Photos of a Chinese actress' unsuccessful cosmetic surgery went viral on social media on Thursday, February 4. The actress, Gao Lui, has warned about the dangers of such surgery by posting images of her damaged nose on her Sina Weibo account, while netizens began asking for tighter regulation of the cosmetic surgery industry in the country.
Gao appeared in several movies and TV programs. She has been considered a rising star in the country. But Gao has fallen out of the limelight in recent months.
While posting the images, Gao explained that her months-long disappearance was due to a "cosmetic surgical incident". The plastic surgery, which was performed at a clinic in Guangzhou, was unsuccessful. The actress suffered repeated nose infections and nasal necrosis—which means the tissue at its tip of the nose has died.
Horrific Viral Images
Gao shared the unsuccessful nose-job images with her five million social media followers. She said that in October 2020 a friend of hers introduced her to a plastic surgeon at a clinic in Guangzhou, capital of South China's Guangzhou Province. Later, she decided to go ahead with cosmetic surgery, which is very popular in China.
Gao agreed to the nose surgery as she wanted to get a "slight trim". She thought it would help to boost her career. "The entire procedure lasted four hours. I thought that in these four hours, I would be made more beautiful," she told her millions of followers on the social media platform.
"I didn't expect these four hours to be the beginning of a nightmare," she added.
After the surgery, Gao said her nose felt "irritated and tingly". Later, she experienced repeated infections. But Gao was told that she would be able to resume her work by December last year or January 2021.
But instead of improvement, the situation became worse. Gao said: "The skin on the tip of my nose... became darker and darker, and my nose became necrotic." The horrific situation led the actress to develop suicidal thoughts.
She ended up being hospitalized for months and lost around 400,000 yuan ($61,800) in work. She also said that a reconstruction surgery won't be possible for at least a year because of the extent of the damage.
Complaints about the Clinic
According to a popular news website The Paper, the clinic where the surgery was conducted had been going through judicial procedures. An employee at the health bureau in Guangzhou said that the issue is being investigated. It also added that the clinic had already received five administrative penalties between March and October 2020.
Several complaints have been made to the Tianhe District Health Bureau in the city of Guangzhou about the clinic since Gao shared her experience.
However, some social media users also called for those involved in Gao's surgery to be held accountable, while others demanded better regulation in the cosmetic surgery industry in China. Such procedures gained massive popularity in the country, mostly in 2004—after China hosted a beauty pageant specifically for those who had done cosmetic surgery.
According to the South China Morning Post, almost two-thirds of the 20 million people who underwent cosmetic surgery in 2018 were under 30 and one in five were under the age of 21.
However, the growing demand for such surgery also increased the number of clinics operating without certificates and the hiring of unqualified surgeons. But it is not clear what the situation was at the clinic where Gao visited for her surgery.
