Surgery · Nose base healing

Alarplasty Scar

Where the line is put, and how it behaves

Gangnam, Seoul | Board-certified plastic surgeon, Dr. Jonghwan Choi
KHIDI-registered for international patients · Apgujeong Rewind

Alarplasty Scar Alar Incision Alarplasty Scar Alar Incision 
Line

Alarplasty scar

Does narrowing a nostril leave a mark you can see?

The short answer

Cutting skin leaves a line, and the incisional method cuts skin. What Rewind controls is where that line lands. The clinic puts it in two positions: inside the nostril, on the floor, and along the natural fold the ala makes against the cheek. Its stated reason is that a line sitting in those places is hard to pick out, because one is out of sight and the other falls into an existing shadow. That is a real advantage and it is not invisibility. The non-incisional route avoids a closure altogether, since it works through a needle opening on the outer alar wall, though it is chosen for its findings and not for its marks.

Everything described here about incision placement comes from Rewind's Korean page for alar reduction. That page gives no suture-removal date, no swelling duration, no anaesthesia and no operating time, so this page carries none of those numbers either. What a line looks like after a year is individual, and no page can preview it for you.

The question behind the question is usually about trade. A wide base is visible to everyone who looks at you; a fine line in the alar crease is visible to you, in a mirror, at close range. For most people that exchange is worth making, and for some it is not. Skin that has thrown keloid or hypertrophic scars before turns the trade sharply the wrong way. That history is therefore asked about early, and it can end the conversation before a date is ever discussed.

Consultation with Dr. Jonghwan Choi at Rewind Plastic Surgery
Fig. 01 — Scar history is asked about at the desk, before a method is discussed
Where

Four positions

The four places an alar operation leaves a mark

Three of them are deliberate and one is a complication. Knowing which is which makes a consultation easier to follow, and it separates a question about skin from a question about contour, the latter belonging with rhinoplasty and the structural work that surrounds it.

position 01
Inside the nostril, on the floor
The incisional route begins here, and this is the opening through which the alar tissue holding the base wide is taken out. A line on the nostril floor faces downward and inward, so it is out of view in every photograph anyone will take of you.
position 02
The fold between ala and cheek
Surplus skin is excised and the closure is laid into the crease the ala already makes against the cheek. A face carries a soft shadow there before any surgery, and a fine line placed inside that shadow reads as part of it. This is the mark people mean when they ask about an alarplasty scar.
position 03
The needle opening of the thread route
The non-incisional method enters through a small puncture on the outer wall of each nostril and passes a special thread to both sides. There is no excision and no closure line, which is the practical difference in marks between the routes. The clinic selects it on findings, describing recovery from it only as quicker.
position 04
The rim, where the risk is a notch
At the nostril rim the thing to watch is not a line but a shape: a small step or notch where tissue was removed. This is listed among the complications of base surgery, it is a contour problem, and it is corrected by further surgery, not by scar treatment.

A nose already carrying an implant has a second scar conversation that has nothing to do with skin, since scar tissue forms around implanted material inside the nose. That belongs to revision rhinoplasty, where the problem is read and quoted on separate terms from a first operation at the base.

Heal

From closure to settled line

How the alar closure is placed, and what happens to it afterwards

Five stages, of which only the first two are in the surgeon's hands on the day. The rest belongs to your skin and to what you do with your face for the following weeks.

01Design

Where the line will fall is decided with the width

The amount of alar tissue to remove and the path the closure will take are settled together at the examination, against the proportions the clinic publishes for base width. Skin thickness is recorded in the same sitting, because thick alar skin closes differently from thin skin and that affects both the plan and the expectation.

02Closure

Excess skin is removed and the edges are set into the fold

Rewind's second published step is the excision of leftover skin, followed by precise suturing that follows the line the ala makes against the cheek. Precision here is the whole game: a closure that wanders out of the fold sits on flat skin, where nothing conceals it.

03Weeks

The early weeks belong to swelling, not to the line

A freshly closed alar base is swollen, and swelling changes how the crease sits. Judging a line in this window tells you little. The clinic publishes no duration for this phase in alar surgery, so the only reliable schedule is the one the surgeon gives you at your follow-up visit.

