Onemanda Preisinger feels anxious about her daughter’s impending 13th birthday celebration. Not for the usual reasons associated with a house full of loud adolescent children, but because it’s the first time she will reveal her new face to friends and extended family. “Obviously I’m going to tell everyone as they come in, ‘Just so you know, this is not the way I look,’” states the 30-year-old property agent from south Florida.
Her appearance is, admittedly, a little startling – her face puffed up and preternaturally lifted, as though held together by heavy-duty tape. Her new – and she’s eager to emphasize, short-term – appearance is the outcome of half a dozen cosmetic procedures, such as an endoscopic mid-facelift, performed by a surgeon in Istanbul, Turkey, the previous month. “My spouse became emotional when he saw me for the initial time because I wasn’t able to even unseal my eyes. That indicates swollen I was,” she tells me via online call from her house. “I needed to inform him: ‘Honey, I’m okay, I’m not hurting. I just appear as if someone attacked me.’”
Increasing Popularity of Youthful Facial Lifts
Based on plastic surgeons, Preisinger is among a rising count of people choosing to have a facelift in their twenties and thirties – significantly before a decade prior to typical surgeons’ typical patient age range of 40 to 60. (Although most surgeons are eager to highlight the industry edict of: “We treat genetics, not years.”) “I have individuals in their late twenties requesting facial lifts,” says London-based aesthetic plastic surgeon Georgios Orfaniotis, a former NHS consultant who focuses on the head and neck. “It’s a very significant surgery, and I’m a somewhat worried when I see people opting for it as a lifestyle choice.”
Understanding the Rhytidectomy Surgery
A facelift, alternatively called a rhytidectomy, elevates the ligaments in the face that begin to droop as we age. “Human faces are structured a bit like layers of an onion,” says Kent-based facial plastic surgeon Marc Pacifico. “Dermis and adipose on the top, then a stratum of connective tissue known as the SMAS. Think of the SMAS as the structural foundation of the face. And that is what ages us; that is what loosens and sags and pulls the skin downward with it.”
You risk operating on people that have deeper issues. It’s not advisable for an conscientious surgeon to pursue
Once the preserve of moneyed older people, “filler fatigue” – when overuse of dermal fillers stretches the face and causes looseness in the skin – alongside the common adoption of slimming medications, low-cost medical tourism, and the development of novel, famous-figure-promoted operative methods are driving a different type of customer towards this major operation. Statistics show an eight percent rise in facelifts over the last year in the UK; while a study found that the percentage of youthful candidates is growing, with 32% of facelifts now performed on individuals aged 35-55.
“Patients are asking now to look like the best version of themselves and naturally the techniques are following,” comments Orfaniotis. Currently, the trending procedure is the deep plane facelift, a technique evangelised by everyone from Kardashian matriarch Kris Jenner, to fashion designer Marc Jacobs.
Deep Plane Technique
While a more traditional rhytidectomy entails elevating the superficial layer, the comprehensive lift loosens the facial ligaments underneath, enabling surgeons to restructure the face by repositioning the deeper tissue, and preventing the taut, pulled look sometimes wrought by more traditional techniques. “We avoid placing tension on the dermis because we’re going below, to the underlying structures,” says Harley Street plastic surgeon Rajiv Grover, who focuses on the advanced method. “It is the deeper tissue that is adjusted. The dermis follows along as a secondary element.” Lifting the entire soft tissue layer as a single unit allows for a more natural-looking and longer-lasting result. It also means that the procedure is not just being used for the express purpose of anti-ageing – or revitalization, as the aesthetics industry describes it – but for “enhancement” and contouring, too. “We receive numerous requests from patients aged 28 to 35 for this purpose,” notes Grover.
Individual Experience
Preisinger had never planned on getting a facial lift – at least not at the age of 30. But long-term using injectable gels in an effort at “symmetry correction” implied that by the time she entered her late twenties, she was “damaged”. “I didn’t undergo this because I wanted to look youthful,” she clarifies. “I underwent it because the filler ruined my face. I wish I had never done it. If I didn’t have the injectable, I don’t think I would be where I’m at currently.”
If dermal fillers completely disappear has historically been a point of contention in the aesthetics industry. “Research have indicated that not only do they rarely fully dissipate,” states Grover, “but they move and can block drainage pathways. A contributing factor to what we call ‘pillow face’ is additionally the reality that to some extent, the face gets somewhat waterlogged because its ability to remove bodily fluid has been reduced.” Although research into the area is preliminary, warnings on dermal fillers’ potential impact on the lymphatic system have been released, and further research initiated. An esteemed facial plastic surgeon, speaking on the condition of anonymity, mentioned he would avoid using injectables in a patient because of the dangers they present. “Many doctors avoid discussing this, because the manufacturers who make filler can be quite forceful.” He’s been told accounts, he adds, of cosmetic doctors facing legal actions after expressing worries.
Decision and Procedure
For Preisinger, once she started using injectables, she believed she had to keep replenishing it – especially as it began moving to other parts of her face. She was just 28 when a nearby cosmetic doctor in Florida proposed that a face and neck lift could be what she needed to finally step off the injectable hamster wheel. After 24 months, she found herself choosing between a selection of suggested accommodations in Istanbul, sent to her by the patient coordinator at her doctor’s clinic.
Originally, Preisinger had scheduled an eyelid surgery – commonly called eyelid surgery – but her surgeon advised her that a facelift was the right solution for the laxity she was finding in her face. She arranged a forehead lift, a mid-facelift and a jawline surgery. The eve of her surgery, one day after she’d arrived alone in the country, she opted to include a mouth enhancement. “Then he stated, ‘We’re going to lift the lower eyelid puffiness.’ Then he said, ‘I believe if we remove some cheek fat, it will contour your face.’ So I ended up including additional procedures,” she says. She spent $22,000 (sixteen thousand five hundred pounds) for the six-hour surgery, plus a three-day|
