← Miss Understood with Rachel Uchitel
Miss Understood with Rachel Uchitel
Is Korea 10 Years Ahead of American Beauty? Inside the Billion-Dollar K-Beauty Boom
00:45:34
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- [00:01]
A
You know that thing where you get an amazing pair of shoes at a really great price and want to tell everyone about it? Yeah. So do we here at Designer Shoe Warehouse. We'll give you something to brag about, like the latest styles from brands you love or the trends everyone's obsessing over or shoes that make you feel like, well, you. So go ahead, show off a little. Buying shoes that get you at prices that get your budget. Head to your DSW store or dsw.com today. DSW. Let us surprise you.
- [01:02]
B
Aaron, thank you so much for joining me today on Misunderstood. How are you?
- [01:06]
C
I'm very good, thank you. Rachel, thank you for having me here.
- [01:08]
B
Of course. Thanks for joining me. So where are you right now?
- [01:12]
C
So I am based in Hong Kong. I've been living in Hong Kong for 20 years, but my business is in Korea. So I do back and forth working between Korea and Hong Kong a lot.
- [01:20]
B
Amazing. So people that are listening, I just want you to know it is 8:30pm for me in Palm Beach, Florida. And for you, it's what, the following day at about 8:30 in the morning?
- [01:29]
C
It's 8:30am wow.
- [01:32]
B
Okay. So when anyone tries to reach Aaron, you're shocking. You know, 20. What is that, 24, 12 hours? 12 hours in advance? Yeah. Oh, my gosh. Okay, well, thanks for making the time. I really appreciate it.
- [01:43]
C
No problem at all. My pleasure.
- [01:45]
B
So you have a really interesting story. I found you online. I saw this viral post that went out from the Kardashians or the people that went with the Kardashians to Korea and found out that your company was the concierge that kind of set up this trip. And so I wanted to talk to you because everybody has been talking about going to Korea to get their lasers, their facelifts, all things beauty related. And I had to get to the source. And that was you. So I'm so happy you're here.
- [02:13]
C
But.
- [02:13]
B
But you didn't start in this business. You have a completely different background. Can you just give us a little bit of your background before we start?
- [02:20]
C
Sure. My original background was actually in finance. So I left Korea in my early 20s, right after gradu from university and I started an investment banking. So investment banking and a hedge fund for 18 years. Really was my career. But then a few years ago, I had an opportunity to set up my own business. And then it is like the beauty area is somewhere where I was always interested in hugely. And I saw an opportunity of K Beauty becoming really big internationally. So I set up this business and it's been really fun and it's been going really well.
- [02:54]
B
So what has been happening in Korea that made you realize there was something there as opposed to anywhere else?
- [03:01]
C
Sure. So beauty industry in Korea always has been very big. Even back in 90s, even when I was in my high school and uni days, skin clinics were already a thing. People were going there getting stack treatments and stuff like that. And it's been growing even bigger since then. And then the technology's there and skills are there. The only thing is that it's been only better now to the outside of the world. I feel like thanks to the social media. And if you actually look at it, when you look at the medical tourism, you know, going into Korea for beauty and aesthetic stuff, mainland China or Japan or other South Asian countries within like APAC region, it's always been very popular. I would say like for the past decade or two, it was already very popular. But now what's getting, you know, more popular or what's growing more is more in an English speaking country. So like we have a lot of clients coming from the US or like UK or other European, European countries and even Middle east as well.
- [04:04]
B
Right. So it is from social media. So that's really interesting. Cause I feel like in the last year, even in the last couple months, it's really blown up on social media. But you're saying it's been around for a long time. This is not a new fad or trend.
- [04:16]
C
Yes, yes, got it.
- [04:19]
B
So what do you think sets Korea apart though? Like what are you guys doing differently than people in the US or even Turkey? Because I feel like for years a lot of people have gone to Mexico for like say bbls, I guess, and then they've gone to Turkey or Russia for, you know, other kind of face work. So what do you think it is about Korea that sets itself apart?