04Months

A scar keeps changing long after it stops hurting

Published series on alar base reduction treat visible after-effects as the measure of a technique rather than an afterthought; one review follows three approaches across 35 years with that as its subject. Those papers describe other surgeons' patients. What they establish is that scar visibility is a legitimate question to ask a surgeon, and a reasonable one to be answered carefully.

05Review

The line is looked at by the person who made it

This is a single-surgeon practice, so every review of a maturing alar closure is carried out by whoever placed it. A line that thickens, reddens beyond the usual, or pulls at the rim is a reason to come in early, and the response is decided in person.

Dr. Jonghwan Choi operating at Rewind Plastic Surgery, Apgujeong
Fig. 02 — The closure is the part of this operation nobody sees and everybody judges
Rewind

Why placement

Why an alar scar is a question of placement more than of healing

Creams, lasers and patches all arrive after the fact. The one decision that determines how visible an alar line will be was taken in the operating room, when somebody chose where to put it. That is the part worth interrogating at a consultation, and the part that cannot be repeated later.

01Two hiding places

The clinic publishes where it cuts, and both positions conceal

Inside the nostril and inside the alar fold are the two stated positions, chosen because a line there is hard to make out. Naming them in advance is also what allows you to check afterwards whether the closure went where it was supposed to go.

02A route without a closure

Keeping the thread method available means a closure is not compulsory

Where the findings suit it, the non-incisional route narrows the base through a needle opening and leaves no excision behind. A practice holding only one method would have to cut every base it treats. Rewind prices the two separately and selects between them on what the examination shows.

03The refusal

Skin that scars badly is told so, and the operation is declined

A keloid or hypertrophic history changes the arithmetic of trading width for a line, and the answer at this desk can be no. Overseas enquiries are handled in the enquirer's own language from the outset, the clinic holding KHIDI registration for foreign patients, so that conversation happens before anybody buys a flight.

Clinic interior at Rewind Plastic Surgery, Apgujeong
Fig. 03 — The clinic floor in Apgujeong
Theatre

Where the closure is made

Where an alar incision is made and where it is reviewed

Draped preparation of a patient in the procedure room at Rewind

Fig. 04 — Preparation, in the clinic's own procedure room

Private lounge at Rewind Plastic Surgery, Richro Building, Apgujeong

Fig. 05 — The floor where follow-up visits are taken

The clinic sits on two floors of the Richro Building in Apgujeong and works by appointment, opening for consultations at 10:00 and closing at 19:00 on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday, with a shorter Saturday that ends at 16:00. Because one surgeon carries every case, the hand that closes an alar base is the hand that reviews the line it left.

Incisional route: opening on the inner nostril floor
Closure laid into the ala-to-cheek fold
Thread route: needle opening on the outer alar wall
Alar skin thickness recorded before the method is set
Scarring history taken before a date is offered
Operating room on the clinic's own two floors
Closed and reviewed by Dr. Jonghwan Choi
Early review for a line that changes character
Dr. Jonghwan Choi, board-certified plastic surgeon at Rewind

Board-certified plastic surgeon

The closure at your nose base is placed by a surgeon certified by the Korean board in plastic surgery, and reviewed afterwards by the same person. Patients from abroad are treated under KHIDI registration M-2025-01-08-09288.

Routes

The two routes

What the closure route and the puncture route are listed at

Since one route leaves a closure and the other does not, the two published figures belong on a page about marks. They are list prices for a first operation at the base.

Alar reduction, incisionalExcision and closure, with the line set into the ala-to-cheek fold
₩700,000
Alar cinching with a threadA needle opening on each outer alar wall, with no excision and no closure line
₩600,000

VAT is added to both figures and the anaesthetic fee is already inside them. Neither figure is a scar policy: the route is chosen on alar skin thickness, on how much width has to leave and on whether the nostril opening needs resizing, and the marks follow from that choice. A base carrying earlier surgery leaves this list altogether for the revision rates, which run higher, and revising a line that healed badly is assessed on those same terms.

