Teens learn looks count

Doctor operates on a girl's eyelids. Photo: Courtesy of Beijing Ximei

A week after finishing the stressful national college entrance examinations, Yang Yang was not worrying about her scores or celebrating the end of years of studying. Instead, she was looking forward to dragging her parents to a local beauty clinic for a new look.

The 19-year-old went into the surgery room, nervously, but with her heart filled with hope at the same time. About 20 minutes later, she came out, leaving behind the typically Asian single eyelid look for the so-called double-eyelids that some Chinese and almost all Westerners naturally have.

The damage from the procedure was very small; Yang only suffered from some unnoticeable swelling on the eyelids.

"With bigger and more vigorous eyes, they say I look more attractive," she said.

The end of the college entrance exams marks the beginning of an annual upsurge of plastic surgery procedures among young people. Zhang Surong, a surgeon and director of Beijing Ximei, a beauty clinic founded in 2003, told Metropolitan that they have had significant growth in customers since the exams ended.

Zhang's clinic has a 10 percent discount for students, and many other clinics in town have new summer vacation packages, targeting college or high school students, especially the ones who have just finished the big entrance exam.

These teens are a key part of a new trend, non-surgical cosmetic procedures, which means no-blood or minor-trauma procedures that require little time to recover from, including getting minor changes on the face and getting injections. 

Teens and parents on board

Yang had been planning the procedure for more than a year. Born with single eyelids, Yang used cosmetic stickers and other makeup products to make her eyes seem like they had double lids, which made them"look bigger." But she was worried that using stickers to create folds would make the skin of the eyelids loose. Many of Yang's classmates who have the same problem tried getting an operation at the clinic, and the results were good.

Yang was tempted, but her parents wouldn't let their precious little girl "go under the knife" due to safety concerns. Yang needed her parents to pay for the expensive procedure, so she launched a prolonged battle to win her parents over - preaching about how safe the procedure would be, and bringing over friends who had done the procedure to the house to show off their beautiful double eyelids.

With persistence, Yang finally managed to make a deal with her parents, and she was allowed to have the procedure after the entrance exams.

The attitude of parents toward going to a beauty clinic is gradually changing. After all, the future of their child, including job hunting and getting married, is closely connected to their looks. These days, most parents come in to the clinic to compare techniques and learn about the risks, said Zhang. That's a change from when the clinic first opened a decade ago. At that time, Zhang and her colleagues saw many cases where the parents got very upset because their kids had procedures done behind their backs.

Wang Yanyu, a freshman in college, originally from Zhejiang Province, got a present from her parents last winter vacation - double eyelids. Wang thinks the 15,000 yuan ($2,400) was well spent, since she feels she "looks sweeter now." And her 16-year-old sister is also considering doing the same thing right after she turns 18.

It's very common that parents pay for the procedures as a birthday gift or graduation gift, says Zhang. "Many parents and students agree that one can embrace their new life in college, especially since nobody in the new environment knows what he or she looked like before."