Woman Travels to Mexico for ‘Spring Break Deal’ on a Nose Job

TikTok creator Zuri knows all too well how expensive plastic surgery can be in the U.S. — which is why when she decided she wanted a rhinoplasty, she didn’t consider local surgeons.

Zuri, 29, knew it would cost thousands in New York City where she lives and even traveling to another city in the U.S. was very costly. Then she decided if she was already going to travel, why not skip the domestic part and just go international to somewhere appealing?

So Zuri picked Mexico. And she scored a “Spring Break deal” on her surgery in April this year. She paid $4,900, which was $200 off the usual $5,100 fee. (The average cost of rhinoplasty in the U.S. is $7,637, according to the latest statistics from the American Society of Plastic Surgeons.)

It actually was a bit of kismet for Zuri, because she already had a trip planned, and she was able to work her surgery into the agenda after doing some research on a nearby cosmetic surgery facility.

She tells PEOPLE that she “always” wanted to tweak her nose, ever since she was young, so finally having the means and the time to do so — and feeling “brave” enough to go through with it — felt like things were falling into place.

Zuri says that at a person of color she felt like she had to do extra research to find the right doctor and the right facility so that the shape of her nose would end up right in the end. Zuri says she had previously been hesitant to commit to just any doctor for fear of the results not being what she envisioned, because facial structures on Black women are different from those of other women.

She admits she wanted a “Barbie nose,” but she wanted it to fit her face.

Initially, she says she considered going to the Philippines because she felt Filipino facial features were close to Black facial features and that could work. “[In the Philippines,] they take implants, and they use it to build a bridge, but I wanted it to be more natural and take my rib cartilage and use it instead,” she says of why she opted against going to the Philippines.

Never miss a story — sign up for PEOPLE’s free daily newsletter to stay up-to-date on the best of what PEOPLE has to offer, from celebrity news to compelling human interest stories. 

So she selected her doctor in Mexico, who built her a Barbie nose using cartilage from her rib. The result was a slightly upturned tip and a narrower bridge than what she started with. Zuri says that when she first saw her nose, she was slightly surprised by the shape, because the nose was “giving pig” with the way the tip was pointing upward.

“The more I researched, I saw it’s normal for people to place the tip to be high because it’s going to drop over time,” she says.

But she had no idea at that point what she was in for on social media as she started to share her plastic surgery journey with her followers. When Zuri posted a video on TikTok that was five weeks post-op, people flocked to the comments section to share their opinions on the work she had done. While several people complimented Zuri’s new nose, many more had similar thoughts to Zuri’s initial ones about the tip being upturned.

And they were loud about it.

Comparisons to late pop singer Michael Jackson, who was known for his thin, pointed nose, were swift and plentiful.

Rather than be offended by it, Zuri leaned into it. She made further videos referencing Jackson and even briefly changed her profile picture on the social media platform to one of the King of Pop.

“I love MJ. Okay?” she tells PEOPLE. “Michael Jackson is a legend. To be compared to an icon, I’ll take it as a compliment.”

The PEOPLE App is now available in the Apple App Store! Download it now for the most binge-worthy celeb content, exclusive video clips, astrology updates and more!

She does admit, though, that the onslaught of hate comments did briefly make her “second-guess” herself, simply because her critics wouldn’t stop.

“I’m not even going to lie. It made me think,” she says. “I was like, ‘Okay, maybe I am botched. Why did I do this to myself?’ But then I thought, ‘No, the internet is not real. I don’t know these people. These people are strangers, and it’s my life.’ So, I’m a big person that’s into affirmations, and you self-concept. So, I just tried to reassure myself. But I’m not going to lie, in the beginning it was a lot. I didn’t cry. It didn’t get to that point, but it just made me second-guess what I did.”

Zuri, who also started documenting her plastic surgery journey on her YouTube channel, says that once she was more healed — she’s now seven weeks post-op — the tip of her nose started to drop a little more, and she felt more comfortable with her results. Once she was able to tune out the hate and really focus on how she felt about her nose, she was able to truly embrace it, and that’s when she realized she really did get the Barbie nose she asked for.

“Honestly, people aren’t going to like anything that you do, and you can’t make everybody happy,” she says of how everything went down on TikTok and her advice for anyone considering plastic surgery. “I think you should just focus on yourself. If you feel strong about [getting plastic surgery], and that’s something that you really want to do, and you’ve done your research and crossed your T’s and dotted your I’s, you shouldn’t care. Just do it for you. You’re not living for other people. You’re living for yourself. I guess I would say that. Just be strong in what you want to do, and F the haters.”