Facial Contouring Surgery Cost in Korea: Which Bone Work Can You Skip? Reviews, Methods and Recovery

Before you plan your leave around it, read this through.

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Im Young Min

Chief Director · Board-certified in Plastic Surgery

• — Ph.D. in Medicine
• — Internship and residency, Seoul St. Mary's Hospital
• — Board-certified plastic surgeon, Seoul St. Mary's Hospital

By the end you'll know what moves the cost, which methods fit which kind of width, what reviews get right and wrong, and what recovery asks of your calendar. That makes it easier to tell whether your face needs bone work at all, or a smaller plan that suits your budget.

Hello, I'm Dr. Im Young Min, Chief Director and board-certified plastic surgeon at VG Plastic Surgery in Gangnam, Seoul. Facial contouring is one of the five centers I cover here, alongside eyes, nose, breast and body.

Before contouring, we map nerves and bone thickness on CT. Three board-certified anesthesiologists work here full time, one dedicated to each operation, so the surgeon does nothing but operate. And foreign patients pay the same surgical fee as Korean patients.

I'm writing this because the costly mistake in contouring is rarely the fee itself. It's paying to reduce bone when the width comes from muscle, fat or skin that has moved down.

The figure worth asking for is one built from your photos and, ideally, a CT. The number of areas, how much bone comes off and the time under anesthesia set it, and part of what you assumed you needed may turn out to be unnecessary.

For a starting point, send one front photo and one side photo taken in daylight on WhatsApp, and ask which of the three areas, cheekbone, jaw angle or chin, is really driving your width. Then your question rests on your own face.

Bone, muscle or dropped tissue: where your width comes from

A face looks wide for one of three reasons, and only one of them is changed by cutting bone. The cheekbone or the corner of the jaw may sit wide. The masseter, the chewing muscle over the jaw angle, may be thick. Or soft tissue that once sat high on the cheek has drifted toward the jawline, which tends to show from the mid-forties on.

You can test part of this yourself. Put your fingertips on the corner of your jaw and clench your teeth. If a firm mound pushes out under your fingers, a good share of that width is muscle, and shaving the bone underneath changes less than most people expect.

Our homepage puts it in one line: bone does not grow back, so we leave everything that does not need to go. For you, that line has a practical side. When imaging shows the bone isn't the main cause in one area, that area has no reason to be in the plan, or in the estimate.

What decides facial contouring surgery cost in Korea for your face?

No menu price fits a face, because a contouring operation is assembled from parts. These are the parts that move it.

Asymmetry deserves its own paragraph, because “facial asymmetry surgery cost” is what many people actually type. Matching one side to the other can mean different amounts of reduction on each side, and sometimes the chin needs moving as well as narrowing. That adds planning and time, so it adds cost, and it's often what makes the face read as balanced from the front.

The figure for your own case is these lines filled in for your face. List the areas that bother you and ask on WhatsApp what it would cost for your case.

Which methods fit which kind of width?

Facial contouring usually means one or more of three operations. Cheekbone reduction narrows the front of the cheekbone and the arch beside it, typically through an incision inside the mouth and a small one near the sideburn. Jaw angle reduction takes in the corner of the lower jaw, usually from inside the mouth so there's no scar on the skin. Chin surgery narrows, shortens or moves the chin bone, and it's often what makes a jaw reduction look finished from the front.

Which of these suits you follows from your CT and your profile. The guide to choosing between cheekbone, jaw or chin surgery goes area by area. What matters for your budget is that each area added means more time in the operating room, and time is a large share of cost.

If you'd like to see how the contouring center sits alongside the other surgical centers, the VG Plastic Surgery English homepage lays them out.

When would I tell you to spend less, or nothing?

I recommend only the operations a face actually needs and leave out the ones it doesn't, the way I would for my own family. In contouring that affects your bill directly, because every area you skip is time and anesthesia you don't pay for. That's the part of facial contouring surgery cost in Korea people rarely factor in: the areas you don't need.