- [04:39]
C
I think there are a few things that I can mention here. First of all, technology, medical technology, especially when it comes to esthetics, they spend a lot of resources and capital into it. And the fact that it's always been a very big industry in Korea, which is a very, very competitive market, it really like, it really forces those people, whether it's doctors or researchers, to be at the very competitive level with the high technology. So I think that's the first thing. Even when it comes to the doctors, there are more than actually 4,000 clinics in Korea. And it's like Seoul itself is a huge city. Half of the country's population lives in Korea. So even domestically they face a huge level of competition that they need to get through. So on a day to day basis, doctors do really need to get their best foot forward, like to treat clients. And also because it's such a big industry, the number of the patients that doctors go through on a day to day basis, it's not comparable with many other countries. I think that also makes quite a difference. I think lastly, what's probably also very important is this very strict regulation. So in Korea, unlike US or uk, what's very interesting is there's no concept of like injectors, like compared to uk, for example, like or like even in the us, nurses inject on your face, right? Like Botox and fillers. Like some nurses, you know, like nurses are like injecting on you where you like.
- [06:14]
B
For example, in America during COVID everybody, including your neighbor all of a sudden became a concierge doctor. That was like injecting your face without any training.
- [06:24]
C
In UK it's very similar to like anyone really. Like there's very low bar barrier to it. Whereas in Kore it's very strict. So nurses don't inject on you. What they would do is really assisting the doctor for the treatment. So they will help with the drawing blood or like, you know, like cleaning the face and stuff like that. But the treatment itself would be very strictly only done by the doctors. So I think that also differentiates Korea with other markets. Right.
- [06:53]
B
I think America is interesting in the way that you see all sorts of fads, right? Like right now it's the deep plain facelift, so everybody is jumping on that or the zerf for a laser, you know. So but tell me your thoughts. Like when you look at America and social media in America and what people are doing here, is it totally different than what's popular in Korea and what people are doing there?
- [07:17]
C
No, it's not that popular. I feel like because of the social media. Thanks to social media, I think a lot of things are getting quite unified across the board. And also the clientele that we usually deal with are within their age group of mid or late 30s and a lot of them demographically are female. Whether you're Korean or whether you're coming from the US or uk, we share a lot of aging concerns. Whether it's hooded eyes, under eye bags, jowls, nasolabial folds, no matter which country you go to, no matter which race you face, they don't like those features. So it's in a sense quite common what the end goal is to achieve those anti aging treatments and procedures. Of course, there are some level of differences in terms of, okay, this specific treatment is more popular in Korea and that might not be the case in the US and vice versa, but overall, I don't think there's a huge level of difference between the two countries.
- [08:22]
B
Okay, so you run a concierge business, you're not a doctor, so you're not giving people advice on, you're not taking a concierge consultation and saying, okay, I think you need your cheeks and your chin and your this. You're saying, whatever you want to do, I will set you up with the best doctor. Right. So can you walk us through the moment of somebody contacting you to the moment of you, you know, getting them their treatment?
- [08:45]
C
Of course. So basically stepping back, what we do as a core value of the business is we do very thorough vetting to choose the partner clinics in Korea that are top quality and that meets the high standards that our clients are usually looking for. As I mentioned to you earlier, there's more than 4,000 clinics in Korea. Even as a Korean person, it's very, very tough to find the top quality doctors that are also trustworthy. So we do spend a lot of time researching who are the top doctors in Korea. And as you asked, when clients reach out to us saying, okay, I'm planning to go to Korea, let's say in July this year, and my concerns are this, this, this, how can you help me to find a doctor? What we do is after hearing that high level interest that clients have, we try to narrow down the suitable clinics for that very specific client concerns. So we usually share a few options that the clients can consider. We share a lot of information on each clinic, including the pricing point and everything. And once the client makes a decision on, okay, this is a doctor, this is a clinic that I would like to try, then we connect them with the doctor. Everything actually starts from the clinic that you decided to go to. As in, you don't need to confirm the detailed treatments at the time of booking because probably it's one of the difference compared to the US Clinic visit.
- [10:14]
B
Very much so, yeah, you don't really
- [10:16]
C
need to confirm or know the specific treatment that you're going to get when you book a clinic. And when you book an appointment with a doctor, it's very doctor driven. So you visit the clinic, you don't really need to know what you're going to eventually get, what kind of treatment you're going to eventually get from the doctor, but you sit down with the doctor, have a very thorough consultation, and after doctor Assessing your skin condition and your interest and concerns. They're going to come up with quite a holistic and comprehensive treatments plan for you.
- [10:53]
B
Can I just pause there for one second? Because I think that's really important. I want people that are listening to really hear this. So in America, when we go to a, we're usually searching doctors, we're saying, oh, I need, you know, to, to snatch my face. So I want to do a mini lift or I want laser, laser or I want, you know, fillers. Here you're going to a doctor with a specific goal in mind. So the difference in Korea is you're setting aside time in a doctor that you're matching up with the client. And that amount of time they are looking at your face. And the interesting thing about Korea is they're really into symmetry, right? So it's like they're looking at your face and you're saying what you're, what your flaws are to you. And they're saying, well, here's what I think you can do. So that actually I think is an amazing way to do it. Because I would rather go to a doctor and say what do I need to fix? As opposed to do this, do this, do this. Because then it becomes different doctors touching different parts. And that can really confuse the way you look and the symmetry.
