Does the procedure leave you with any noticeable scars?

Yes, if you are having the typpical endoscpoic surgery. There is one larger incision maybe 2" long and several - 3 or 4 smaller incisions. Depending on your skin type they may fade to be barely noticible.

There is a "spider" surgery that some offer, it has one incision by the belly button and hides the scar. Not every surgeon offers it though.

Completely depends on your skin type and how your body scars.

My scars from my lapband in 2006 are virtually invisible, except for the (much larger than the others) port scar. I'm not healed up enough yet to know about the scars this time around, but they were much smaller than my band or GB scars so I suspect they will virtually disappear.

FYI, African Americans (I'm assuming from your avatar pic) are about 20% more likely to keloid than Caucasians.

I'm white, and my port scar has now been opened 4 times. The first and second time the scar was hypertrophic (like a keloid, but doesn't go beyond the injury), then gradually went down over several years. It's fairly flat now, and the portion that was re-opened for the sleeve is not showing any signs of being hypertrophic this time.

Hope this helps.

They've now done the VSG through the vagina. I don't see how that could be preferable to a few scars (my biggest is maybe an inch).

Yes, if you are having the typpical endoscpoic surgery. There is one larger incision maybe 2" long and several - 3 or 4 smaller incisions. Depending on your skin type they may fade to be barely noticible.

There is a "spider" surgery that some offer, it has one incision by the belly button and hides the scar. Not every surgeon offers it though.

They've now done the VSG through the vagina. <img src='http://www.bariatricpal.com/public/style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/wacko.png' class='bbc_emoticon' alt='' /> I don't see how that could be preferable to a few scars (my biggest is maybe an inch).

I hardly see any benefit to that! Imagine the recovery.