: Shin Medical

Real Self

Real Self is an online healthcare marketplace for beauty treatments. They help potential patients connect with physicians, mostly in western countries, and they are a great place to read reviews about different doctors. In the past few years, Real Self has become popular with US residents. Real Self

Purse forum

This web forum is primarily about handbags, but a sub-thread has become a flourishing community for plastic surgery discussions. Patients, clinics, and everyone else have been reading and reviewing on Purse forum for over a decade. Besides, it is not uncommon to have learned about a clinic or a doctor from someone's experience on the forum. Purse Forum

Where is Everything Located?

In Seoul, almost all plastic surgery clinics are located in Gangnam, like the song title "Gangnam Style". As a result, it is easy to visit a clinic from any major hotel or AirBnb in the area. Besides, regarding to transportation, if you want to take Seoul's amazing public transportation, you will find most clinics at one of four subway stations: Apgujeong, Sinsa, Sinnonhyeon, and Gangnam, the cost of a subway trip, from start to finish is only about $1. You can also use a concierge service to handle all of your transportation to and from your consultations and procedures.

Map of Gangnam, Seoul, South Korea

Top 3 popular Korean plastic surgeries

In this paragraph, we will briefly talk about 3 most popular surgeries in South Korea. There are several common surgeries people come to South Korea for.

V line surgery

Given that a lot of people want to have a beautiful v line for their faces, there are 2 popular surgeries clinic usually suggest, which is V line surgery and contouring surgery. In general, people are worried about their square chin, or bulbous chin tip, you will find out general surgery information about beautiful face line in this paragraph.

Firstly, when peoplen say V line surgery it usually means 2 surgeries together. Which are square jaw surgery (or jaw reduction surgery, when you have wide jaw) and chin reduction surgery. But for slimmer face, there is also possibility that you might need face liposuction together. Even if all those surgeries are done, the result might be not ideal when you have chubby face. In that case liposuction on face with jaw reduction surgery together will definitely work.

Secondly, Face contouring sugery covers all of the surgeries about face bones. It means V line surgery plus zygoma reduction, which is cheekbone reduction. For skinny cheeks, cheek reduction is the most efficient way to get there, like the idea above, face liposuction might be needed for better result when there are fat on the cheek.

Rhinoplasty

Nose job in Korea is both famous inside and outside of Korea. Most importantly, South Korea has the best clinics and doctors for rhinoplasty, they are very experienced, professional, and hygienic than any other popular medical tourism country in the world. Usually, standard rhinoplasty covers the making of nose bridge, nose tip and nose tip support, but lots of people do alar reduction together, which helps the nose tip shape look more beautiful. However, there could be different method or surgery details processed every person depending on their issue. For example, long or downward pointing nose, short upturned nose, hump nose or wide nose can be common issues.

Lots of people ask us how much does nose job cost in Korea, but it really varies from what method and surgeries you get depending on your preference and image you want to achieve. However, we listed average plastic surgery prices in Korea at the end of this article.

Other than that, you can read this page as well for more informations about nose job.

Eye Surgery

Inside South Korea, lots of people want to get cute eyes and bigger eyes, so korean eye surgery usually includes love band surgery. However, people from outside of Korea usually more focus on how to get bigger eyes, or maybe how to fix specific problems like droopy eyes. If you want to know the surgery to make eyes bigger, common eye surgeries for bigger eyes are double eyelid surgery, epicanthoplasty, lateral canthoplasty.

Picking a Clinic

If you want to do the research, you will find out picking a clinic for your procedure takes time and consideration. As a result, lots of people go to RealSelf and Purse forum to refer plenty of reviews to help get a sense of which clinics are preferred by patients. Also, as new clinics are created yearly, it can be helpful to see which clinics are up and coming. Many clinics have Instagram accounts and they tend to post before and after photos of their surgeries, so this can be a good way to find out if you like their style.

South Korea is a global country and they support all major credit cards for almost all transactions

Prices and Payments

Since South Korea is a global country and they support all major credit cards for almost all transactions (except for top up your public transportation T-money card in a subway station or convinient stores). In other words, almost all clinics accept credit cards for their procedures. You may want to check with your credit card company in advance so they can remove any international or limit holds on your card.

So many people are wondering how much does plastic surgery cost in South Korea, especially for popular surgeries like nose job price, face liposuction, jaw surgery, eyelid surgery cost. Prices range from clinic to clinic, but here are some rough prices for different procedures:

Average prices for common surgeries in Seoul
Treatment Name	Avg. Price (in 1000 krw)
Double eyelid (Non-incisional)	1400
Double eyelid (Incisional)	2000
Droopy eyelid (Upper Blepharoplasty)	2500
Ptosis	2750
Lower Blepharoplasty	1500
Rhinoplasty	3750
Alar Reduction	1500
Deviated nose	7000
Nose reduction	6500
Hair transplant	8000
Facelift	12000
Jaw surgery	7000
Chin surgery	4500
Breast augmentation	11000
Breast reduction	12000
Nipple reduction	2000
Breast reconstruction	18000
Fat grafting (depending on location)	2000~15000
Vaginoplasty	5000
Botox	200~800
Laser	500~1500

Language and Translations

Because South Koreans speak Korean and most clinics only have Korean speaking staff, itt makes getting a consultation or procedure difficult, but there are ways to solve this. We recommend either asking a Korean friend to help, hiring a translator, or going with a medical tourism agency. I also found out translation services are provided in a variety of languages by the Gangnam Medical Tour Center.

Preparing for Your Trip

Before purchasing your plane ticket, it is a good idea to make sure you know how long the recovery time is for your procedures. We also recommend scheduling your consultations and procedures in-advance with the clinics you will visit. Clinics differ on availability and peek-times, so it's best to get everything set up before booking a flight. Besides, some clinics require a deposit to reserve your date and price.

Seoul has many restaurants, convenience stores, and shopping centers, so it won't be hard to find something you need, at almost any time of the day and at a good price. If you bring the common items you need, you should be fine to pick up any other things when you arrive in Seoul.

Lately, almost all of the quarantines are lifted up starting from June 8th. Regardless of nationality and vaccine history, South Korea removed mandatory quarantine policy for every overseas travellers. Although, this information is possible to change, you can see this official website to get the latest update.

No matter what you decide to do, you're sure to find the plastic surgery you are looking for in Seoul

Conclusion

Ablove all, Seoul is an attractive place to go for plastic surgery. With it's many doctors, affordable procedures, conveniently located clinics, universally accepted credit cards, and tons of amazing things to do.

In order to go forward, getting surgery in Korea, you can use the many online services to research clinics and doctors, or just contact a concierge service like Shin Medical to handle everything for you. No matter what you decide to do, you're sure to find the plastic surgery you are looking for in Seoul.

*NOTE: The information in this article is meant for informational purposes only and is not a substitute for professional medical advice. Please consult your doctor before making any medical decisions.