- [11:49]
C
Correct?
- [11:50]
B
Yeah.
- [11:51]
C
So like, so for that reason we actually have quite a lot of like recurring clients actually going back to the same doctor. Because some doctors would not only give you that plan for the day, but happy to discuss with you, like long term plan. So like, they will also take into account with the fact that, okay, in the US Certain treatments are not allowed or not available, but how long can you come back to Korea? And based on that, let's plan what you can keep up with in the US and by the time you're back to Korea with me, let's try to do this and that and that and that. Yeah, if that makes sense.
- [12:25]
B
It does. But I'm curious because in America, doctor's times have such little amount of time available. So it's almost like you have to rush through the consultation, then you have to book your appointment and that's that. So how does that work? Like if I show up, how does the doctor have that much time to sit with me, do all these plans and then do if I want to do seven treatments or two treatments, how do they plan for that appropriately?
- [12:47]
C
So to be very honest, a lot of Korean clinics would operate in a very similar way. You know, as you described in the US as well. Like as I mentioned to you, it's extremely competitive business. Like if you go to Gangnam area, you might have heard of the Song Gangnam style like maybe like seven, eight years back. Gangnam is one of the most prestigious district of the country. And in Gangnam there's like certain areas where there's like huge density of the clinics, beauty clinics that are all, all located together. One block of Gangnam area would have sometimes up to 300 skin clinics. Just one block.
- [13:32]
B
Wow.
- [13:32]
C
So it's level of competition you're talking about. So of course some doctors, they're quite rushed and they won't spend enough time with you to have all these consultations. And that's where we come in to help our clients to choose the clinics. Who would spend these times with the doctors and who will give you that much of the personalized program and etc. Of course it's also a function of some level of, you know, like different pricing point as well. I have to be honest. But that's, I think only fair. You do pay a little more to have that of more of doctor's time. A bit more like premium service and a bit more like personalized pool.
- [14:13]
D
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- [14:47]
B
Okay, now when we're talking about the doctors, how do you decide? Because I. You get paid. This is another thing that's interesting. I think a lot of people are hesitant and intimidated because they're like, oh, I don't want to use maybe a concierge because it's going to cost more. But it doesn't cost anybody anymore to use your business, right? Can you explain that business model?
- [15:04]
C
We're very transparent about our business model. So basically our business model in a sense very similar to travel agent. Going back to our conversation from the beginning, I said our core value of the business is a very thorough vetting that we do to choose our partner clinic. So when we identify this, let's say like a Clinic that we would love to work with, we would love to connect our clients to, we suggest a contractual partnership with them where they share part of their revenues and that's our revenue model. So we don't need to charge service fees or booking fees to survive as a business. But most importantly for clients perspective, whether they go through us or whether do they go to these clinics directly, the price will be always standardized and they don't pay the top up just because they're going through our service.
- [15:51]
B
Okay, so when people are coming to you, are they mostly coming to you for lasers? Are they coming for plastic surgery? Like what are people going to Korea for right now?
- [16:00]
C
I would say both. But in terms of the ratio, I would say still the skin treatments, non surgical treatments are probably around 60, 70% and the rest in a surgery, I do foresee that kind of changing a little bit as into surgery to go higher because as you mentioned like facelift is becoming so popular globally and there are a lot of facelift specialized surgeons in Korea that are very skilled. And in terms of the pricing point, even though you go to the top surgeon, facelift surgeon in Korea, it will still be like a third of the, you know, like one of the very popular surgeon in Palm BEACH or like LA, or like maybe like a quarter or like 20% of the someone in New York or something like that. So in terms of the pricing point, it could be very attractive even though you go to the very, very top surgeon in Korea. So I can foresee that that trend actually probably changing over time.
- [16:57]
B
So the people that are coming to you, you said it's mostly upper 30s and up. So do you believe that people that are considering a facelift here could go to Korea and just do lasers and get more out of that? Or if they're still considering a facelift here, should they get a facelift there?
- [17:15]
C
Sorry, your question is, My question is,
- [17:17]
B
do you guys, do you think that your treatments of lasers are so much different and better that someone who might be considering a facelift, like a deep plane facelift here, could they actually push that off and go there and get some laser treatments, seven at a time or stacking them, whereas they can't do that here and maybe that would make enough of a difference that they don't have to get a facelift yet?
