Like many of her peers, 23-year-old Ruxin scrolls through her social media feed every day, but she is looking for something very specific – updates on cosmetic surgery.
Ruxin is planning to have a “double eyelid” operation, in which the surgeon creates a crease in the eyelid that she hopes will make her eyes look bigger.
The Guangzhou resident regularly logs on to the Gengmei app to find the most suitable surgeon.
“There are so many clinics in the city, but I want to make sure I go to a good one. It’s my face we’re talking about,” she told the BBC.
Gengmei, which means “more beautiful” in Chinese, is one of several social networking sites in China dedicated to cosmetic surgery, where users leave status updates about all things plastic, including liposuction and nose jobs.
Since its launch in 2013, Gengmei’s user base has grown from 1 million to 36 million. More than half are young women in their twenties.
Similarly, cosmetic surgery platform So-Young has seen its monthly active users grow from 1.4m in 2018 to 8.4m today.
Their popularity is indicative of changing attitudes towards cosmetic surgery in China, which now performs more procedures than any other country in the world after the US.
According to a report by Deloitte, the market in China has almost tripled in value in four years to around 177bn yuan ($27.3bn; £19.7bn) in 2019 – an annual growth rate of 28.7%, well above the global rate of 8.2%.
If this continues, China could become the world’s largest cosmetic surgery market by the middle of the decade, according to the Global Times.
While the most popular procedures include those that create “double eyelids” and V-shaped jaw lines, new surgical fads come and go, with the latest being pointy elf ears, according to reports.
Members of Generation Z – those born after 1996 – are not afraid to get cosmetic surgery, despite the taboo it used to be.
Ruxin, who works in fashion retail, said her friends “talk openly about having cosmetic procedures”.
“Even if people don’t advertise that they’ve had something done, they won’t deny it if you ask them.”
