It's not snip, nip and tuck, but shot and luck

Micro cosmetic surgery has seen a "gush-like develop-ment in China, with the num-ber of service providers dou-bling over the past five years, according to Cao Dequan. deputy secretary-general of the Chinese Association of Plastics and Aesthetics.

The number of provid-ers offering such services in China stands at more than 9, 000, twice as many as five years ago, and the number of practitioners in the business has increased at an annual rate of 15 to 25 percent over the past five years, he said.

Unlike invasive surgery, micro cosmetic surgery is per-formed mainly via injections of materials such as Botox and hyaluronic acid. They help reshape the face, flatten wrinkles and brighten the skin.

According to industry forecasts, more than 10 mil-lion doses of the two major injection products — Botox and hyaluronic acid — are expected to be used by government-recognized pro-viders in China this year, com-pared with 4 million to 5 ml-lion doses used five years ago.

That does not include prod-ucts from illegal sources, Cao added.

'Miter two decades of rapid development, public per-ception of plastic surgery in China has changed a lot. And now even those from small cities and rural areas are read-ily accepting such procedures instead of shyly talking about it,' he said. Women aged 35 and younger currently account for the lion's share of the clients in China. according to Cao. "That's totally different from in the United States." In the US. more than 75percent are women over 45.

Notable males are catch-ing up. according to a recent industry report by an app called Xinyang. which is a resource for information on cosmetic medicine and pro-cedures that also lets users bock procedures with parer clinics. The findings are based at an online survey of about 200.000 users and a three-year analysis of the 300.000 orders of muted cosmetic pro-cedures placed via the app.

Of the Chinese clients, 10 percent are men, it found.

Nationwide, an estimated 14 million people will get the procedures in 2017, up by 42 percent from last year, the report said. Globally the yen-on-year increase is projected at 7 percent according to Cao.