A common worry before any facelift is the scar: where will it sit, and will anyone see it? A mini facelift is built around a short incision that tucks in front of and behind the ear, hugging the natural folds where the ear meets the face. The honest answer is that the scar is placed to hide and kept deliberately short — but how well it heals still 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.
I had upper and lower eyelid surgery and I’m really satisfied. The director and the manager were both so kind and clear.
I started with under-eye fat repositioning — the director and the manager are genuinely kind and good at what they do. I’ll be back.
I came on a referral and was very satisfied thanks to the doctor’s kind consultation and clear explanations. The nurses were friendly too.
I kept reading the reviews and came trusting the many mentions of skill and kindness. The clinic was busy with patients and spotless.
The mini facelift is reached through a short incision that runs in front of the ear and tucks behind it — a pre- and post-auricular line. It follows the border where the ear meets the face and curves into the crease behind the ear, which is precisely where a scar is easiest to keep out of view. It is not a line across the open cheek or the front of the neck. There is one such line on each side, mirroring around each ear.
Through that access the surgeon lifts the cheek and softens the nasolabial fold using a more superficial dissection than a full facelift. Because a mini lift addresses the cheek and mid-face rather than the whole neck, the incision does not need to extend far into the lower hairline, so it stays short. A shorter incision means simply less scar to heal — one of the practical reasons a mini lift appeals to patients whose main concern is scarring.
If you want the full picture of how the procedure is planned and performed, the mini 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 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 at about ten days, with the exact timing confirmed for your case.
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 settles gradually over the same window, and swelling in the cheek continues to resolve, so the lift you see keeps improving alongside the scars.
By six to twelve months, most mini facelift scars have matured: paler, flatter and softer, fading into the natural creases around the ear. 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 mini 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 around the ear matter in the first months. Be gentle with the area: avoid heavy lifting, vigorous exercise and anything that tugs at the cheeks 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. The same care logic runs through the wider mini 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, 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 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 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 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 facelift, where the scar's placement in the ear creases does much of the hiding, 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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