Skin

Skin and scarring

Which skin suits a crease closure, and which skin argues against one

Where the trade usually makes sense

  • A base that overruns its fifth by enough that the width is the first thing seen in a photograph
  • A well-defined fold already present between the ala and the cheek, ready to receive a line
  • Skin with no record of raised, spreading or thickened scars anywhere on the body
  • Someone who accepts that a line will exist and is choosing where it lives, not whether
  • Findings that point to the thread route, where there is no excision to close at all

Where the answer is caution, delay or a refusal

  • Keloid or hypertrophic scarring anywhere in your history, which is the clearest reason this operation is declined here
  • Very thick alar skin in someone who wants an invisible result, since expectation and tissue are pulling in opposite directions
  • A base already within its proportion, where a line would be bought for a change nobody else will notice
  • A nose with an earlier operation or an implant in place, which is read as revision work with its own scarring questions
  • Bleeding or clotting problems, a history of wounds that were slow to close, or anticoagulant medication
  • Pregnancy, breastfeeding, or inflammation active in the nostril lining on the day you are seen
Protect

Aftercare

What protects an alar closure while it is still soft

Rewind's published instructions for this operation are short and every one of them is really about leaving the closure undisturbed. Read in that light they stop sounding arbitrary.

The first days
Nothing goes into the nose
Any discharge is taken away gently with gauze or clean tissue. Putting anything into the nostril is off limits, as is pinching the nose while it is blown; both pull directly across a fresh closure at the moment it is weakest.
Each night
Head up while you sleep
The clinic asks that sleep be taken with the head held high. Less swelling in the base means less tension across the closure line, and tension during healing is the enemy of a fine scar.
About a month
No frames resting on the base
Glasses and sunglasses are kept away from the nose for roughly four weeks. A frame sits and drags precisely where the ala meets the cheek, and steady pressure on a healing line is exactly what it does not need.
Not published
The dates that are not on the page
No suture-removal day and no swelling duration is published for this operation, and recovery from the thread route is described only as quicker. Nothing is filled in here from another procedure. Your review schedule is set by the surgeon.

Alar surgery carries risks worth stating plainly next to a page about marks: infection, bleeding into the tissues, swelling that lingers, alae that settle unevenly, reduced feeling in the nostril skin, a closure that stays legible in the crease, and a notched rim. A poor line can lead to further surgery, and that is quoted from the revision rates. Outcomes differ between individuals and cannot be promised. Tell the surgeon about every previous nose operation, every scar you have had trouble with and every daily medicine before a date is agreed.

Doctor

Professional

A scar is the one part of an operation that keeps reporting on the surgeon for years afterwards. In this clinic the person who placed it is also the person who sits opposite you at every review, which tends to concentrate the mind at the moment the line is drawn.

Dr. Jonghwan Choi, board-certified plastic surgeonRewind,
Peer-reviewed clinical study co-authored by Dr. Jonghwan Choi in the Journal of Craniofacial Surgery
Fig. 06 — Peer-reviewed work, ten papers indexed under his name

Rewind's Doctor

Dr. Jonghwan Choi Medical Director

Where you put the line is
the decision you only get once.

A board-certified plastic surgeon in plastic surgery, with ten peer-reviewed papers indexed under his name and published work in craniofacial and nasal reconstruction.

Board-certified plastic surgeon (Plastic Surgery)
10 peer-reviewed publications
Medical Director, Rewind Plastic Surgery
Korean Society of Plastic & Reconstructive Surgeons
Former chief director, Apgujeong Y&T Plastic Surgery
Korean Society for Aesthetic Plastic Surgery
J Craniofac Surg · JKMS · Arch Craniofac Surg
Korean Cleft Palate-Craniofacial Association
Voices

Google Reviews

What our patients say.

