A common worry before any facelift is the scar: where will it sit, and will anyone see it? A full deep-plane facelift is built around a longer incision than a mini lift — running from the temporal hairline, around the ear, and along toward the jawline — because it reaches more skin and the deeper support layer. The honest answer is that the scar is placed to hide in the hairline and the ear's natural folds, but how well it heals depends on your skin, your aftercare and the surgeon's technique.
Garnet is well known for neck-wrinkle and lifting surgery. The facility is excellent and I’m thoroughly satisfied with the friendly consultation and the surgeon’s skill.
Director Baek In-soo, thank you so much. Thanks to you I keep getting told I look younger — it feels like I’ve gone back to my younger days.
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A full deep-plane facelift is reached through an incision that runs from the temporal hairline, curves down in front of and around the ear, and continues toward the jawline. It follows the border between the face and the ear, tucks into the crease behind the ear, and blends into the hairline — the places where a scar is easiest to keep out of view. It is longer than a mini lift's incision because a full lift reaches more skin and the deeper support layer of the face. There is one such line on each side, mirroring around each ear.
Through that access the surgeon works on the deeper layer of the face. A full facelift uses a deep-plane and dual-plane release of the SMAS — the supportive sheet of tissue beneath the skin — repositioning that layer to lift the cheek and jawline. Because the lift is carried by the deep layer, the skin itself is laid back without being stretched tight, so it can be closed gently. That gentle, low-tension closure is one of the technical reasons the resulting scar tends to stay fine, even though the incision is longer.
If you want the full picture of how the procedure is planned and performed, the full facelift overview walks through the technique, and this page then goes deeper on the one thing most patients ask about: the scars.
In the first one to two weeks, the incisions are closed and supported while the skin edges knit together. The lines look fresh — slightly raised, pink or red — and the area around the ear and along the jawline is firm, swollen and often numb. This is the wound doing exactly what it should; the redness is increased blood flow bringing in the cells that heal it. At Garnet the sutures are removed in stages, at about ten days and again around fourteen days, with the exact timing confirmed for your case, because a longer incision is closed and released thoughtfully rather than all at once.
Over the following weeks to about three months, the scars usually flatten and the colour begins to fade from red toward pink. The line can feel firm or slightly raised as collagen remodels underneath — this firmness, sometimes called the 'hardening' phase, is normal and not a sign that something is wrong. Numbness around the ear and jaw settles gradually over the same window, and swelling continues to resolve, so the lift you see keeps improving alongside the scars.
By six to twelve months, most full facelift scars have matured: paler, flatter and softer, fading into the hairline and the natural creases around the ear and jaw. Scars continue to refine slowly even beyond a year. Because the same surgeon at Garnet reviews you at 1, 3 and 6 months, each line is assessed at these stages, and any guidance is tailored to how yours is actually maturing rather than a generic timeline. The wider full facelift recovery timeline covers swelling, activity and what is normal alongside the scars.
Good scar outcomes are part technique and part aftercare. Keep the incisions clean and dry as instructed, avoid picking or stretching them, and protect them from the sun once they have closed — ultraviolet light can darken a young scar, so shade, a hat and sun protection over the temple, around the ear and along the jaw matter in the first months. Be gentle with the area: avoid heavy lifting, vigorous exercise and anything that tugs at the cheeks, jaw or the skin in front of the ear early on, since tension across a healing wound can widen the scar.
Your surgeon may recommend silicone-based scar gels or sheets, gentle massage once the wounds are fully closed, or other measures depending on how each line is behaving. These are best started on the surgeon's advice rather than guessed at, because the right step depends on the phase your scar is in — and a scar that runs through hair is cared for slightly differently from the part around the ear and jaw. The same care logic runs through the wider full facelift recovery timeline.
Smoking and poorly controlled health conditions slow healing and can worsen scarring around a facelift incision specifically, so an honest medical history at your consultation helps your surgeon plan around them. For international patients, this aftercare can be guided remotely — you can keep sending photos of the scars after you fly home so they are reviewed at each milestone. How long the settled lift lasts is covered separately on the how-long-it-lasts page.
Normal, expected findings include mild redness, firmness or numbness around the ear and jaw, slight raising of the scar line in the first weeks, and gradual fading over months. Tightness or itching as the line remodels is usually a sign of healing, not failing. Bruising and swelling across the cheek, jaw and upper neck that ease week by week are part of the same picture, and the lift keeps refining as they go.
Reasons to contact the clinic promptly are different: increasing redness spreading outward from the incision, warmth, throbbing pain that worsens rather than eases, discharge or a fever, a sudden collection of blood or swelling on one side, or a scar that becomes markedly thick, raised and itchy beyond the early months (which can suggest a hypertrophic or keloid tendency). None of these are common, but they are worth flagging early because they are easiest to manage when caught quickly.
If you are prone to keloid or thickened scars elsewhere on your body, tell your surgeon before surgery — it changes how the wound is closed and followed, and it matters more for a longer facelift incision than for a small hidden one. A consultation is the right place to raise this, and you can do it from abroad before committing to travel.
Garnet is a single-surgeon clinic in Apgujeong, Seoul. Dr. In-Soo Baek is a board-certified plastic surgeon (Korean medical licence no. 77407) and the only operating surgeon — he plans the incision, performs the deep-plane lift, closes the skin himself and reviews the scars at every follow-up. That continuity matters for scars specifically: the person who knows exactly where each line was placed and how it was closed is the same person assessing how it heals at 1, 3 and 6 months.
Because the clinic caps the day at two surgeries and sees one patient per hour, closure is unhurried and meticulous — and for a full facelift, where a longer incision hides in the hairline, ear and jaw creases, that care at the closing stage is not a detail. Garnet is registered with Korea's foreign-patient programme, so international patients are supported through scheduling, recovery and the remote follow-ups that let the scars be reviewed after you return home.
If your main hesitation is the scar, the most useful next step is an honest pre-assessment. You can send photos and ask exactly where the incisions would sit for your face and how they tend to heal in an online consultation before you plan a trip.
Send photos and your question before you travel. An English-speaking coordinator reviews every enquiry and replies with honest guidance on whether surgery is appropriate, the likely plan and timing.
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