Before this year’s college entrance examination, to maintain her motivation for preparation, Ling Yue, a senior high school student in Henan, China, enthusiastically made a “post-exam plan list”, and getting a “face-thinning injection” was one of the items on the list.
Ling Yue’s idea of getting a “face-thinning injection” was not a sudden impulse. Since entering high school, due to the hypertrophy of her masseter muscles, her face has taken on an inverted pentagon shape, and her classmates gave her the nickname “Fang Fang” (meaning “square”). On June 22, she spent 1,600 yuan at Zhengzhou People’s Hospital for the “face-thinning injection”. It is the summer vacation, and major hospitals and beauty salons are ushering in a small peak of plastic surgery and beauty treatments. Compared with traditional post-exam “makeovers” such as perming and dyeing hair or getting manicures, medical beauty is becoming a new way for high school graduates to become more beautiful.
Ling Yue’s masseter hypertrophy may be related to frequent chewing of hard foods. Ling Yue said that through online platforms, she learned that among several methods to reduce the masseter muscle, getting a “face-thinning injection” is one of the more effective ones. “There are many students consulting about medical beauty projects after the college entrance examination. Even when the college entrance examination was about to end, many parents had already come to queue up in advance for their children,” said Yang Jun, chief physician of the Department of Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery, Shanghai Ninth People’s Hospital Affiliated to Shanghai Jiao Tong University School of Medicine. He added that the department currently receives more than 100 high school graduates every day, and the number of patients is the largest around the two time points: the end of the college entrance examination and the release of the college entrance examination scores. Among the medical beauty projects chosen by high school graduates, double eyelid surgery, hyaluronic acid nose augmentation, and “face-thinning injection” are relatively common.
The upsurge of medical beauty among high school graduates after the college entrance examination has been increasing in the past five years. Cui Haiyan, chief physician of the Department of Plastic and Aesthetic Surgery, Tongji Hospital Affiliated to Tongji University, said that after the college entrance examination, many candidates are liberated from a long period of depression and hope to enter university life with a new image. At this time, medical beauty projects are equivalent to an “adult gift”.
Many interviewed experts said that in recent years, there have been fewer cases where high school graduates take photos of celebrities and ask for a “perfect replica”. At present, students’ understanding of the diversity of beauty is deepening. Compared with the stereotyped “template-like” facial features, they prefer to improve their appearance based on their own characteristics.
At the same time, parents’ acceptance of their children undergoing medical beauty after the college entrance examination is also increasing. Yang Jun said that some children did well in the college entrance examination, and the whole family took the child to consult about medical beauty projects, wanting to give it as a reward to the child; some children did not perform well in the exam, and parents wanted to help their children in other aspects to add points in terms of appearance.
Shortly after the 2025 college entrance examination, Liu Wanqi, a high school graduate in Zhuzhou, Hunan, spent more than 3,000 yuan on double eyelid surgery in a local private beauty salon. She said that the surgery was done with her mother’s company and got the support of her family.
Some parents who are more open-minded about their children’s medical beauty are themselves loyal users of medical beauty projects. Chen Ranran, who lives in Guangzhou, spent nearly 20,000 yuan on hyaluronic acid nose augmentation in a private medical beauty institution in Guangzhou two months after the 2024 college entrance examination. “My mother had already bought the project for me before the college entrance examination,” Chen Ranran said, adding that her mother often does some photoelectric projects in the same institution.
Chen Youbai, associate chief physician of the Department of Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery, the First Medical Center of the Chinese People’s Liberation Army General Hospital, said that five or six years ago, a mother asked him to perform mandibular angle osteotomy, and she was satisfied with the effect. This year, she brought her daughter who had just finished the college entrance examination to consult about mandibular angle osteotomy. “The child is quite beautiful, but the mother always thinks her mandibular angle is a bit hypertrophic and persuades her to do medical beauty,” Chen Youbai said. A few years ago, it was usually the children who wanted to do medical beauty projects, but their parents did not agree. However, in recent years, there have been many cases where children feel indifferent, but parents hope they can undergo medical beauty. This situation is more common among art students.
But many parents still have reservations about their children trying medical beauty projects after the college entrance examination. Ling Yue said that she got the “face-thinning injection” without telling her parents in advance. Before the college entrance examination, she mentioned her plan to get a “face-thinning injection” to her parents, but they thought it was risky and could not accept it.
On July 14, the reporter, posing as a family member of a high school graduate, visited several private beauty institutions in Beijing. Consultants of several beauty institutions all said that if a person is over 18 years old, he or she can sign independently for medical beauty projects without the accompaniment of a guardian.
In response to this, many experts said in an interview that although high school graduates over 18 years old are legally capable of assuming responsibilities independently, students of this age group are still immature in mind and have little social experience. In general, it is recommended that parents accompany them for medical beauty consultations.
