Men add fizz to race for perfect makeovers

Though men are still in a minority when it comes to cosmetic makeovers, the number of male customers opting for plastic surgeries for cosmetic reasons is increasing steadily, industry sources said.

For most of the men aged between 30 and 50, the onus is more on enhancement of features for improving their masculinity and many of them do this through cosmetic procedures, said Jin Xing, founder and CEO of Soyoung, China's leading e-commerce and social media platform covering cosmetic procedures.

About 17 percent of Soyoung's 30 million registered users are men, while five years ago, men were only of one tenth of the total users, Jin said.

A 25-year-old Beijing resident who asked to be identified as Ming Ming said many people around him, both male and female, have undergone cosmetic procedures.

"When you look good, you feel good," Ming said. "Besides, when you look good, people want to make friends with you. Therefore, it will benefit your career, and you also have better choices for a relationship."

The most popular procedures among men he knows are hair implants, nose jobs, and eyelid surgery.

Ming is now very satisfied with his look after he had his nose, chin and eyelids reshaped through surgeries in the past few years. He has also had nonsurgical procedures, such as abdomen liposuction and facial-contouring injections.

Running an art and performance training agency, Ming said he is considering using dental veneers to have "celebrity-like" smiles.

Wu Wenyun, founder and president of Myoung BeauCare Clinic, a private practice famous for nose and facial procedures, said that an increasing number of men are just as worried about their appearances as women.

Wu used to work at a major military hospital and founded the clinic in 2013. Through his observation, he found that men in first-tier cities are more likely to care about how they look and resort to cosmetic procedures.

About 60 percent of his customers work in the entertainment or fashion industries, where looking good is important for career development. For the rest, some want to be more confident and happy through enhancing appearances; some have cosmetic procedures because they have high expectations for their quality of life, and want to look young and handsome; and some, mostly businessmen, believe that facial contouring and features influence a man's fortune, and want to be luckier through improvement in contouring and features, Wu said.

The male customers at his clinic are mostly aged between 20 and 40.