Have you spent money for your face? How much did it cost?
Author: Li Chun
A few days ago, in a variety show, three celebrity couples gathered in a small mountain village to relive the happy time of the "two-person world".
There was a supermodel in it that amused many people.
When praised for being young, the female artist bluntly said: "My face is spent money."
This frankness really adds to the show "Laughing Fruit".
From this, we can also think of a problem: now more and more people are willing to spend money for their own beauty, not only their faces, but also physical shaping; more and more young people are willing to spend this money , And not limited to women.
The picture shows a doctor using a hot and cold steaming facial device to treat a female college student with acne-removing and cleansing care.
Photo by China News Agency reporter Zhang Daozheng
Statistics show that the trend of medical cosmetology in China is becoming more and more obvious.
The medical beauty industry maintained a rapid growth of 29% between 2015 and 2019, which was significantly higher than the world average of 8%.
According to the annual report released by the China Plastic Surgery Industry Association, China's plastic surgery market will reach 300 billion yuan by 2022.
What are the most popular medical cosmetology projects at the moment?
Which groups are willing to spend money on medical beauty?
What is the motivation for consumption?
A reporter from Chinanews.com chatted with several familiar medical aesthetic practitioners and consumers.
Ms. Wang is a graduate of a medical school with a high degree of education. She has been working in a medical beauty hospital in Beijing for more than three years, focusing on injection fine-tuning, body shaping and laser projects.
She introduced that many of the company's clients are actors, and some are corporate executives who have high demands on their own beauty.
Other clients are young men and women recommended by friends, who have a certain plan for face and body shape.
Are there any elders who come to do "beauty"?
Yes!
Not only are there, but more and more.
In fact, male consumers have become an important support for the "value economy".
The "2020 White Paper on China's Medical Beauty Industry" pointed out that the proportion of male medical beauty consumers and their spending power are on the rise. In 2020, the average customer unit price of male medical beauty consumption has exceeded that of women by several times.
Ms. Wang also said that the number of customers has been relatively stable in recent years, and there has been a trend of getting younger and more men.
"Men's requirements for their appearance are getting higher and higher, and people are starting to maintain their appearance earlier and earlier."
In addition, the medical beauty services purchased by these men are not only to save the dwindling hairline and the increasingly obvious "Mediterranean", but also anti-aging facial features with anti-wrinkle and non-invasive equipment.
In this age of "looking at appearance", more and more men also hope to improve skin firmness, restore skin elasticity and facial contour lines, and make themselves look more energetic.
In the past, when medical beauty was mentioned, people might first think of plastic surgery.
But now, body shaping has also become a rapidly growing field in the medical aesthetics industry.
Some people are not obese, but are not satisfied with a certain part of the body, such as butterfly sleeves, fat on the inner thighs, sagging buttocks and so on.
Surgery or non-surgical shaping treatment can play a role in local weight loss, and it provides the possibility for beauty lovers to "carve" their bodies.
Deloitte recently released a report entitled "China Body Sculpting Market Industry Development White Paper 2021". One of the data changes is worth paying attention to: From 2018 to 2020, the amount of Chinese consumers spent on body items accounted for the total expenditure on medical beauty items. The proportion of the amount has been increasing year by year, from 28% to 46%, and the willingness to invest in the body is growing rapidly.
Even so, there are still more people spending money on their faces by comparison, and Ms. Li, who currently lives in Beijing, is one of them.
Since January this year, she will go to the beauty clinic for photorejuvenation once a month.
Talking about why the money should be spent, she replied: “Because of age...some skin problems cannot be solved by skin care products.”
The reason why Ms. Chen received medical aesthetics services was the anxiety of "fear of aging" as she grew older.
This year is the fourth year that she has entered the "three-character head".
"I'm paying for my mentality, but I haven't been able to calmly accept the matter of getting old, and I can't think that my wrinkles will deepen and my face will droop."