“Changes can only be made on the original basis”
Yang Jun introduced that when evaluating whether a high school graduate is suitable for a certain medical beauty project, it is first necessary to judge whether he or she has obvious facial defects or even congenital deformities. These patients have the need to receive medical beauty surgery. If there is no such situation, it is necessary to further judge whether their demands are feasible based on their original appearance. When designing a medical beauty plan, it is also necessary to comprehensively evaluate in combination with the student’s personality, major, etc.
Cui Haiyan said that regarding whether high school graduates need medical beauty, the “Future” aesthetic facial evaluation system can be used for evaluation. “First, draw a midline from the Yintang (the area between the eyebrows) to the chin. Draw a horizontal line connecting the temples on both sides, and then draw another horizontal line connecting the apple muscles on both sides. The nasolabial folds on both sides are like ‘a left stroke and a right stroke’ respectively, and the overall look is the character ‘ 未 ‘ (wèi, meaning ‘not yet’). If you add the two points of tear troughs or eye bags, it is the character ‘ 来 ‘ (lái, meaning ‘come’).” After constructing the facial framework based on the two characters “未来” (wèilái, meaning “future”), doctors and high school graduates can evaluate the medical beauty demands respectively. Usually, with a full score of 100, high school graduates with a total score of less than 70 are considered to have reasonable medical beauty demands.
When Liu Wanqi had a consultation for double eyelid surgery, the doctor first asked her whether she wanted natural double eyelids or European-style double eyelids. After she replied the former, the doctor gently designed with a toothpick on her eyelid, observed what kind of double eyelids were more suitable, and then asked her if she was satisfied with the current effect after the design.
“Some high school graduates have high expectations after seeing online promotions. I usually tell them that everyone can only make changes on their original basis. If a person obviously has an Oriental skeleton but insists on making European-style facial features through medical beauty, it does not conform to the physiological anatomy of Orientals and may lead to some complications,” Yang Jun said.
“Currently, there is a misunderstanding in the market that double eyelids must be cut into ‘outer double eyelids’ like dolls to be satisfactory, and ‘inner double eyelids’ are considered a failure,” Yang Jun said. Due to the epicanthus in the inner canthus of Orientals, many Orientals’ double eyelids show a “half inner and half outer double” shape. For double eyelid surgery, for girls who like to make up, the eyelids can be slightly wider. But for those who are used to plain faces, too wide eyelids tend to look fake. Therefore, the idea of blindly pursuing “European-style large outer double eyelids” regardless of the actual situation is immature.
Any medical beauty surgery must balance benefits and risks. He further explained with double eyelid surgery as an example: some boys with single eyelids have small eyes, and even have pseudo esotropia and pseudo ptosis. Once double eyelid surgery and inner canthus opening are done, these problems can be improved, which is a great benefit. But some boys with single eyelids have delicate eyes, and single eyelids are their characteristic. “In this case, I will tell him that double eyelids may not be suitable for you.”
“Doctors should control the effect of medical beauty surgery,” said Wang Yongqian, vice president of the Plastic Surgery Hospital, Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences. He believes that doctors have the obligation to inform high school graduates of the risks. “For example, regarding the width of the eyes, we have the facial aesthetic proportion of ‘three courts and five eyes’. If a high school graduate’s demand is to expand the width of the eyes, resulting in exceeding the appropriate proportion, the doctor needs to correct his or her wrong perception.”
Online platforms often play a role in “creating momentum” for some concepts. Wang Yongqian said that the so-called trends of “elf ears” and “innocent eyes” once emerged on the Internet, but these trends do not conform to the aesthetic standards of health, nature, and harmony, and will soon pass. Cui Haiyan also mentioned that some hyped concepts often appear on social platforms, such as anti-aging. Such concepts are somewhat misleading.
“I don’t recommend 18-year-old high school graduates to get skin anti-aging projects,” Cui Haiyan said. The skin is the largest barrier of the human body. Due to excessive skin care, more and more patients have skin sensitivity problems. 18-year-old high school graduates have good skin conditions, and it is difficult to repair and rebuild the skin after it is damaged.
The overwhelming medical beauty advertisements on the Internet are more inducing to 18-year-old high school graduates. “Most of the so-called medical beauty experience sharing posts on the Internet are not real sharing from patients, but there are teams operating behind them,” Chen Youbai reminded. The reporter searched on social media platforms with the keyword “real evaluation of medical beauty projects” and found that most of the search results were “drainage posts”. Liu Wanqi said that when she paid for the double eyelid surgery, the doctor said that if she was willing to take photos for publicity, she could get a 500-yuan reduction in the fee.
Chen Ranran posted a sharing post about her experience of photon after the college entrance examination on a social media platform. When interviewed, she directly said that the post was actually an advertisement for a top three public hospital in Guangzhou. She did undergo medical beauty projects after the college entrance examination, but only had hyaluronic acid nose augmentation. Chen Ranran said that to make the post look more real, she went to the hospital to experience part of the photon project, mainly for some photo shoots. The reward for an advertisement post was 300 yuan.
