DISCLAIMER:
(My experience is 100% honest and though I did receive a small discount from Braun all my experiences are my own. This review was optional for me to write as they asked me to share it on my 6th check in day… but I wanted to share my experience with those who would be interested because I know other people would appreciate it. I also genuinely was very satisfied with my entire experience, so I want all parties to gain the recognition that they deserve!) This review may sound a little biased, but I truly did have such a good overall experience at Braun so excuse me if I may sound a little positively influenced
Hello everyone after years of deliberating I finally decided to get plastic surgery. I probably intensely researched for a total of 4 years (2 years mainly during covid) and I picked my top plastic surgery clinics I wanted to consult with. My top choices were Cooki, AB, Braun and DA.
Something to note as well was that my main fear more than anything was being operated on by a shadow doctor. I felt like Korea had a lot of shady practices and laws that made me super apprehensive about my final decision about getting surgeries done or not. So, I hired a translator who also did his share of research and guiding to help me with my entire experience. I would also like to strongly vocalize that he was not a broker and I did find his services and expertise extremely valuable. He did not try to persuade me to any clinic, he strongly encouraged I do my own research and he would give his opinion about each clinic after each consultation. You may have heard of his name before, but I was referred to him through a friend and his name is Brian!
The reasons I chose to do a consultation per each clinic- as well as reasons why I chose not to go with them will be listed below).
COOKI: I really liked the style of plastic surgery the doctors did there. Really dolly but not too overly dolly. It was a perfectly fine balance that I was looking for. To be honest Cooki was initially my first (aesthetic purposes only) choice because I loved their aesthetic the most. It was also a small local clinic so I wasn’t as worried about being operated on by a shadow doctor. The head doctor also had great bed side manner
Why I chose not to go: No in house anesthesiologist
the head doctors methods for facial contouring was a little out of date (kind of basic)
they were really trying to charge me some insane foreigner tax. It was unbelievable after I heard the price especially cause I knew they were a small clinic. The eye doctor’s consultation felt very rushed and a little big negative? They were really trying to charge me 5million krw for cortex removal and 1 million krw for anesthesiology cost. I also felt like they photoshopped their after pictures a lot unfortunately.
AB: I liked the aesthetic of this clinic though I did feel like it did kind of look a little too borderline “trendy” or overdone. I really liked the eye doctor Bae In Hoe’s expertise and bedside manner as well. He was very positive and listened to my desired aesthetic and tried his best to match mine.
Reasons I chose not to go: The consultations felt super rushed. The consultants would come after a short period of time to indicate my consultation is over. Some of the doctors explanations felt very basic and rushed. They also really tried to extort me with pricing. Lets just say the pricing was around 250% higher than what locals pay. I was also a little worried about being operated on by a shadow doctor because as stated before it felt like the consultations were so rushed and the doctors were consulting all day. I thought to myself how they had time to do the actual surgeries. As well the after pictures looked heavily photoshopped as well.
So after Day 1 of my consultations:
I really hated being treated like a foreign cash cow. I felt super angry and dehumanized so to be honest after my two consultations that day with Cooki and AB I went home and cried and was thinking to myself this is probably a sign from God to not do plastic surgery. I ranted in my kakao chats with plastic surgery friends and god bless their hearts for all their kind words and expertise. I was angry the clinics did not feel like plastic surgery hospitals. To put it in the nicest way possible they felt unprofessional, and I felt more like I was attending a fast business meeting than a personal plastic surgery consultation. I thought to myself how could the standards possibly be so low?
Next day of consultations I was planning not to go anymore but Brian checked in on me and I remembered I did not come all the way here just to leave in a day.
I cancelled my consultation with DA. I really liked Dr. Lee Dong Chan’s work but after much researching and hearing lots of people’s own personal experiences through word of mouth I decided it was probably a smart decision for me not to go to DA. Even my friends I met up with in Korea had bad experiences with DA as well.
So finally, I had my consult at Braun. I was very unenthusiastic in the waiting room. To be honest I wanted to just go home the entire time. But I did have to note that from the start of my experience entering Braun I did feel like there was a much calmer and professional vibe from the front desk workers there. I really liked my consultant I was speaking to because she was telling me things to get from a professional “scientific” point of view instead of just purely aesthetic. She also did not try to push services onto me, she recommended I don’t get full face fat graft because Dr. Kim Taegyu is very particular and does not like doing them together. Her overall vibe was also more natural and friendly but still respectful. Kind of like I was talking to a friend who was telling me what to do and what not to do and sharing her knowledge of what’s dangerous and bad. So, I did start to feel a lot better in the consultation room. Actually I was starting to feel excited again and my hope was starting to come back!
