“Some people do three or four treatments in one day”: in South Korea, K-beauty wants tourists’ skin

"Ah, it's incredibly hot at the end!" Mélanie Catel has just had her right cheek lasered. It's the day of the "titanium facelift," a procedure supposed to "stimulate collagen production using three wavelengths," according to Dr. Koh Kyung-duk, chief dermatologist at the Doctor Petit clinic, where the French woman is located in Seoul. With glasses on her nose to avoid looking directly at the laser, the 31-year-old Breton woman, who has been living in South Korea for a year and a half, presents the other cheek. The assistant's movements are rapid, punctuated by the beep-beep of the machine, whose meter indicates that the laser intensity increases as the treatment progresses. "The last minute isn't very pleasant; it really stings," explains the patient, who has been instructed not to overexpose herself to the sun in the hours following the procedure.

At this clinic, foreign clients are welcomed with care. On the second floor of a hotel in the Myeongdong district, right in the center of the capital, a dedicated area allows you to drop off your suitcases, convenient for visitors passing through. The staff speaks Mandarin, Japanese, or English. The catalog includes a comprehensive inventory of procedures to tighten pores, firm skin, or erase wrinkles. Exploring the premises, you come across multiple state-of-the-art devices, a Botox fridge, a room equipped with a hood to evacuate the smell of burnt skin... Around a corner, a transparent box is filled