More going under the knife to improve luck

SINGAPORE - Even Lady Luck was not on her side in her pursuit to conceive a baby boy.

So Mrs Ang, a mother of three girls, turned to a fengshui master, who advised her to remove a mole under her right eye.

Eager to turn her fortunes around, she went to a plastic surgeon.

"Apparently the 'shifu' said that the mole below my right eye was in the way... (and) my in-laws are the traditional type," said the 37-year-old, who declined to give her full name.

Like Mrs Ang, more people are choosing to go under the knife not only to look pretty but also get lucky, say plastic surgeons and aestheticians that My Paper spoke to.

Requests range from sharpening nose bridges by injecting fillers or rhinoplasty, to smoothening hands with laser treatments.

Overall, numbers for such cases remain small but aesthetic and plastic surgery clinics have seen more customers coming through their doors over the years.

Prive Clinic, for instance, receives about three to five queries every month from customers who want to improve their lot. In 2010, there were only about one to three such requests every three months.

Similarly, plastic surgeon Wong Chin Ho sees about one case every month, up from about two cases a year five years ago.

"The nose is definitely the most common, with the usual request being to make the nostrils less visible from the frontal view and making the tip of the nose more 'fleshy'," said Dr Wong. "A more bulbous (nose tip) is a sign of fortune and prosperity."

He added: "Advanced techniques in plastic surgery are predictable and safe - not just with surgery, but with more minimally invasive techniques like fillers to the nose... This gives confidence as well as motivation (for patients) to undergo these procedures."

The medical director of Freia Medical, Harold Ma, said that patients are convinced that "looking more symmetrical and proportionate" will help them to get ahead in their careers, love life and personal relationships.

An increasingly competitive and stressful workplace may also push people to want to look better.

Vincent Yeow from Dream Plastic Surgery said: "In an increasingly competitive and stressful society, a little bit of supernatural help and prescribed physiognomy by tweaking a person's appearance might be able to provide an edge or influence."

While some may suspend belief on the effectiveness of such procedures, Mrs Ang's mole removal two years ago seemed to have paid off.

In March this year, she gave birth to another child.

Mrs Ang said: "My relationship with my in-laws has improved. That, to me, is considered lucky, I guess."

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