Plastic surgery in Gangnam — facelift, liposuction and fat grafting

Who operates

Dr. Yim Hyung-woo, plastic surgery specialist — facelift · eyelid surgery · rhinoplasty · facial contouring.

One building, one plan

Forever Plastic Surgery Gangnam has been at the same Nonhyeon-ro address for fourteen years and has seen around seventy thousand patients in that time. Skin care, surgery and body work are all handled in the one building, which means a patient with more than one concern is not sent between clinics for each part of it.

Declined rather than sold

The clinic's stated position is that the most common problem in Gangnam is not a lack of options but too many of them, recommended too freely. Treatments with a known ceiling, or that do not suit the face in front of them, are declined rather than sold. Patients travel here from Jeonnam, Busan and Gangwon on referral, and from Thailand, Taiwan and China.

The facelift performed here is the orthodox dual-plane technique: the SMAS is dissected above and below so that the retaining ligaments can be released individually, and skin and SMAS are then repositioned along different vectors because the face does not age uniformly across its layers.

Dissecting two planes separately raises the technical difficulty of the operation. What it buys is that both the skin and the deeper structures move, rather than the skin alone being pulled tighter over structures that have not been addressed. The incision runs behind the ear, which is what keeps scarring out of view and allows the jawline and neck to be corrected along with the face.

Surgery is not the default answer. Loose and descended skin is assessed by palpation first, and an operation is recommended only where it is the most effective option — where it is not, non-surgical lifting is proposed instead.

Who it suits

• Descent that no longer responds to energy-based liftingWhere laxity has passed the point at which ultrasound or RF can reposition it.
• Jawline and neck togetherThe retro-auricular incision allows the neck line to be addressed in the same operation.
• Patients who want the structure moved, not the skin stretchedDual-plane dissection is what separates a repositioned face from a tightened one.

Questions

Liposuction is offered by region: thigh with hip and outer line, upper and lower abdomen with flanks, upper and lower arm, and the face — double chin, jawline and cheek. A soft contouring option combines facial liposuction with a tightening laser pass in the same session.

Additional cost by BMI is stated up front rather than added afterwards, and a compression garment is quoted as a line item. Revision is graded by whether there is a visible irregularity, a localised complication, or a case needing further treatment alongside.

Fat removed is not the measure of a good result — the contour left behind is. Volume targets are set against the shape being aimed at rather than against a number.

Who it suits

• Localised deposits that resist weight lossRegional fat that does not reduce proportionally with overall loss.
• Jawline and double chinFacial liposuction, optionally with a tightening laser pass in the same session.
• Body contour after weight changeAssessed for skin quality first, since laxity changes what liposuction alone can deliver.

Questions

Fat grafting is offered as nano (micro) fat for fine volume and as dermal fat grafting where structural correction is needed. Single-pass and two-pass courses are priced separately, because a proportion of grafted fat does not survive and a second session is often what settles the final volume.

Special sites are handled distinctly: upper eyelid hollowing, neck lines, and the backs of the hands and fingers, where the skin is thin and the graft plane matters more than the volume placed. Body grafting covers hip and breast, the latter combined with donor-site liposuction.

Autologous PRP can be added to the graft and is quoted as a separate line.

Who it suits

• Volume loss rather than descentWhere the face has deflated rather than dropped, grafting addresses the actual change.
• Hands and neckThin-skinned sites where injectable volume is difficult to place well.
• Patients wanting their own tissueNo implant, no foreign material.

Questions

Surgery — what patients ask