Skip to content
Aesthetics Korea
South Korea · Skin and aesthetic medicine · Independent

The independent guide to skin and aesthetic treatments in South Korea

Source-backed answers on skin treatments, lifting, and injectables in South Korea, written for international patients. Every page starts with a short answer and states where each claim comes from.

International patients come to South Korea for skin treatment because it is safe and reasonably priced.

In 2025, 1.31 million of them were treated at South Korean dermatology clinics — the largest specialty at 62.9% of the ministry’s count by specialty, and the fastest-growing one.

Ministry of Health and Welfare, 24 April 2026. Foreign patients totalled 2.01 million, the first year above two million.

Browse skin treatmentsHow we work
Start with a question

Skin treatments

The skin treatments international patients most often seek in South Korea.

View all →

By concern

Start from the problem rather than the product.

View all →

Comparisons

Same criteria, side by side, no universal winner.

View all →

  • Rejuran vs Juvelook: two different bets on your own collagen

    Both are injected to change skin quality rather than to add contour, and both work through your own tissue response rather than by filling space. Rejuran's active is polynucleotide, purified from salmon; Juvelook's is poly-D,L-lactic acid, a collagen stimulator. The differences that matter to a patient are reversibility and the state of the evidence, and they do not point the same way. Read the PDLLA evidence narrowly: the one trial used Juvelook Volume, a separate product in the same range, to correct nasolabial folds rather than plain Juvelook for skin texture.

    Updated 2026-11-02

  • Thermage vs Ultherapy: heat spread wide, or focused deep

    Neither is better in the abstract; they heat different things in different ways. Thermage is monopolar radiofrequency, spreading heat through a large volume of tissue up to around 20 mm deep. Ultherapy is microfocused ultrasound, delivered at set depths, the deepest reaching the SMAS — the layer a surgeon pulls on. Both tighten skin that is still in place, and neither repositions tissue that has descended.

    Updated 2026-11-02

  • Ultherapy vs Shurink: what the records show, and what no study shows

    Both deliver focused ultrasound to heat tissue at set depths, and in a Korean clinic the two names are often offered as substitutes for each other. One documented difference separates them: Ultherapy carries real-time imaging that lets the operator see the layers being treated, and it is the only microfocused ultrasound device with United States clearance for visualisation as well as treatment. What does not exist is a head-to-head trial, so any clinic claim that one outperforms the other is an opinion rather than a finding.

    Updated 2026-11-02
01

Answer first

Every page opens with a two-to-four sentence answer to one clearly stated question, then the facts behind it.

02

Sources, ranked

Medical, price, and safety claims carry a source. Regulators and peer-reviewed research outrank marketing.

03

Review shown as it is

A procedure page names its medical reviewer once one has checked it, and says Not individually reviewed until then.

Aesthetics Korea is not a clinic and does not arrange treatment. Read the methodology and advertising policy.

Built on Korean government sources

Where South Korea publishes a rule, a register, a device approval, or a price, this site cites the ministry, agency, or statute that published it — and links the document, so you can check it yourself rather than take our word for it.

Official Resources →

Recently updated

Pages are reviewed when their sources change and at least once a year.

  • Costs

    Rejuran price in Seoul: what 11 clinics charged in November 2026

    In November 2026, a single session of Rejuran Healer at 2 cc was listed at ₩165,000 to ₩319,000, VAT included, across 11 Seoul clinics, with a median of ₩264,000. Most of those prices were promotional offers on a booking platform rather than standing list prices, and a few clinics offered a one-time first-visit price below that range. Since 1 January 2026 the full 10% VAT applies to foreign patients too, with no refund at the airport.

    Updated 2026-11-03
  • Costs

    Skin treatment prices in Seoul, November 2026: botox to Thermage

    In November 2026, Seoul clinics listed jaw botox at ₩18,600 to ₩53,900 for 50 units of a Korean brand, Korean-brand filler at ₩59,000 to ₩319,000 per cc, and Ultherapy at ₩600,000 to ₩1,320,000 for 300 shots, all including VAT. Each range comes from the posted prices of 10 to 15 clinics for the same product and dose. Brand, dose and offer type move the price more than the neighbourhood does.

    Updated 2026-11-03
  • Skin treatments

    Botox in South Korea: anti-wrinkle injections and the Korean brands

    Botulinum toxin, the anti-wrinkle injection most people call botox, blocks the nerve signal that tells a muscle to contract, so the line that muscle was folding softens. It works on lines you make by moving, not on volume loss and not on skin quality. South Korea licenses it as a drug rather than a device, and because it is a biological product every manufacturing batch must be released by the government before it can be sold.

    Updated 2026-11-02
  • Skin treatments

    Chemical skin peels: the cheap agent that beat the aggressive one

    Peels do work for melasma as a single treatment in darker skin, and the agent everyone assumes is weakest came out ahead: pooled across 478 patients, glycolic acid beat trichloroacetic acid on the melasma severity index. The more important finding is what happens afterwards — the same literature treats maintenance topicals as part of the treatment, and one study saw 70% recurrence within twelve weeks of stopping.

    Updated 2026-11-02
  • Skin treatments

    Dermal filler in South Korea: what face filler is and what it does

    Dermal filler is a gel injected under the skin to add volume where it is placed — filling a hollow, restoring a contour, or softening a fold. Most filler used in South Korea is hyaluronic acid, which the body breaks down over months and which a doctor can dissolve on purpose with an enzyme called hyaluronidase. It adds volume; it does not tighten skin, resurface it, or relax a muscle.

    Updated 2026-11-02
  • Skin treatments

    Exosome skin treatments: promising evidence, and a regulatory question

    Exosomes are extracellular vesicles applied to or injected into skin, and the published human evidence is early but consistently positive on elasticity, wrinkles, hydration and pigmentation. In South Korea there is a prior question that matters more than efficacy: many exosome products are registered as cosmetics rather than drugs, and the health ministry's stated position is that injecting a non-drug product into the body is contrary to medical law.

    Updated 2026-11-02