Onemanda Preisinger experiences worry about her daughter’s impending 13th birthday party. It’s not due to the typical reasons associated with a home packed of loud preteen kids, but since it’s the first time she will debut her new face to friends and extended family. “Obviously I’m going to tell all guests as they arrive, ‘Just so you know, this is not the way I appear,’” states the thirty-year-old real estate agent from south Florida.
How she looks is, well, a somewhat surprising – her face puffed up and preternaturally lifted, as though secured by industrial-grade tape. Her altered – and she’s keen to stress, short-term – appearance is the outcome of six cosmetic procedures, including an minimally invasive facelift, performed by a doctor in Turkey’s Istanbul, last month. “My poor husband became emotional when he saw me for the first time because I wasn’t able to even open my eyes. That indicates puffy I was,” she explains to me via video call from her home. “I had to tell him: ‘Honey, I’m fine, I’m not hurting. I just look like someone attacked me.’”
Increasing Popularity of Early Facelifts
According to cosmetic specialists, Preisinger is among a rising count of people electing to undergo a facelift in their 20s and 30s – well over a decade prior to most doctors’ typical patient age range of 40 to 60. (Although most surgeons are eager to highlight the industry edict of: “We address heredity, not age.”) “I have individuals in their late twenties requesting facial lifts,” says based in London cosmetic surgeon Georgios Orfaniotis, a ex-NHS doctor who specialises in the facial area. “It’s a major procedure, and I’m a somewhat worried when I see people choosing it as a personal preference.”
Explaining the Facelift Procedure
A facelift, alternatively called a rhytidectomy, lifts the tissues in the face that begin to droop as we grow older. “Our faces are structured a little like onion layers,” explains based in Kent facial plastic surgeon Marc Pacifico. “Dermis and adipose on the top, then a stratum of supportive tissue known as the SMAS. Think of the SMAS as the soft tissue skeleton of the face. And that’s what causes aging; that is what loosens and sags and drags the dermis down with it.”
You risk performing surgery on individuals that have deeper issues. It’s not advisable for an conscientious surgeon to follow
Previously reserved of moneyed older people, “filler fatigue” – when excessive use of injectable gels expands the face and leads to laxity in the skin – combined with the common adoption of slimming medications, cut-price surgical travel, and the development of new, celebrity-endorsed operative methods are driving a new kind of patient towards this major operation. Statistics indicate an 8% increase in facelifts over the last year in the United Kingdom; while a study found that the portion of youthful candidates is growing, with 32% of facelifts now performed on patients aged 35-55.
“People are asking now to appear as the optimal form of themselves and naturally the methods are following,” says Orfaniotis. Currently, the trending procedure is the deep plane facelift, a technique promoted by figures including reality TV star Kris Jenner, to style creator Marc Jacobs.
Deep Plane Technique
While a more traditional rhytidectomy entails elevating the SMAS, the comprehensive lift releases the underlying structures underneath, enabling doctors to reshape the face by repositioning the underlying layers, and preventing the tight, stretched appearance sometimes wrought by more traditional techniques. “We’re not putting tension on the skin because we’re targeting deeper, to the deeper tissue,” says prestigious London plastic surgeon Rajiv Grover, who focuses on the deep plane technique. “It is the underlying layers that is repositioned. The skin comes with it as a passenger.” Lifting the whole facial structure as a single unit results in a authentic-appearing and more durable outcome. It also means that the procedure is no longer being used for the express purpose of anti-ageing – or revitalization, as the cosmetic field describes it – but for “enhancement” and contouring, too. “We’re getting many inquiries from clients aged late twenties to mid-thirties for this purpose,” says Grover.
Individual Experience
Preisinger had not intended on getting a facial lift – at minimum not at the thirty years old. But years of using hyaluronic acid dermal fillers in an attempt at “facial balancing” implied that by the time she entered her late 20s, she was “botched”. “I didn’t undergo this because I desired to appear youthful,” she says. “I did it because the filler ruined my face. I regret ever done it. If I didn’t have the filler, I don’t believe I would be where I’m at right now.”
If injectable substances completely disappear has long been a point of contention in the cosmetic field. “Studies have shown that not only do they rarely fully dissipate,” says Grover, “but they migrate and can obstruct drainage pathways. One of the contributors to what we term ‘puffy appearance’ is also the reality that in a sense, the face gets slightly fluid-filled because its ability to drain lymphatic fluid has been reduced.” Although studies into the topic is early-stage, cautionary statements on dermal fillers’ potential impact on the body’s drainage have been issued, and further research announced. One highly regarded facial plastic surgeon, commenting on the condition of anonymity, mentioned he would avoid using fillers in a client because of the dangers they pose. “A lot of surgeons avoid talk about this, because the companies who produce filler can be quite forceful.” He’s been told accounts, he says, of cosmetic doctors being landed with court orders after raising their concerns.
Decision and Procedure
For Preisinger, after beginning injecting filler, she believed she needed to continue replenishing it – especially as it began moving to other parts of her face. She was just 28 when a local plastic surgeon in the state suggested that a face and neck lift might be what she required to finally step off the cycle of treatments. After 24 months, she ended up choosing between a list of suggested accommodations in the city, sent to her by the patient coordinator at her doctor’s clinic.
Initially, Preisinger had scheduled an upper and lower blepharoplasty – better known as blepharoplasty – but her surgeon advised her that a facial lift was the right solution for the looseness she was experiencing in her face. She arranged a forehead lift, a mid-facelift and a jawline surgery. The day before her operation, one day after she’d touched down solo in Turkey, she decided to add a mouth enhancement. “Subsequently the surgeon stated, ‘We will lift the under-eye bags.’ He added, ‘I believe if we remove some buccal fat, it will sculpt your face.’ So I ended up including additional surgeries,” she says. She paid $22,000 (£16,500) for the six-hour operation, including a three-day|
