Make-up artist Nam Vo has simply returned to New York Metropolis after eight days in Seoul. For Vo, and the 4 buddies who joined her, the holiday concerned traditional lady’s journey fare: spa days, gossip periods, and sampling the native delicacies. However the principle exercise on the agenda: getting snatched.
Vo and her buddies all had distinctive aesthetic targets, and Seoul—particularly the Gangnam neighborhood the place lots of its magnificence clinics are situated—appeared like the best place to realize them. South Korea’s magnificence business is without doubt one of the best, experimental, and superior on the earth, with a seemingly limitless provide of transformation suppliers. Equally interesting for Western vacationers: cosmetic surgery, aesthetic procedures, and skin-care remedies are sometimes priced far decrease than they’re of their residence international locations. (Suppose $500 for one Sofwave tightening treatment as an alternative of $2,500.) And in lots of circumstances, a few of the expertise getting used isn’t but obtainable elsewhere on the earth, making it a playground for magnificence fans.
Vo—who is understood for her work with celebrities like Rosie Huntington-Whiteley and Chrissy Teigen and her group of glowy-skin loving #dewydumplings on social media—visited Seoul for the primary time final yr. Her pal Eunice Park, MD, a New York Metropolis-based board-certified plastic surgeon who was born in South Korea and nonetheless visits typically, had acted as her information. “That journey was so enjoyable and extra spa-like, with a lot of pampering,” says Vo. “This time I went in exhausting. I wished to see a visual change in my face.”
On the highest of Vo’s wishlist was a stem-cell fats grafting process. “I’d heard by means of the grapevine and on social media that that is what Korean celebrities are doing as an alternative of fillers,” says Vo. “An influencer pal, who will stay unnamed, obtained it proper earlier than I did, and her outcomes have been wonderful.”
Vo, nonetheless, didn’t wish to take TikTok’s phrase for it when her face was on the road: “Lots of magnificence vacationers wish to go price range pleasant. However the thought of going to a ‘manufacturing facility clinic’ made for a TikTok clientele, to a health care provider whose {qualifications} you don’t know, who will herd you out and in such as you’re on a conveyor belt, was not a path that made me really feel secure,” she says. “I am not saying which you can’t get good outcomes that means, however I’d personally minimize prices by staying at a less expensive lodge, or skipping Michelin-starred eating places. Anytime there is a needle or laser concerned, I wish to know that the people who find themselves engaged on me are extremely certified.”
Vo recommends utilizing a good concierge, like Jennifer Search engine optimization, the Korean-American founding father of Aneue Concierge. After doing the identical for herself throughout annual journeys to Korea, in 2019 Search engine optimization started curating bespoke itineraries for magnificence vacationers as a facet gig to her day job as an funding banker. (Final yr, Search engine optimization pivoted to creating Aneue her full-time enterprise.) Search engine optimization’s concierge service is priced at $500 per class of therapy: non-surgical skincare (together with tightening remedies like Ultherapy), medical exams (like allergy and listening to assessments), and sweetness providers (head spas, nails, massages).
Through the years, Search engine optimization (who relies in California) has constructed a community of trusted clinics and medical doctors in Seoul, all of whom are board-certified by the Korean Dermatological Affiliation. Many are famend within the Korean dermatology world, with massive and dependable followings to indicate for it. However “most significantly, these medical doctors have delivered efficient, wonderful outcomes and aftercare,” says Search engine optimization.