- [17:40]
C
It's at the end of the day it's esthetic, so it's very, very personal. I think like the decision whether you're going to go for the surgery or you're going to keep doing with a non Surgical procedure, really you have to go through that threshold of your own inner, you know, like it's more of an inner decision, like you have to have that threshold of, okay, I'm not getting the results of what I want from these non surgical treatments. I'm going to go ahead with the surgery. So I don't think that actually changes just because you go to Korea. I think Korea definitely offers more advanced and more diversity of the treatments, non surgical treatments. So I think like a lot of people, maybe they can postpone a little bit of their maybe like the agenda of the facelift surgery by keeping up with the good anti aging non surgical programs that would include not only those lifting devices that you're mentioning, like ultherapy or thermogeny type of treatments, stem cell treatments which is also becoming very popular, not available in a US but allowed in Korea, and skin boosters or, you know, like a few other treatments. So I think you can definitely try to delay your sort of timeline, but at one point you're going to come to the realization that, okay, you know what, I'm done with the non surgical treatments. I want a very visible result which only the surgery can solve, really.
- [19:10]
B
Right. Okay, so let's talk about the stacking that guys do that they don't do here. If you come to America, usually you go, you get some lasers, you get a little topical anesthesia. It's painful, but you're in and out in 30 to 45 minutes. And you look crazy for sometimes a day, sometimes a week. But people suffer through it and they do it there. You guys can do more than one, sometimes up to seven treatments. Can you talk about that and the difference there?
- [19:35]
C
Yes, it's very, very common. So it's usually when you go into clinic, as I mentioned to you, you're gonna have the consult. Doctors would suggest quite a comprehensive list of the treatments. So speaking of my own experience, my annual treatment routine would be all therapy, thermoge, stem cell treatment. I would do some skin boosters like Rejuvenda salmon DNA skin booster or skin tox, which is a very diluted version of the Botox that goes across your face because it doesn't affect your muscle level and et cetera, et cetera. So it comes down to around seven to six treatments at a time. It is very common. Doctors know the right orders and they know how to advise the proper recovery process. So yeah, okay.
- [20:27]
B
And then in terms of surgical things, options, what are people choosing to do like again in America, the D plane facelift or the ponytail? I guess it's called facelift are the ones that people are doing. There's also. It's really popular to get, I guess it's a mid facelift or a mini facelift here where you do it and it's not. You're under. You're not even under anesthesia. So those are the things everyone's talking about here. What are the plastic surgery things that they're talking about there?
- [20:57]
C
It's very similar in Korea as well. So because we're also because of our demographic of the, you know, the clients, given that we're very much focused on the anti aging treatments and surgeries, it's usually we're very much focused on working with the surgeons who are specialized in restorative anti aging surgeries. Because I think we look at surgeries in two different categories. Whether it's restorative or whether it's augmentation oriented. What we do and what a lot of our clients are looking for is more of a restorative face surgeries to really put yourself back to 10 to 15 years younger self rather than changing the features of your face. So that includes forehead lift where we have the hooded eyes concerns. Hooded eyes is one of the most common concerns that we all have as we age 40 plus. So that will be addressed by either the forehead lift where you. Or it's called brow lift as well where you lift up your brow line by making incisions inside the hairline here or sub brow excision to get rid of some of the sagging skin here or upper blepharoplasty. Under eye bag surgery is also very popular through either fat repositioning or lower blepharoplasty. And also the facelift surgeries. Because facelift surgeries really only addresses like mid and lower face. Whereas no one just ages just eyes and below part of your face. Everyone basically the aging happens across your face. So those ones who usually get the facelift surgery always combine the surgeries for the hooded eyes or under eye bag surgeries as well. Right.
- [22:40]
B
A lot of women obviously are very concerned about their neck. And in America there's not a lot of stuff that addresses the neck. What are you guys doing there that maybe they don't do here?
- [22:48]
C
Sure, you're right. It's getting actually more and more popular in Korea too. And so in non surgical way. There's a few things of course like the doctor will need to see your skin condition and how much is it sagging or like wrinkles and everything. But normally what could be suggested by your doctor doctor is combination of lifting machines. So like ultherapy or thermage on neck area also you know, to the maybe the chest area as well. So neck and chest together. All therapy and thermodge stem cell treatment using your own blood, some skin boosters and maybe like some of the biosimulators to help with the kind of like wrinkles, horizontal wrinkles. Biosimulators are the ones that encourage your own collagen production. Like rather than going in and filling the space, they encourage your own collagen production over time. So it's getting more popular as well. So that's quite commonly recommended as part of the neck treatments for surgical way. There's really two things you can extend your facelift surgery to the face and neck lift surgery to really like lift your neck from the side profile here. However there's a lot. It's also very common to have your muscle sagging on this area that also a lot of times comes with the double chin. Like building more fat around this chin area. It will be addressed with a different procedure which is called platysmaplasty where they make a small incision just under your chin and do the liposuction and tightening up the muscle to have that like quite sharper chin line back to you.
- [24:30]
B
So can people really go for a few days and let's forget about the surgery because obviously that will have real results. But can they go once for a few days and really come home and get off the plane and look like a younger person?
- [24:43]
C
I wouldn't say get off the plane and you're going to look perfect because a lot of these treatments do take time to see the results. So yes, it'll be great. Like if you just like visit Korea and then boom, I'm back home and I look amazing. Like it really doesn't work that way in reality because a lot of like these treatments that I mentioned to you, especially these lifting treatments that help with, you know, tightening of your skin in non surgical way. All therapy, thermal type of treatments, treatments take around like four to eight weeks. Just start to see the results. So and also like right after the treatments. For example, some of the injectables that you do, whether it's stem cell treatment or skin boosters, you will very likely look pretty horrible like first few days depending on the individual. But someone who gets bruised and swell quite easily, like myself after stem cell treatment, I really would look like a fugu fish. Like I really swell, I bruise. So you don't really look too glamorous to be honest. Like Right. Treatments. And a lot of these treatments, you do need some patience to go through the downtime. However, once you get through the downtime, once you start seeing the results, a lot of people do see the difference and feel the difference, and that's why they keep on coming back and that's why it's becoming so popular.
- [25:59]
B
What can you tell us what some of the big names or the celebrities. I know you have to be private about it, but what people are doing there that they can't do here? Like, what is something you would say, oh, guys, everybody's doing this treatment, if you can afford it and you should do it.
- [26:16]
C
Okay, so I'm going to mention stem cell treatment first. So stem cell treatment, it's not allowed in the US not allowed in uk Many, actually many other countries. There's quite a short list of countries that allow stem cell treatment, including Korea and Japan, a few others. So it's becoming very popular. And probably another reason is it uses something on your own, not the foreign substances. So either the stem cell could be derived from your own blood, your own fat, or it could drive from. It could be driven from your bone marrow as well. So there's three different types of stem cell available in Korea. Blood drawn one especially is it's quite easy because like all they need to do is just they draw your own blood from your arm. They use the machine to spin it around to extract the gross stem cel your blood. Very similar process as PRP that is available in the US but you can think of it as a more advanced version with more growth factors and stem cells inside. So that is becoming very popular. You basically inject it across your face for face rejuvenation. Great for pore tightening, brightening up. A lot of women, 40 plus also go through hair thinning concerns, especially when we're getting close to menopause perimenopause. And so stem cell gets treatment. Also, you can inject on your scalp for the hair thinning concerns. And some people actually use it just as a generated regenerative wellness treatment. Injected back on your IV through iv.
- [27:58]
B
Yeah. So I know that when Kim Kardashian went there, she talked about. She did a post about zirf, which all of a sudden became really popular in America. I don't think anybody had heard of it. But now every time I open up my social media, I see somebody in America talking about how they offer that laser. So can you just quell the. Can you talk about the misconceptions here? It sounds like it's available in the United States now as a laser. But is that the same one as they have there? And do you like that as the number one? I think it's skin tightening. Right.
- [28:29]
C
My understanding is that it is the same device. So sometimes it takes time. It takes time, you know, for the FDA to prove the safety and you, you guys go through your own controls and regulations to offer certain treatments. So there's definitely benefit of, I guess, visiting Korea if it's something very new that you want to try on that may not be available. Some treatments may never become available in the US Just because of the different standards that you guys have compared to Korea. So you always, I guess, will be mindful of certain treatments. And over time, even though it takes time, you might not be able to get it in the US in terms of surf itself. Yes, it's been getting very popular. It's a relatively new machine and the reason why it's becoming quite popular is it's a radio frequency machine. So radio frequency machine, lifting machine. In the past, the main thing really that was very popular was Thermage, but compared to Thermatch, Zurf actually has, has, is less, much less painful. So Thermage and Ultherapy, both of the machines, they're great and they've been around the longest. They've been, you know, like proven to be very effective. However, they're very painful treatment. A lot of people actually struggle to get through the pain. So whereas Xserv, it's less painful, they tend to see a little more instant results. And actually a lot of other lifting machines, whether it's Onda, Titanium or Legio, have very similar feedbacks as xsurf as and like, they're less painful, they're more affordable. In terms of pricing, you tend to see the more instant results. However, the downside of these treatments are they don't really last as long as Ultherapy and thermal, but more traditional, you know, lifting devices, that's been around longer.
- [30:23]
B
Got it. So now in Korea there is an option where you could stack a couple of these lasers and get knocked out essentially.
- [30:33]
C
Right.
- [30:34]
B
They don't really allow that here. Can you talk about that?
- [30:37]
C
Yes. So actually it's mainly for Ultherapy and thermostat lifting treatments because they are painful. So some people get through the pain, some people don't. You can opt for a sleep sedation in Korea if you would like to for these medical, aesthetic treatments. It's not a general anesthesia. You might call it twilight sedation in the U.S. okay.
- [31:03]
B
They use medication.
- [31:05]
C
It is a propofol Type medication. Yes, correct. So propofol or something similar they use as, you know, like they basically iv. So very. Those medications are very commonly used for light surgeries or when you do endoscopy or colonoscope scopy, kind of like test as well. Right. So you can definitely opt for those if you would like to. Completely optional if you don't want to, which I completely understand. You're in a foreign country. There's always a risk of these type of sedation patients. Then there's other pain management tools usually that are available in the clinics. Whether it's laughing gas or whether it's painkiller, IV or like numbing cream will be applied by default no matter what.
- [31:47]
A
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- [32:17]
B
Yeah. So I mean it is a little intimidating thinking of going to Korea or Turkey or anywhere and saying okay, I trust an anesthesiologist. Even in America. I think people have a hard time trusting when they're being put under. So like for people that are really wanting to go there, do you. Would you suggest like get as many treatments as you can and go under the anesthesia because you are recommending. It's a very trustworthy way to do things.
- [32:46]
C
We would never recommend do this or do that to our clients. It's completely their choice. We do recommend. Feel free to speak to your own doctor in the US Whether you feel comfortable doing that and if you want to do it, let us know. All we do is really making an arrange for you so that it goes very smoothly when you decide decided to do so. But it's completely at the end of the day your decision. But I guess benefit of getting sedated is yes. It just makes the whole stack treatment so much easier because you know you're asleep and you're getting everything at once that are quite painful. Not only the lifting treatments but also some of the injectables like skin boosters could be quite painful because of the molecule size and stuff. And you know, you basically do it without feeling it anything.
- [33:33]
B
Can you touch on what People can do for their body there.
- [33:37]
C
Yes. So body treatments in non surgical way is becoming very popular in Korea. As I said, like, skin clinic always has been a big thing since like 90s. A lot of Korean people already kind of have a very good routine of themselves for their faces. Now the focus past decade has been moving, like face, face and lower. So they really try to look after their body in non surgical way using all these technologies and treatments. So some of these things, I mean, some of the treatments that are very popular is first of all tightening treatment. So they use the same machine as the ones that we just talked about quite a lot on the lifting machines. So they use it for the abdomen area or like a thigh area, or like even the upper arm area where they want a bit more like tighter sort of skin. And also the aesthetic, some of the fat dissolving injectables could be used together with these type of lifting machines so that it becomes a bit more effective in terms of reducing the size of certain areas. I mentioned biosimulator briefly earlier. The injectables that encourage your own collagen production, which volumizes over time, those are actually now used for the upper breast area. Because after 40s, plus us, especially those moms who had kids and breastfed, like, we tend to lose volume on the upper breast. So like, instead of going to surgery, which is quite surgery, I mean, which is quite scary, people try these biosimilars on the upper breast area or side of the hip as well. Like, as we age, as women, like, a lot of us actually lose volume on a side, what we call hip dip. So biosimilarities could be injected there as well. And hands, also hands. And as we age, it's not really something that's very easy to hide. All those very visible veins and more wrinkles and stuff. So there are treatments for those too.
- [35:36]
B
Right. What do you normally suggest to your clients as the timeframe of how many days they need to go?
- [35:43]
C
Okay, so actually you'll be surprised because many of our clients do surprise when I say this. But usually one visit will be enough for the skin clinic, no matter how long your agenda is. Even, like, for face and body, a lot of times it could be put together in one day. So normally when people come to Korea and like, I want to do a bit of a touristy stuff, and I also want to, you know, experience the skin clinics, but mainly on a face. Usually spending half a day at the clinic would be more than enough for you to do all those stacked treatments. If your Agenda is much longer. As in like I wanted to face, I wanted to scalp treatment, like using stem cell. I want to do the body treatments that could take longer time. So some doct might have to either spend more than half a day with you or schedule two separate sessions with you. So maximum, maybe you could do two sessions if your list is really, really long. Otherwise just half a day at the clinic will be enough. So you can really plan it as if your schedule is really tight. Just come for like 3, 4 days and spend like rest of the time just venturing, walking around the city and do a lot of fun touristy things and just spend half a day at the clinic.
- [37:00]
B
And I love what you told me when we spoke originally. You said this is a place that you walk down the street and people are completely red from lasers. They have nose patches on from getting a nose job. Whatever it is, it is well known that people come there to get beautified. So it's fine for you to go look at the city looking crazy.
- [37:20]
C
Very acceptable, very. I think Korean people do have very high tolerance on looking horrible going through downtime. And we don't care. We do all understand, like, we all need this. So you don't really need to be like conscious about those things. It's very, very common to see those on a sheet. Right.
- [37:45]
B
And if people decide they wanna do plastic surgery. So in America, even if, let's say I'm in Palm beach and I wanna do something in Beverly Hills, they ask you to stay for a full week before you get on a plane, get your stitches out, blah, blah, blah, and fly home. Is it very similar there that if you're gonna go under the knife, you should stay for at least seven days?
- [38:03]
C
Very similar. And depending on the surgery, some stitches might come out like days, 10 after the surgery. So what we really recommend, and our partner doctors always very strongly recommend to stay through that period so that they can stay close to the surgeon just in case, you know, there's any issue in terms of the recovery process. And also complete the, you know, the stitch out with them. And throughout the process, you're going to go back to the clinic quite often to get the details. Swelling and deep bruising care as well, which is usually quite well done. So yes, if it's, I guess like quite light surgeries, I would say at least seven days in Korea. If it's a facelift surgery, I would say maybe 10 to 14 days in Korea would be very ideal. Having said that, I know not everyone has that flexibility with work and everything. So if they really insist and if they really want to, it is possible to actually take the doctor's note with you and then get the stitches out. You know, in the US or wherever you're from, that's doable. We've done it for our clients before too. But if you can, you know, if you have that flexibility to stay longer, it is always the best to stay in the full course of 10, like 7 to 14 days.
- [39:22]
B
Right. For logistics purposes, are you guys setting somebody up with somebody that travels with them and can speak the language or how does that work?
- [39:33]
C
As of now, we don't do that. So in terms of logistics, we do know, we do know some, you know, like companies who can help you with the logistics booking. So we can definitely connect you with them if you would like. In terms of the language, actually, all of our skin clinics, for example, they're very well equipped with the language. Some of the doctors are fluent in English, and if they're not, they will always have a great translating staffs translating for you. So, I mean, obviously it's one of the big factors that we consider when we choose a partner clinic. So we never had an issue in terms of the language for the skin clinics. Of course, plastic surgery is a little different. And again, like most of the surgeon clinics that we work with have English speaking staffs or like surgeons speaking English as well. However, given that it's a surgery, you know, like you might want to have someone escorting you. And for surgeries, we do offer those services, really, depending on the surgery and the individual situation of the patient.
- [40:36]
B
Okay. And in terms of travel, do you have a travel agency that you work with, that you promote, that can handle people's flights and all that?
- [40:45]
C
We have some travel agencies that we know well, that we sometimes connect our clients to.
- [40:51]
B
Is there one airport that everybody flies into?
- [40:55]
C
Yes, it's called Incheon.
- [40:57]
B
Okay. And is there one hotel that if you were coming to visit Korea, you would suggest people stay at?
- [41:03]
C
There's loads of hotels that you can, you can choose from. So Seoul is a very, very big city. So you can actually. And Seoul, when you look at it logistically, you always think about it as whether it's a north part of the river. There's a one river that goes through the city, Han river, or south of the river. And both north and south, there's loads of really nice hot tales, quite different sort of vibe. So north of the river is where the city hall is, where the old palaces and it's quite old meet new kind of area. Quite charming. Whereas like south of the river, it's quite a business district area, quite busy. So depending on what you really want. But a lot of clinics are actually located in Gangnam area that we work with. So depending on what you want and what's convenient for you, you can choose the hotel. And. And we do have our Seoul recommendation deck that we share with our clients so that they can kind of refer to what's popular.
