I spent too much time worrying about my double chin

Staring at the mirror in the bathroom

I think I spent about three months just pulling at the skin under my chin every time I went to the bathroom. You know that specific angle where the bathroom light hits your face just right—or wrong—and makes everything look worse than it actually is? That was my morning ritual. I kept wondering if I should just try those common contouring injections that everyone talks about, or if I should look for something that felt a bit more permanent. The idea of injections seemed easy enough, but I kept hearing that you have to go back five or six times for the results to actually stick, and honestly, the thought of that commitment was exhausting.

The day I walked into the clinic

I eventually made an appointment at a place near Gangnam station. I remember it was raining that day, which made the whole process feel even more gloomy. The consultation room was surprisingly clinical, and the doctor kept pointing at a monitor showing AccuSculpt laser diagrams. He explained that it uses a 1444nm wavelength to melt the fat before using a micro-cannula to pull it out. It sounded way more aggressive than a simple injection, but he kept using phrases like ‘minimal invasive’ and ‘shorter recovery time.’ It cost me somewhere in the range of 1.5 to 2 million won depending on how many areas they addressed, which was definitely a larger expense than the shots I had been eyeing.

Waiting for the swelling to actually subside

They told me the swelling wouldn’t be that bad. That was the first thing I realized was subjective. For the first four or five days, I couldn’t really turn my head properly, and I had to wear this tight compression band under my chin that made me look like I was constantly recovering from a tooth extraction. I remember sitting on my couch watching TV, trying to figure out if my jawline actually looked better or if I was just desperate for it to be worth the trouble. It’s hard to tell when your face is still slightly puffy, and the uncertainty of whether I had done the right thing started to creep in. I felt pretty self-conscious for at least ten days, wearing masks everywhere I went, which I suppose was the only benefit of still living in an era where masks are normalized.

Why I still feel a bit conflicted

It has been about six months now. The line under my chin is definitely smoother than it was when I was obsessively staring at it in the mirror, but I don’t know if I would say it was a night-and-day transformation. There is still a lingering thought that maybe I could have just lost a little more weight or accepted that my jaw isn’t going to be perfectly sharp forever. Sometimes I catch my reflection and think it looks great, and other times I feel like I just went through a lot of hassle for a subtle change. I keep wondering if I should have just left it alone or if the fact that I don’t think about it as much anymore is the actual result I was paying for. I don’t really have a clean answer for whether it was worth the money, but at least I stopped pulling at my neck in the bathroom mirror every morning.