I met with my eye/nose doctor Ryu Dong Won and he had a very calm and gentle aura. I actually came to appreciate this a lot on the day of my surgery, because I started crying on the operation table because I was so scared, and he comforted me super easily. What impressed me the most though was before I had my consultation with Dr Ryu Dong Won I was telling Brian I don’t think my double eyelids are actually double eyelids I think they’re wrinkles from excessive eyelash extension use. I never had double eyelids until I got older. So when Dr Ryu started his consultation and one of the first things he stated was exactly that I was so surprised. Brian and I were pretty shocked and instantly when he said that I knew he was the real deal. He was very knowledgeable and was explaining things to me super thoroughly and not in a rushed way. I also liked the way he shaped my eyes the most out of the 3 clinics. The way cooki drew it, I really did not like. AB was good- but it didn’t look the same way Dr. Ryu did! I also liked the feedback he gave me about nose (because he is actually mainly a nose specialist now and does not do eyes) but unfortunately if I did nose as well with my other surgeries it would’ve been out of my price range. So, I chose not to do my nose for this trip.
After the consultation was done, I waited for Dr. Kim Tae Gyu for my facial contouring. I also would like to state that I waited probably a total of 2 or 3 hours at Braun. Though it might be a little inconvenient I felt relieved and trusted the clinic even more for this reason. I felt that this was a pretty good indicator that they do not use Shadow Doctors.
So, after waiting I finally met Dr. Kim Tae Gyu for 3 facial contouring. I was a little star struck because I remembered watching his videos while researching and I really liked how experienced and knowledgeable he was in his craft. The fact that he was a facial contouring SPECIALIST for over 10 years made me confident in his abilities. A lot of other clinics will have doctors perform multiple different type of surgeries so technically they do not specifically hone their skills in one particular craft. The term specialist is very loosely thrown around at times. But Dr. Kim only performed facial contouring for over 10 years. In my head I really felt like he was the number 1 facial contouring specialist in Korea, and it would be an honor for me to get my procedure done by him. How many people can confidently say that they got their facial contouring by the best doctor in Korea? I can! He was also very funny during the consultation. He was roasting me and exchanging small talk with me. It made me feel very good and light. Kind of like I was having a conversation with my dad. I also really thought the technique he was using on me was very advanced and can only be performed by a skilled doctor. And to me it sounded like the best possible technique out of the other two clinics. I don’t know the exact terminology, but he would cut a v through my cheek bone horizontally to minimize my muscle disconnecting from my bone as much as possible. It would also help address my mid face length which was another concern for me that I didn’t even bring up and other clinics didn’t bring up either. He would also use the V method to do my chin instead of the T method. When I first heard about the T method, I thought it sounded super invasive so I’m glad he was using a less invasive one. Brian also told me that Braun is one of the clinics that offer accusculpting to help lift the face and minimize sagging as much as possible. So I really liked how conservative they were about the sagging issue because that was a big concern for me. These little points they would bring up from their knowledge and expertise really elevated the whole experience for me and made me solidify my decision. Without a doubt I wanted to go to Braun.
So after my consultation I went to a café with Brian to talk things over and I decided to go with Braun. This is the part where I would really like to iterate how glad I am I spent a little bit of extra money to hire an experienced translator. To me Brian was so much more than a translator. He was a professional, an expert but most importantly he felt like a trusted friend. Brian used to work in the plastic surgery field. So he really knows all the techniques and the ins and outs of the field. He was also very careful not to overly influence my choices and decisions because he understood that at the end of the day everything is my decision and he can only help guide me towards the right path by sharing his thoughts and experiences. All the clinics I chose to do consults with I told him myself after I did my own research. So this gave me ease of mind knowing he’s not a broker. I would also like to state I spoke to Brian back and fourth for over 6 months and he definitely worked very hard to research for me and never made me feel like I was bothering him. He was also very gracious and super professional which I really appreciated, especially because he wasn’t getting paid by me during those months. His pricing plan is very reasonable and the reason why I sound a little biased is because I genuinely do think he has a very smart business plan and pricing system. I would like for his company to do well not just because I appreciate his hard work but also so he can set this as a standard for all foreigners travelling to Korea and set a precedence. Plastic surgery should be safe and transparent from all sides of the party. There is nothing I hate more after my experience in Korea than feeling like a foreigner that can be taken advantage of. I understand that a lot people are jaded or scarred from their bad experiences getting surgery in Korea due to shady practices and it’s not a matter to take lightly. So, I feel very fortunate that I had a relatively stress free experience and I believe a lot of it had to do with the fact that I hired Brian.