Say you're 48 and live in Chicago. Your jaw has always been square, but what bothers you in photos now is a heavier lower face and a softer jawline. If the CT shows jaw angles that are only moderately wide, and the fullness sits in tissue that has slipped down from the cheek, reducing bone would narrow the base of the face while leaving less support under skin that's already looser. In that situation I'd want to talk about which layer has descended, and a facelift may answer your question better than bone work.

Two more situations where I'd hold back. One is width that is mostly masseter muscle. The other is a face that looks tired because of the upper lids: a lid that covers part of the eye changes how the whole face reads, and that's a ptosis correction question rather than a bone one.

Men often want the opposite of narrowing, a jaw that stays strong while something else changes. That's the thinking behind plastic surgery for Korean men that keeps a stronger face.

If you have a CT or jaw X-ray from home, attach it on WhatsApp with the month you're thinking of traveling, and ask whether a lift belongs in the conversation alongside contouring.

What do reviews of facial contouring in Korea get right?

Review threads tend to repeat three claims, and they hold up to different degrees.

“Swelling takes months.” Mostly true. Facial bone surgery causes deep swelling; much of it settles over the first weeks, while the last part of the final shape can take months to show. Photos posted at two weeks show a midpoint.

“Contouring makes your cheeks sag.” Partly true. Korean surgical literature on reduction malarplasty treats cheek soft-tissue drooping as an unfavorable result to plan against, and it's more of a concern when the skin is already loose. It's one reason age changes the plan.

“Numb lips mean the nerve is damaged for good.” Usually not. Numbness of the lower lip or chin after jaw or chin work is common early on and in many people improves over time. The nerve that runs through the lower jaw can be injured, though, which is why surgeons plan around it on imaging, and Korean aesthetic surgery journals have published technique papers on exactly that.

What reviews can't show is whether the reviewer's width was bone to begin with. A list of clinics can't show that either, which is the point of five things a clinic list can't show about your bone.

Recovery: what the first weeks ask of your schedule

Recovery after bone contouring is slower than after eyelid or nose surgery, and it shapes your trip budget as much as the fee does. In general, expect marked swelling and bruising in the first days, a soft diet for a while after any work done inside the mouth, a compression band for part of the day if your surgeon uses one, and numbness that fades gradually.

Ask how many days in Seoul to plan for your combination of areas before you book the return flight. I won't put a number on a face I haven't examined.

The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention advises medical travelers to arrange follow-up care at home before they leave, and notes that flying soon after surgery raises the risk of blood clots. Bring your operation summary and imaging home with you, and know which doctor at home you'd see if something felt wrong.

Risks and side effects to know

Common temporary effects after contouring are swelling, bruising, stiffness when opening the mouth wide, and numbness of the cheek, lip or chin. For most people these ease over weeks to months, and how fast differs from person to person.

Less common but serious problems include bleeding that collects under the tissue, infection, nerve injury, and bone that heals unevenly. A published five-year review of 588 mandibuloplasty cases catalogued complications of these kinds, and a case report describes bleeding after jaw surgery that needed treatment in hospital.

You'd generally be advised to wait or skip contouring if your face is still growing, if you're pregnant or breastfeeding, if you have a bleeding disorder or take blood thinners that can't be paused safely, if you have an active dental or gum infection, or if you smoke and can't stop around surgery. Whether you're a candidate at all is decided at the in-person exam, with the CT in front of us.

If you're home and notice swelling that suddenly increases on one side, fever, pus from an incision inside the mouth, or any difficulty breathing or swallowing, go to an emergency department first, then send us your operation summary and what you're seeing.

A first message can be small. One front photo in daylight is enough on WhatsApp, and you can ask before booking anything. Ask the question that matters most for your budget: which of these areas would you leave out for my face? When you come to Seoul, I'll examine you with the CT and recommend only the operation that fits.

Related pages:

• Facial Contouring surgery at VG Plastic Surgery