What Surgeries Are Good to Combine with Facial Contouring Surgery?

Hello, I’m Director Jo Hyun-woo of 입체성형외과.

Today, I’d like to talk about surgeries that are good to combine with facial contouring surgery.

Most patients have one final question during their consultation:

"Director, is contouring surgery enough for me? Or do you have any other surgery recommendations?"

I get this kind of question a lot.

Then let’s look at which surgeries can help the results of facial contouring surgery stand out more clearly.

The surgery I recommend most often is facial liposuction.

This is facial liposuction, also known by names such as AccuSculpt laser or Venus laser.

If someone has a lot of facial fat, even after shaving down and repositioning the facial bones, there may be less visible change from the outside.

In that case, if you suction fat from the 45-degree cheekbone area when smiling, or suction fat from the double chin, cheeks, and jawline, you can maximize the effect of facial contouring surgery.

If you look at the case above, this patient underwent chin surgery, buccal fat removal, and liposuction of the double chin, cheeks, and jawline using the Venus laser.

In this patient’s case, because there was a lot of facial fat, even without cheekbone reduction and square jaw bone surgery, the chin correction and facial liposuction alone created a slimmer, more refined face line.

Facial contouring surgery is often sought by people with what we commonly call an "Asian face."

An "Asian face" refers to a face that is wide side to side and looks flat in the middle area.

In such cases, combining the procedure with facial fat grafting can maximize the effect of contouring surgery.

The patient above underwent 3D cheekbone reduction and square jaw reduction to narrow the width from the front and side, and fat grafting was used to add volume to the forehead and the front cheek area, making the face look more three-dimensional and softening even the uneven facial line.

For people with a flat-looking face, a nose surgery is also a good option to combine.

Of course, fat grafting also adds volume to the front of the face and makes it more three-dimensional, but nose surgery can have a more dramatic effect of bringing the face together.

In this patient’s case, fat grafting and nose surgery were performed together, and you can see that the flat feel of the face was improved, making the face look much younger and giving it a higher, more defined impression.

Eye surgery or eye corner surgery is also commonly recommended together with cheekbone surgery.

People with prominent cheekbones often have eyes that appear more upturned at the outer corners.

Of course, when cheekbone surgery is performed, the bone itself becomes smaller, which can make the outer corners of the eyes look lower as well.

However, this does not mean the actual position changes.

As you can see in the case above, the patient’s outer eye corners were raised before surgery.

3D cheekbone reduction, square jaw surgery, and eye corner surgery (outer corner surgery + lower corner surgery) were performed together, and you can see that the eye shape became much softer and the harsh impression disappeared.

Lifting procedures are also among the surgeries many people want to combine with contouring surgery.

Unless there is a special case, I recommend having the procedure after the swelling has fully gone down following contouring surgery.

When contouring surgery is performed, swelling can reduce the tension of the fixed threads, which may lower the effectiveness of thread lifting, so I recommend waiting at least one month after surgery before having thread lifting.

So far, I’ve talked about surgeries that can improve results when combined with facial contouring surgery.

Until about 10 years ago, many people thought bone surgery alone would be enough to produce good results, so they underwent bone surgery by itself.

These days, since we are in an era of collaboration, combining bone surgery with various other procedures can produce more dramatic results.

It may be worth considering these combinations as well, as they can lead to a bigger change.

Thank you.