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Woman, 33, Says Post-Facelift Swelling Left Her Unrecognizable

Australian influencer Ruby Tuesday Matthews documented her dramatic recovery after undergoing a facelift in South Korea.

Ruby Tuesday Matthews is giving her 245,000 social media followers an unfiltered look at the aftermath of a recent cosmetic surgery procedure.

The 33-year-old content creator traveled from Byron Bay, Australia, to Seoul, South Korea, for an endoscopic lift, a minimally invasive facelift technique that uses small incisions to lift sagging eyebrows and smooth forehead wrinkles.

Matthews said she initially thought she might also need to undergo a blepharoplasty (eyelid surgery), but her surgeon decided the lift alone could achieve the look she wanted.

“The goal was never to change the way I look,” she wrote in a post on Instagram stories. “I wanted to keep my face and my features—just look a little more refreshed and awake, while addressing some of the volume loss through my face.”

She also explained in a video that she didn’t want to add a “cat-eye” or “fox-eye effect,” and that she just wanted her surgeon to work with her natural features.

Matthews, who posts fashion, beauty, lifestyle, and parenting content, said the surgery took four hours. She then returned to her hotel to sleep before going to the clinic the next morning to have her drain and tape removed.

Then came an unexpected problem: her iPhone no longer recognized her.

“I literally had to go to the Apple Store in my pajamas looking like this and reboot my whole phone because there was no way it was recognizing my face,” she said.

The swelling only got worse.

“Day one post-surgery and I stupidly thought this was as swollen as I was going to get,” Matthews wrote. “Little did I know I was about 24 hours away from inflating like a f***ing balloon.”

By day three, Matthews said, “My face has never been this swollen.”

She described the sensation as “uncomfortable” but said she wasn’t experiencing major pain. She also said she slept sitting up during recovery.

Matthews booked the procedure through Beauty Hopper, a Korean concierge service that she said helped arrange her surgeon, pre-operation testing, and translation appointments.

Her surgery was performed by Dr. Moon Hyung Suk at Ilchi Plastic Surgery.

The influencer’s transparency prompted criticism from at least one follower, who told her it was “sad” that she felt she needed surgery.

Matthews posted a screenshot of the private message to her Instagram story, where the follower also wrote to her saying her experience was “not a good example for women in general” and that she “should be ashamed of [herself].”

The influencer pushed back.

“I obviously didn’t have to share any of this,” she wrote. “I could have disappeared for a few weeks and pretended nothing was ever done, but transparency with my community is important to me.”

“I thought I was beautiful before and still do,” she added. “I haven’t had surgery to change my face or become anyone else. I simply wanted to look a little more refreshed, and my literal reference was a photo of myself five years ago.”

Matthews is a mother of three. She shares sons Rocket, 9, and Mars, 8, with her ex-partner, photographer Ryan Heywood. She and her fiancé Shannan Dodd share a daughter, Holiday, 3.

Matthews and Dodd are also business partners, having co-founded clothing brand Robey and fine-jewelry brand Toujours, which specialized in lab-grown diamonds.

For now, Matthews is making clear that the swollen face seen in her videos isn’t the finished result.

“What you’re seeing now is swelling, not a new face,” she wrote. “I won’t be ashamed for being honest about something I could very easily have hidden.”

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Matthews has not shared updates since responding to her follower’s comment.

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Pia BelloBeauty & Wellness Intern

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