Lifestyle
Joori Roh
SEOUL (Reuters) – When Ryu Han-na, a 20-year-old college student, got cosmetic surgery on her nose in mid-December, she had a simple reason: it might be the last chance to do it secretly before people start this. years masks decrease while vaccines are distributed.
Ryu, who has attended her online courses throughout 2020, said the ability to recover at home and wear a mask in public without attracting attention is crucial.
“I’ve always wanted to get a nose job … I thought it would be best to get it now before people start taking off masks if vaccines are available in 2021,” she said as she prepared for the 4.4 million won ($ 4,013) procedure.
“There will be bruises and swelling as a result of the surgery, but since we all wear masks, I think it should help,” she added.
This attitude stimulates the demand for such surgeries in South Korea, which already had an increase in cosmetic surgery in 2020.
The country was a world capital of cosmetic surgery even during non-pandemic times. According to Gangnam Unni, the country’s largest online cosmetic surgery platform, the industry will be worth about $ 10.7 billion by 2020, up 9.2% year-on-year.
Cosmetic surgeons say that patients are interested in all parts of the face: those that can be easily hidden under masks, such as the nose and lips, as well as those that hide face masks, which according to some are the criteria of beauty in the coronavirus era.
“Both surgical and non-surgical inquiries about eyes, eyebrows, bridge of the nose and forehead – the only visible parts – have definitely increased,” said Park Cheol-woo, a surgeon at WooAhIn Plastic Surgery Clinic, who was in charge of Ryu’s surgery.
Surgeon Shin Sang-ho, who runs the Christmas Plastic Surgery Clinic in the center of the Gangnam district, said many people spent their emergency stimulus payment from the government at hospitals and clinics, which increased revenue in the third and fourth quarters of 2020. .
“I felt it was a kind of revenge. “I felt that customers were expressing their pent-up emotions (from the coronavirus) by getting cosmetic procedures,” Shin said.
Government data showed that 10.6% of 14.2 trillion won ($ 12.95 billion) cash payments were used in hospitals and pharmacies, the third largest segment according to supermarkets and restaurants, although the details of hospital types were not disclosed.
According to data from Gangnam Unni, users increased by 63% from a year earlier to about 2.6 million last year. They requested 1 million counseling sessions, double the amount of a year earlier.
The pandemic has made it more difficult to promote services to foreign clients, and it has attached a more local and regional focus in recent years.
But a third-wave coronavirus at home remains worrying as the country reports daily records of the records.
“We have recently seen an increasing number of cancellations in consultation appointments as people are more reluctant to go outside … especially suburban clients have mostly postponed their operations until 2021,” Park said.
For a picture of South Korea’s annual calculated size of the cosmetic procedure:
