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www.groovekorea.com / May 2014 56 ‘No matter what the price is, people will fnd the money to be beautiful. i sometimes think i would rather live somewhere bad or not buy a car and instead have surgery because i know it will make my life better in the end.’ — Kim Hye-ra, offce worker Edited by Elaine Ramirez (elaine@groovekorea.com) INSIGHT a rate of more than 10 percent a year, even amid the global recession since 2008,” the Korean Health Indus- try Development Institute reported. “The main reason is mushrooming budget cosmetics shops, which have increased 37 percent a year on average.” These shops account for one-third of Korea’s total cosmetics market, which was worth 2.5 trillion won in 2010. According to research carried out by Cos’In, a web- site dedicated to cosmetics insight in Korea, women are now spending less money on more products at these types of stores. “Korea has beauty shops everywhere,” says Kim, an office worker. “They always have new products and I want to try them all out. When things are cheap, it’s easy to buy a lot, and if it’s not so good, it’s okay because it wasn’t too expensive.” A steady growth of sales at single-brand beauty shops saw peo- ple spending 7,500 won per item in 2011, 7,900 won in 2012 and 8,000 won in 2013. Meanwhile, in 2011, customers would buy a single product on average 4.2 times a year, 4.4 times in 2012 and 4.8 in 2013. And the top-selling products at these stores are skin care products and what are coined “fast beauty items” such as BB (blemish balm) creams and CC (color con- trol) creams. The skin care segment has been a particu- larly strong key growth contributor in the Korean beauty market, says Kang of SERI, with consumers gravitating away from glamour makeup. “They are more youth- and health-conscious. Skin care accounts for 48 percent of Korea’s total cosmetics market and is growing much faster than other segments like makeup and perfumes.” “If you have beautiful skin, it’s easy to be attractive because makeup can’t hide everything,” says Choi, the SNU student. “There are excellent creams and cleans- ers here, plus there are many small procedures like face peels and injection fillers that give a good natural beauty look.” She says she has friends in their twenties who have had filler injections to manipulate their face shape and improve the luminosity of their skin. Known as “petite surgeries,” these procedures are rapidly gaining popularity as plastic surgery’s less inva- sive alternative in Korea, which ranks seventh in ISAPS’ global rankings of every nonsurgical procedure on the list. Botulinum toxin type A injectables (Botox) and hyal- uronis acid fillers were the two most performed nonsur- gical procedures in the world in 2010, making up 38.1 percent and 23.2 percent of all procedures, respective- ly, according to ISAPS. Botox likewise tops cosmetic procedures performed in Korea, with 145,688 adminis- tered in 2011, followed by hyaluronic acid fillers, autolo- gous fat fillers and calcium hydroxyapatite, respectively. Dr. Shin Yong-ho, a director of BK Plastic Surgery in Seoul who has been in practice for 16 years, says he has noticed a craze for “down-aging” in Korea that finds the noninvasive nature of petite surgery a popular choice. “It can be carried out regardless of time. It is good for downtown workers,” he explains. “Even a busy office worker can receive this simple procedure during lunchtime and get back to work quickly. It is possible because the procedures do not require (a) complicat- ed anesthetic process and only need topical anesthetic cream to numb the area.” Although much cheaper than full-on surgery, as of this year, a 10 percent value-added tax will be tacked onto these noninvasive procedures and other treatments such as body hair removal, skin care treatments, eye- brow tattooing and hair loss treatments. The Ministry of Strategy and Finance says this taxation is expected to bring in 2.49 trillion won in revenue over the next five years. The five most common treatments in Korea — nose jobs, liposuction, wrinkle removal, breast augmentation and double-eyelid surgery — have all been subject to the value-added tax since 2011. “No matter what the price is, people will find the money to be beautiful,” says Kim. “I sometimes think I would rather live somewhere bad or not buy a car and instead have surgery because I know it will make my life better in the end.”