My Personal Story

Hi everyone! I'm Julie from the Love Your Seoul Team. I just wanted to share my own personal experience dealing with these struggles of trying to fit in to beauty standards.

Growing up, I was always self conscious and insecure about my face and my body. I was never truly happy with myself because I didn’t fit the idealized standard of beauty here. I had braces, glasses and acne, but in no way does that mean I wasn’t good enough, but that was what I thought… I even decided to buy a self tanner because it was considered beautiful to be tanned here. Good thing, I didn’t end up using it. It wasn’t until I was older and met amazing friends, that were like a caring, support system to me that I learned to be okay with myself, that it was okay to not be perfect. When I moved to Korea for a year, I realized how much their society cared about looks , how everything was so focus on looks…. There were plastic surgery ads everywhere in the subways, stations, stores and even flyers on the ground. Especially in Gangnam district in Seoul, it is the most populated area of plastic surgery clinics. On Korean resumes, job and university applications, they require a photo and I know that is not okay!