G 5.0 ★★★★★ 40 Google reviews · Rewind Plastic Surgery, Apgujeong — live-synced from Google Business Profile

"There are just way too many cosmetic clinics in Korea and I'm so happy I found Rewind Clinic in Gangnam. Dr. Choi was so kind and patient while explaining the different face-lifting options, from threads to mini-lifts to deep-plane lifts. I've had procedures in Taiwan and the US and now m…"

JJ. S.3 MONTHS AGO · POSTED ON GOOGLE

"Really nice environment. Doctor is easy to communicate and understands my visions. Waited two weeks to make a review and I confirm the results exceeded my expectations and I am super happy with it. Can't wait to come back!! :))"

KKristie Chu3 MONTHS AGO · POSTED ON GOOGLE

"I found Rewind clinic through a Korean chat forum and many local clients highly recommended it. The clinic is brand new, featuring large, clean rooms and many private waiting areas so it doesn't give off that "factory" clinic vibe. All the staff, including the receptionists, nurses, a…"

JJ. Siou3 MONTHS AGO · POSTED ON GOOGLE

"You know how you get self-conscious about your facial contours before going on vacation? I was wondering what I could do to see quick results, and a friend recommended Apgujeong Rewind Plastic Surgery. All the staff were friendly, and the facilities were incredibly pleasant—it felt like a hotel! Val…"

똑똑띠언니A MONTH AGO · POSTED ON GOOGLE · Translated by Google

"I went for a consultation for lip fillers and am leaving this review because I am so satisfied with the results. I told them about the lip line I had always wanted, and they carefully examined my face shape and features to naturally recreate a shape that suited me well. The director definitely has …"

WWang, Ziyuan(경영대학 경영학과) ­2 MONTHS AGO · POSTED ON GOOGLE · Translated by Google
Ask

Questions

Marks after nose base surgery, as patients ask about them

Will an alar reduction leave something I can see?
The incisional method removes skin, so a line exists. Rewind places it inside the nostril and in the fold between the ala and the cheek, positions the clinic describes as hard to pick out. Hard to pick out is not the same as absent, and how any line matures differs from person to person.
Where exactly does the cut go?
Two positions are published. The opening for removing alar tissue is on the inner floor of the nostril, out of sight from the front. The closure that takes up the excess skin follows the crease the ala already makes against the cheek, where a natural shadow sits.
Does the thread method leave a mark as well?
It enters through a small needle opening on the outer wall of each nostril and passes a thread to both sides, with nothing excised and nothing closed. The clinic chooses it on findings, saying only that recovery is quicker. It is not offered as a scar-avoidance service.
How long before an alar line settles down?
Rewind publishes no timetable for this operation, so no week or month figure is given here. What is known from published series on alar base reduction is that visible after-effects are the yardstick surgeons use for a technique. Your own schedule of reviews is set at your follow-up.
What makes a line at the nose base more likely to show?
A personal tendency to keloid or hypertrophic scarring is the largest factor, and it can end the discussion. Beyond that, tension across a healing closure works against a fine line, which is the reason for sleeping with the head raised and for keeping spectacle frames off the base for about a month.
When are the stitches taken out?
The clinic does not publish a removal day for this operation, and nothing is estimated from other procedures on this page. It is confirmed by the surgeon at your first review after surgery, which is also when travel plans can be settled around it.
If the line stays visible, can anything be done later?
A base that has already been operated on is assessed as revision work, with its own examination and its own rates, which sit above first-operation figures. What is realistic depends on how much alar tissue remains and on how your skin behaved the first time, so it is judged in person.
What is a notch at the rim, and is it the same as a scar?
No. A notch or small step at the nostril rim is a contour problem where tissue was taken, and it is listed among the complications of base surgery. Scar treatment does not address it; correcting a rim is a surgical question, discussed on the same terms as any revision.
Booking

Reservation

REWIND,booking

Tell us how your skin has healed in the past and we reply within one business day, in your language.

By sending this inquiry you agree that Rewind Plastic Surgery may use the details above to contact you about your consultation. We keep them only for that purpose.

Scientific evidence

Published work on alar base techniques and their visible after-effects

The first paper takes visible after-effects as its explicit subject across three base reduction techniques followed over three and a half decades, and the second is a technique review of the same operation. The third is here for a different reason: it examines the scar capsule that forms around silicone placed inside a nose, which is the second, internal sense in which a nose can scar and the reason an implanted nose is assessed as revision work. None of the three studies this clinic, and none forecasts how one person's skin will behave.