Delaying aging is a major consumer motive for medical beauty.
Ms. Wang also revealed that medical beauty consumers between the ages of 20 and 30 mainly adjust their skin texture and contours according to their own conditions, generally for better appearance.
The age group above 30 to about 60 years old, on the basis of solving skin problems, takes different degrees of anti-aging as the treatment theme.
Another major motivation for the consumption of medical aesthetics is to be "planted" by others' curative effects.
At first it sounds a bit like following the trend of consumption, but from another aspect, it can also reflect people's open mind to medical beauty.
Ms. Chen said that when they went out for dinner with their friends, they would chat about the topic of medical beauty and would like to share relevant experiences.
When asked if she was worried about others knowing that she had spent money for beauty, Ms. Chen said bluntly: "Then I am not worried." Ms. Li also said that "it doesn't matter": "I will give someone else'Amway'."
However, these two medical aesthetic consumers who have already "entered into the pit" coincidentally said that if they choose between "quick results but invasive" and "non-invasive but slow results", they are more inclined to choose the latter.
The reason is also very simple: it feels safer, and the psychological threshold will be lower.
According to Ms. Wang's observation, most people currently receiving medical beauty treatments are more inclined to "light medical beauty", that is, beauty items that have natural effects and use non-surgical medical methods.
For example, many people prefer non-invasive lipolysis equipment to liposuction to lose weight.
"Although the effect is slower, the effect is also very stable. The important thing is that the risk is relatively small."
She also said that people nowadays have more of a concept that looks and body management can better reflect a person's self-requirements and living conditions than clothing and luxury goods.
Doing good looks and body management will bring more confidence and greater influence to yourself.
Although the words are good, careful reading of the meaning behind it seems to reveal a trace of the secular view of appearance in today's society.
A related report pointed out that increasing personal competitiveness in the workplace is also a major motivation for medical aesthetics consumption.
"Appearance is justice." In some industries, people with better looks and body management may have better development opportunities.
Not only dare to pursue beauty openly, but also feel like being urged to pursue beauty.
Ms. Chen has this kind of contradictory psychology: "On the one hand, I think I can get beautiful, which is also very good. On the other hand, I suspect that this is my need, or there are social expectations in it, that is, the society treats girls. There are expectations for your appearance.” There are many benefits to staying young, but it is similar to a kind of “squeeze”, “because people are old, and wanting to stay young will make people anxious.
In the contradiction between bravery and anxiety, "tolerance for self-pleasure" and "tolerance for self-pleasure" exist at the same time.
However, no matter who it is, there are still many people who are willing to spend money for beauty.
This is undoubtedly good news for the development of the medical aesthetics industry.
According to statistics, the penetration rate of China's medical beauty projects in 2019 is 3.6%, which is significantly lower than that of the United States, Japan, South Korea and other countries.
The market generally believes that there is still huge room for growth in medical aesthetics in China.
Ms. Wang also believes that as a wider range of people understand and affirm rational medical aesthetics, the development of the medical aesthetics industry will get better and better, and the room for "appearance economy" will become greater.
But she also admitted that the industry still needs to continuously improve itself and eliminate some non-compliant corners and corners.
For example, the actress Gao Liu's failure to undergo plastic surgery before has caused disputes, and the society has paid wide attention, which shows that the development of the industry needs to be more standardized and benign.
In the future, with the gradual improvement of the rigid requirements of laws and regulations and the entry of medical aesthetics into university courses, it is believed that the overall quality of the practitioners will become higher and higher.
"Legal and compliant institutions, well-qualified and experienced doctors, and reliable related equipment and products are indispensable." Ms. Wang said that all medical behaviors will bring more or less risks, even before treatment. Will tell you about possible adverse reactions repeatedly, you must have a full understanding.
"The treatment effect cannot be exaggerated, and the treatment risk cannot be weakened. It should be the basic principle of the industry." She told reporters.