- [42:04]
B
Okay, perfect. And then what? Is there a time of year that you would suggest?
- [42:09]
C
So, okay, the weather in Seoul or Korea in general, you can think of it as a very similar to that of New York. So we have very hot summer, very cold winter, but somewhere in between is very nice. So I would say May, June, very nice weather, especially May. And I would say September, October also very, very pleasant weather. Winter, middle of winter, it could go down to minus 10, minus 10, 15 Celsius degrees. I mean, I don't know whether you use Celsius, but it's very, very cold. Summer also could be very hot. So.
- [42:49]
B
Yeah, got it. And then in terms of when people want to, if they contact you, is there a wait for a certain amount of months or the season?
- [42:59]
C
You mean like how early do you need to book in advance and stuff? Okay, so it's really more to do with the clinic availability rather than our resource. So clinic availability, those ones that are popular. No matter whether it's skin clinics or plastic surgeons, it's safe to work on it around eight weeks ahead of your trip. So two to three months before your trip starting the process makes sense. Especially, especially plastic surgery because we actually help our clients to meet with the surgeon of their choice over zoom. So that means there's more back and forth of arranging the zoom calls and, you know, like discussing the plan and stuff. So you kind of need to bake that in the extra time for that. So no matter what, if you start preparing around two to three months ahead of your trip, you can consider as quite.
- [43:51]
A
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- [44:21]
C
Safe.
- [44:22]
B
Okay. Is there anything I didn't touch that is important about your company.
- [44:26]
C
You covered it really well, Rachel.
- [44:28]
B
Okay, thank you. So if somebody's listening and they're like, okay, I want to get started, how do they get started? How do they reach you?
- [44:37]
C
So either from our website, which is www.kbeautyconcereage.com, or we also have an Instagram. From there, there's a link to our business, WhatsApp. Business WhatsApp would be the most efficient way to get to us. And yeah, if you contact us there, then we'll go through the process to make sure that we help you with the right doctor that you're looking for in Korea.
- [45:02]
B
Right. And just Remember, they are 12 hours ahead.
- [45:06]
C
Yes.
- [45:06]
B
So it's a little difficult, but you can figure that out. Erin, thank you so much. I cannot wait to come with my girlfriends.
- [45:13]
C
And also, I cannot wait to have you.
- [45:15]
B
I know. Wait, I do have to ask. Do men come?
- [45:20]
C
Yes. I mean, as of now, I would say 95% of our clients are female. However, it is a segment that we would like to grow over time because, for example, a lot of men are interested in, you know, not only aesthetics, but regenerative, you know, treatments like stem cell treatments. And also hair transplant is great in Korea as well. It just has very, very good skills. Some of our surgeons could move the long hair as they are to transplant, which looks very natural from day one. So it's becoming more popular. But it is an area that we would like to grow more.
- [45:55]
B
Yeah. So my husband is bald and does not. Well, he shaves his head.
- [46:00]
C
Right.
- [46:00]
B
So he doesn't care about the hair restoration. We've been to Panama and done stem cells there, and it was interesting because it was the first time they thought, oh, let's do the facial, like the exosome facial and the stem cells.
- [46:12]
C
But.
- [46:13]
B
But on the top of his head, which I thought, why isn't everybody doing that? Because most bald people, the issue is it's discolored because it's always in the sun. So I was thinking maybe he'll want to come because he'll want to figure out a way that they can make his head one color, you know?
- [46:29]
C
Yeah, let's. Yeah, let's figure it out. I can definitely connect him with the doctor. And let's. Yeah, let's find out.
- [46:35]
B
Yeah, that would be fun. Okay, well, I look forward to speaking to you more. So, again, if anybody wants to reach you, I can confirm that I know that you reach out to people on Walmart, WhatsApp. You do respond, and I think it's great. So I really appreciate you taking the time to be here.
- [46:51]
C
Thank you so much for having me, Rachel.
- [46:53]
B
Of course. And I look forward to spending more time with you and hopefully seeing you in Korea.
- [46:58]
C
Likewise.
- [47:06]
B
Thank you so much for listening to Misunderstood. I'm your host Rachel Yukatel. Please be sure to subscribe to the show and give us a five star rating and review. You can support the show by joining Our Patreon@patreon.com Misunderstood with Rachel Ukitel do you have ideas for the show or want to reach out? Email us@infomisunderstoodpodcastmail.com that's spelled M I S S. Understood. Thank you so much and I'll see you next time.
- [47:37]
D
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