So when it came down to price for surgery it was definitely over my budget, but it wasn’t nearly as high as Cooki or AB which I appreciated. After a lot of back and fourth Brian was able to reach a final price. It was a little bit over my budget but I knew how much of a discount he was getting me already and I knew it wasn’t fair to Braun to be unreasonable. In total I got around 8 million KRW discount from his bargaining. I would also like to state that the final price I was quoted by Braun I had no idea they wanted me to write a review. I was going to write a review anyway because I wanted to share my experience and one of the things Brian said to them to lower the price was because he told Jennifer (the hospital manager) “she’s very active in the plastic surgery community and have a lot of friends getting plastic surgery so it’ll be good for me to go to Braun.” This ended up in a slight miscommunication where she thought I was going to write a review for my discount but in reality, I was probably just going to tell my friends about my experience as I would have anyway through word of mouth. But like I said before I had no idea of this arrangement until today (6 day post op). So today when he told me about this I said “no problem! I want to give everyone their recognition they deserve!” I already paid for the surgery in full on the day of my surgery so there is really no reason why I’m obligated to write this review. I would like to strongly reiterate that because of the miscommunication writing a review was optional for me.
On the day of surgery everything went smoothly! No excessive bleeding or complications, Brian checked in on me throughout the surgery to make sure I wasn’t getting operated on by a shadow doctor. And it’s surprising because amongst my group of friends their stories were really scaring me about the pain they experienced after surgery and how they couldn’t talk for 14 days. But honestly, I was fine. The only time when I was in lots of pain was when I woke up from anesthesia and it was hard to breathe and they had to purposely reduce the amount of pain killer I was taking. After more painkillers kicked in I didn’t feel pain. Just a lot of nausea. It’s funny because even though I was groggy and super nauseous, bleeding, and vomiting after surgery all I can think about was wishing the results were good. I was sooooo happy when I saw my eyes cause they looked perfect and I was glad to see the surgery was a success hahha. And the fascinating part is- I had no severe bruising on my eye at all. Most of the times after someone gets double eyelid surgery they have really bad bruising and broken blood vessels on their eye. But I really had barely any bruising! For fat grafting I went with Dr. Lee Woo Sub and I really love my fat graft results for my forehead so much. It’s still very swollen now but I feel like he put extra on my forehead on purpose so when it deswells I’ll hopefully have a good projection left. The fat looks nice and even and I had really no bruising from the accusculpt or the fat graft. Brian called me wolverine and I think I definitely am lucky cause my recovery process has been so smooth (I’d like to thank my vegan diet >
). I can eat my porridge and open my mouth pretty wide and I’m going to have my first proper meal in 6 days after I’m done writing this post! I’m still super swollen so I can’t tell my results for my facial contour yet but seeing how painless and quickly I’m recovering I’m really glad I went with Dr. Kim!
I can’t wait for the final results! I’m really craving tteokbokki, all I want is yupdduk and ddukki but I still have to wait a little longer for that. I would also like to give recognition to the post surgery nurse team. They were truly so genuinely nice to me I felt like I didn’t deserve their kindness lol. Brian was also nice enough to bring them vitamin drinks to help my nurse during her overnight shift. The overnight nurse was so nice too I didn’t want to bother her. Haha. I also felt very appreciated with Braun because they had complimentary hair wash, and laser services after my treatments. I know a lot of clinics don’t offer that service. The aestheticians were so nice and friendly too I wish I could do more than just thank everyone because thank you just doesn’t feel like enough. I really felt like such a foreigner as soon as I got to korea even though I am of Korean descent. But Braun really did help me feel like less of an outlier. Lots of unfortunate things happened as soon as I got to Korea. I was so homesick and sad. So when I felt the hospitality from them I really truly felt touched.
And I know some people tend to regret their surgeries after and it may be too soon for me to say this but I realllllllly LOVEEE my results so much. I feel myself having random bursts of happy energy because I feel so grateful and blessed for this experience! My boyfriend is so happy with my results too! He was so worried, and he hated the idea of me getting this done. He was so worried for my well being but seeing how well I’m recovering and after he watched Braun’s YouTube videos he seems really happy for me too! I can’t tell you how good of a feeling it is after feeling so self-conscious for so long to finally feel pretty for once and CONFIDENT
My New Year’s resolution was to no longer live in hiding. I think now I can finally do that
Thank you to everyone who read up to now I know it was a long post. I hope I didn’t sound too biased but truly I’m so satisfied and thankful!
Thank you so much to Braun’s surgical team, Drs, nurses, consultants, managers, aestheticians and intern for all your kindness and amazing energy and thank you so much Brian!
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. I can eat my porridge and open my mouth pretty wide and I’m going to have my first proper meal in 6 days after I’m done writing this post! I’m still super swollen so I can’t tell my results for my facial contour yet but seeing how painless and quickly I’m recovering I’m really glad I went with Dr. Kim!
