Adelaide influencer Blake Butler reveals new face amid surgeons’ cosmetic tourism warning
An Adelaide influencer says overseas plastic surgery has changed her life, but local surgeons warn more cosmetic tourists are returning home with botched nose and boob jobs.
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Adelaide influencer Blake Butler is “addicted to plastic surgery” after travelling to South Korea for life-changing transition surgery, but local surgeons warn growing numbers of cosmetic tourists are returning home with botched nose and boob jobs.
Blake Butler turns heads as she sashays through Marion Shopping Centre and the six-foot-tall Glamazon revels in the attention.
The Adelaide influencer and makeup artist was struggling with self confidence when she first started transitioning to a woman eight years ago but now loves sharing her new body with almost 32,000 followers on YouTube.
Follower numbers surged after Blake recorded a first trip to South Korea’s ID Hospital in 2019 for extensive facial feminisation surgery including jaw, forehead and nose work that transformed her life.
The first video documenting the process amassed 1.4 million views.
“I was 21 at the time and I had waited 21 years to become a woman,” she says.
“It definitely exceeded my expectations.”
By the time Blake returned to South Korea in September last year for more procedures ranging from breast surgery to a jaw lift, she was deemed an important influencer and received the surgery for free.
Now Blake is used in DocfinderKorea promotions and she labelled the latest video she made tracking her cosmetic tourism journey as “I’m Addicted to Plastic Surgery”, telling how she wants to return for more breast augmentation.
“I want them to be like J-Woww’s from Jersey Shore (reality TV series), Miami, 2009,” the 26-year-old says with a laugh.
“But I am so happy with my results, it’s changed my life, I have new-found confidence, before I was a shell of who I am now … I feel beautiful most of the time.
“I feel like there’s plastic surgery syndrome where you just want more and more which eggs me on to keep on going back to Korea.”
While Blake’s story is a happy one, Australian surgeons are warning of contrasting horror tales as they see growing numbers of cosmetic tourists returning home with botched jobs.
Australian Society of Plastic Surgeons chief Dr David Morgan lays some blame on strict new guidelines that came into effect for local surgeries in July last year.
They make advertising rules more stringent and referrals compulsory, alongside existing strong follow up and cooling off periods that Dr Morgan says can make overseas trips for cosmetic surgery more attractive for some patients.
He claims the changes also make room for more aggressive advertising campaigns from overseas surgeries targeting those less cashed up locals wanting a fresh face.
Korea has emerged as a hotspot for gender transition surgery, Turkey for nose jobs and hair transplants and Thailand for Brazilian butt lifts with paid influencers flooding social media platforms like TikTok to promote cosmetic tourism.
Dr Morgan says the targeted advertising is having a big impact on the local industry.
“There’s a sector of the market place focusing more on price and experience than they are on safety and outcomes,” he says.
“We have significant concerns, cosmetic surgery is real surgery, there’s no difference having rhinoplasty done (a nose job) than having a gallbladder taken out, there are always risks of complications.
“Our concern with this is about safety, not only do people risk their lives but often the outcomes are less than desired and that needs to be managed in Australia when they return.”
Dr Morgan says Australian plastic surgeons have seen an uplift in the number of badly executed surgeries they have fixed over the past 12 months and are hearing many overseas operations are happening with inadequate consultations and follow ups.
“What’s always fascinating is they (patients) are almost ashamed to admit they have gone overseas and it has gone wrong,” Dr Morgan says.
Blake is well aware of the risks of cosmetic surgery but says her own experience is not reflective of Dr Morgan’s concerns.
When her first facial feminisation surgery was performed including having her jaw made more angular, her nose changed and facial laser liposuction performed at id Hospital in South Korea, she was not nervous.
There was a video call, texts and photographs sent beforehand and any fear was quelled by how important it felt to have the surgery.
Blake only stayed in hospital overnight after the operation and then in a nearby hotel for 17 days so she could receive regular check ups before returning home.
“I loved South Korea so much I wanted to move there,” she says.
“I love the people, the food, and there is no judgment …. Surgery is more common in South Korea, more and more people are walking around there with bandages on their faces.
“I think something like over 60 per cent of Korean residents have had some type of rhinoplasty (plastic surgery for their noses).”
But that doesn’t mean the horror stories aren’t being heard. One of Blake’s makeup clients told of returning home from Turkey unhappy with work completed on her nose and complaining about an awful recovery with no support from doctors.
There is a real charm about this makeup artist and influencer that must help draw followers to her content but Blake is serious in saying transitioning to a woman from 18 years of age has not been easy.
It started with bullying in Year Eight at Henley High School where boys began calling Blake offensive names for “being different”, she in turn tried not to be flamboyant and “to make myself as boy” as possible.
By the time she reached Year 12 and 18 years of age, Blake was more determined to ignore the insults and begin transitioning to “look the part of how my insides felt”.
She references famous American drag queen, singer and RuPaul’s Drag Race reality television series host RuPaul to explain.
“I have thousands of people telling me how to live my life and everything I have done wrong, criticising my morals, my beliefs and how I live my life and how they don’t agree with it … often in the worst words,” Blake says.
“But as RuPaul my number one idol says, ‘if they ain’t paying your bills, pay them bitches no mind’.”
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