Lifestyle

'IT NEVER ENDS'

Influencer Says ‘Aggressive’ Plastic Surgery Procedure Took Years to Heal

She now regrets the approach she took to cosmetic enhancements.

Roosa RahkonenReporter, The Looker

PublishedMar 26, 2026, 3:33 PM EDT

UpdatedMar 26, 2026, 4:04 PM EDT

Updated Mar 26, 2026, 4:04 PM EDTPublished Mar 26, 2026, 3:33 PM EDT

A beauty founder wrote about her regret over eyelid surgery that left her with years of complications.

Influencer Chriselle Lim, 40, detailed her plastic surgery journey over two posts on Off the Grid, her Substack about beauty, motherhood, and personal growth.

“I look at that time in my life with more curiosity and compassion than judgment,” she wrote. “As I mentioned in that post, I’m not here to promote surgery. I’m here to have an open conversation about my relationship with beauty…the good, the complicated, and the parts I deeply regret."

Lim first went under the knife for a double eyelid surgery at just 16 years old. With time, however, her eyelids naturally began to droop.

“People constantly asked if I was tired,” she wrote. “And when your face is your work, that disconnect between how you feel and how you look starts to matter.”

In 2022, Lim chose to undergo another eyelid surgery with a plastic surgeon in Los Angeles whom she discovered through a referral. She now says this was a mistake.

“I did too much at once,” she wrote, detailing that she underwent a series of procedures, including eye-lengthening surgery (in which the outer corners of the eyes are elongated), ptosis correction (to help with dropping eyelids by tightening the muscles), and a double eyelid surgery (to create an eyelid crease), all at once.

“Looking back, it was too aggressive for my body,” she wrote. She detailed that the surgery was followed by multiple infections, and her crease flipped, resulting in her having to undergo multiple additional procedures.

“It was, honestly, a traumatic experience,” she wrote, adding that her recovery took years, with the swelling alone lasting for almost two.

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Had she known how the journey was going to look, she wrote, she would have taken a different approach or skipped the surgery completely.

It took Lim four years to feel at peace with her results, but she is now pleased with her “brighter” and “more open” eyes.

Lim also chose to reverse some of her cosmetic enhancements. After years’ worth of dermal filler injections that she began getting while in college, she noticed the tweaks were totaling up to an undesirable result.

“By my mid-30s, I constantly felt like my face looked puffy,” she wrote, adding, “My face started to take on that ‘pillow’ look.”

Her dermatologist encouraged Lim to dissolve all of her filler, and she loved the results.

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“For the first time in a long time, I saw my real face again. And I actually loved it.”

After dissolving her filler, she was reminded of her under-eye fat pads that she had masked with filler. Despite her past experience, which left her “terrified,” Lim opted for a fat transfer to her under-eyes. The experience was positive.

“The recovery was smooth. Minimal bruising. Within a week, I was back out, feeling like myself again,” she wrote. “I wish I had done this sooner instead of trying to ‘fix’ things with filler for years.”

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Lim felt her journey had taught her an important lesson, writing, “At some point, you have to draw the line. Because if you keep searching for perfection, it never ends.”

Roosa RahkonenReporter, The Looker

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