What is RealSelf?

Our Mission

To build the most trusted community around the entire journey one takes with any medical-beauty decision.

What We Do

RealSelf is a community dedicated to helping people make the right health & beauty choices. Our members share personal experiences and opinions on important elective decisions related to: cosmetic dermatology, plastic surgery, cosmetic dentistry, massive weight loss, hair replacement, and vision correction. 

Most of these considerations are expensive, unfamiliar, and highly personal. Ask a friend for a hair stylist recommendation, you’ll get one. Ask for advice on whether a laser treatment called “Fraxel” is worth it, you’re likely to get a blank stare or possibly a look of disapproval. 

Our community closes this gap while honoring any desire or need for you to remain anonymous and purposely disconnected from friends on Facebook.  The people who power RealSelf share a spirit of openness, compassion, and aspiration to be their best self.

What About the Doctors on RealSelf?

Doctors are an integral part of the RealSelf experience. To fully understand options, alternatives, and potential candidacy for a treatment, our members like to hear from medical experts.

We selectively invite in physicians who are qualified specialists—based on training, board certification, and experience. Numerous authorities in medicine recognize RealSelf for its advocacy of patient safety, ethics, and our doctor participation standards.

How Do You Get the Real Story?

RealSelf uncovers information that’s left out of marketing brochures and product websites: everything from actual prices to how much pain can be expected.  We call this the real story. The real story is told by three core elements of the site:

1. Consumer Reviews

Tens of thousands of people have posted reviews on RealSelf to evaluate their outcome from a cosmetic treatment. In addition to expressing opinions on whether it was "worth it", reviews include doctor ratings, personal stories, cost information, photos, and video diaries. Our Worth It Ratings are the quickest way to see the overall community opinion on a cosmetic procedure.

Think your procedure was worth it? Share your experience.

2. Expert Q&A

More than 4,000 doctors (including board-certified plastic surgeons, dermatologists, ophthalmologists, bariatric surgeons and cosmetic dentists) share their expert knowledge on RealSelf by answering questions posted by consumers.  Doctors have already provided hundreds of thousands of answers, doing so on an entirely unpaid and voluntary basis. Try it out...it's free and easy: ask an expert.

3. Before and After Photos

Each month RealSelf visitors view millions of before and after pictures - depicting everything from minor cosmetic dentistry to more extensive cosmetic procedures like tummy tucks and body lifts. These pictures help you understand what's possible from a cosmetic procedure. People love to view the galleries of pictures posted by doctors as well as photos posted by community members in reviews and questions. 

Why We Started RealSelf

750,000 hotel reviews about the towels, none about laser treatments. 

Tom Seery founded RealSelf.com after his wife pointed out that it was easier to get informed about hotel towel quality using sites like TripAdvisor.com than finding consumer opinion about a $2,000 laser skin treatment. That just didn’t seem right. Tom realized that there needed to be a resource for the millions of individuals who were looking for more information about elective cosmetic treatments. After all, we look online for reviews about movies and restaurants - decisions that are far more insignificant than a life-changing cosmetic procedure. Shouldn’t we have more answers when it comes to our own bodies?

By creating a forum to share opinions and experiences about cosmetic procedures, and providing real expert answers to important questions, RealSelf aims to empower consumers into making a decision that’s right for them.

Want to learn more?

• See what our fans have to say
• Follow us on twitter
• Check out our press coverage