Facial Contouring: Which Celebrity Photos Do People Bring Most Often?

Hello, I’m Dr. Jo Hyun-woo of Lip Plastic Surgery Clinic.

Most patients who visit a plastic surgery clinic bring celebrity photos that represent the image they want to change into.

However, as time passes, the face shape people want also changes, and the faces of the celebrities they prefer change as well.

In the early 2010s, the face shapes people wanted were those of actresses such as Kim Tae-hee, Han Ga-in, Song Hye-kyo, and Han Ye-seul.

Naturally, the faces of the most popular actresses of that era were the ideal everyone wanted.

Kim Tae-hee, Han Ga-in

I once analyzed the faces of these two women.

They had ideally perfect facial proportions.

Their left-right symmetry was nearly identical, and the vertical and horizontal proportions, as well as the proportions of the eyes, nose, and mouth, matched the ideal face shape.

Of course, they were the face shape everyone wanted to become.

But as time has passed and we are now in 2023, what kind of face shape do patients want?

Over the past one or two years, many people have brought celebrity photos of Go Youn-jung, Karina, and Jennie because they want to change into those face shapes.

Go Youn-jung, Karina, Jennie

Looking at their photos, I thought that the standards for beautiful face shapes have changed a lot over the past 15 years.

In fact, these faces were quite different from the kind of beautiful face shapes we used to learn about in old textbooks.

These days, a youthful-looking face and a cute face seem to be the trend.

Moving away from the old Western beauty standard, people seem to want a smaller chin that does not protrude and a smooth oval-shaped face that keeps the angles of the jawline without looking bumpy. Perhaps for this reason, many people now want to shorten the lower face and reduce the overall face length. As I mentioned in a recent article on facial proportions, some people want to make it even shorter than about 1:1:0.8.

This patient felt that the lower face looked long, so they wanted to shorten the chin as much as possible and reduce the face length. Through square jaw surgery and chin surgery, we reduced the chin length to an ideal proportion of about 1:1:0.8.

Of course, I think facial contouring surgery should not be performed within such fixed rules, but rather should be done in a way that follows the patient’s wishes to some extent.

In reality, even if the chin is long, if a patient does not want it shortened and surgery is performed to make it shorter, satisfaction will inevitably decrease.

Therefore, during consultation, it is important to clearly explain your needs to the surgeon.

Another thing patients often wonder about is whether their face will really change significantly.

Facial contouring surgery has clear limitations.

This is because the amount of reduction that can be made for proper cheekbone healing is limited, and the height of the mandibular nerve line you naturally have is also fixed.

Naturally, if the bone is thick and the nerve line is high, more can be reduced and cut, so the change will be greater. But as I always say, in every surgery there are gains and losses. The saying that cutting too much causes sagging seems unavoidable no matter how well the surgery is done.

Therefore, it is important not to be overly greedy, and it would be good to keep future lifting procedures in mind as well.

This patient had prominent cheekbones and asymmetry, so through 230-degree three-dimensional cheekbone reduction surgery, we matched both sides as much as possible and pushed them in as much as possible before fixing them with absorbable plates.

This is also a matter of face size.

There are real limits to how much the size of the face can change.

The photos patients bring should be understood as references for the overall facial line and impression.

For example, photos used as references may show things like wanting to remove a bumpy cheekbone line or wanting the jaw to become softly slim without being too sharp.

Therefore, during consultation, it is best if you can clearly express how you want to change. If not, the best option is to edit your own face with Photoshop and bring that.

It seems that many Japanese patients do that these days, perhaps because it is trendy.

If so, we can explain whether surgery is possible or not, and it may help you better feel the changes in your own face and be more satisfied.

Today, I talked about celebrity face shapes and how similarly they can be changed.

It is a long post, but if you read it slowly, I think it will be very helpful when receiving consultation and surgery.

Thank you.