Following a suggestion from her friend, actress and singer Gao Liu went to have cosmetic surgery, but the results proved disastrous.
The young star had enjoyed a rising career but after being silent for a number of months decided to show what had happened to her as a warning about the dangers of unregulated cosmetic surgery.
Ms Gao had been out of the public eye recently, but returned to Weibo, the leading Chinese social media platform, to explain her absence due to a “cosmetic surgical incident”, where the tip of her nose had turned necrotic. She posted pictures of her ordeal, to which internet users in China have reacted with horror.
She had decided to “get a slight trim” based on suggestions, in order to improve her career. “The entire procedure lasted four hours. I thought that in these four hours, I would be made more beautiful,” she related to her followers.
“I didn’t expect these four hours to be the beginning of a nightmare.”
She said that after the procedure, her nose felt “irritated and tingly” and then became repeatedly infected.
“The skin on the tip of my nose… became darker and darker, and my nose became necrotic,” she said, also experiencing thoughts of suicide. She was hospitalised for two months, and lost out on work. Because of the extent of the necrotic damage, she said reconstructive surgery would not be possible for at least a year.
There is an enormous demand for cosmetic surgery in China, especially from young people, including high school graduates who hope that it will boost their careers or romantic opportunities. In 2019, 20 million people in China went for cosmetic surgery, of whom two-thirds were under 30 years of age.
As a result of this huge demand, there are some 60 000 unqualified cosmetic surgery clinics, compared to about 10 000 qualified ones.
Source: BBC News
