Onemanda Preisinger experiences worry about her child’s impending 13th birthday party. Not for the usual reasons related to a house full of clamorous adolescent kids, but because it’s the first time she will showcase her new face to acquaintances and relatives. “Clearly I’m going to inform all guests as they arrive, ‘For your information, this is not the way I appear,’” states the thirty-year-old property agent from Southern Florida.
Her appearance is, admittedly, a somewhat surprising – her face puffed up and preternaturally lifted, as though held together by industrial-grade tape. Her new – and she’s keen to stress, short-term – appearance is the outcome of half a dozen aesthetic surgeries, such as an minimally invasive facelift, conducted by a doctor in Turkey’s Istanbul, the previous month. “My poor husband became emotional when he viewed me for the first time because I wasn’t able to even open my eyes. That’s how swollen I was,” she explains to me via video call from her home. “I had to tell him: ‘Honey, I’m fine, I’m not in pain. I just appear as if someone attacked me.’”
Increasing Popularity of Early Facelifts
Based on cosmetic specialists, Preisinger is one of a rising count of people electing to undergo a rhytidectomy in their twenties and thirties – significantly before a ten years before most doctors’ typical patient age range of 40 to 60. (Although many specialists are keen to emphasise the professional guideline of: “We treat genetics, not years.”) “I have 28-year-olds requesting facial lifts,” says based in London aesthetic plastic surgeon Georgios Orfaniotis, a ex-NHS doctor who focuses on the head and neck. “It’s a very significant surgery, and I’m a bit concerned when I see individuals opting for it as a lifestyle choice.”
Explaining the Facelift Procedure
A rhytidectomy, alternatively called a facelift, lifts the ligaments in the face that begin to droop as we grow older. “Human faces are structured a bit like onion layers,” says based in Kent face specialist Marc Pacifico. “Dermis and adipose on the surface, then a stratum of supportive tissue called the superficial musculoaponeurotic system. Consider the SMAS as the structural foundation of the face. And that is what ages us; that is what becomes lax and drags the skin down with it.”
You endanger performing surgery on individuals that have underlying problems. It’s not a practice for an conscientious surgeon to pursue
Once the preserve of moneyed older people, “filler fatigue” – when excessive use of dermal fillers expands the face and leads to looseness in the dermis – combined with the common adoption of weight-loss drugs, cut-price medical tourism, and the development of new, famous-figure-promoted operative methods are attracting a different type of patient towards this invasive surgery. Reports indicate an 8% increase in facelifts over the last year in the UK; while a survey revealed that the percentage of youthful candidates is growing, with 32% of facelifts now conducted for individuals aged thirty-five to fifty-five.
“People are asking now to look like the best version of themselves and obviously the techniques are evolving,” comments Orfaniotis. At present, the operation du jour is the deep plane facelift, a method promoted by everyone from Kardashian matriarch Kris Jenner, to style creator Marc Jacobs.
Deep Plane Technique
While a conventional rhytidectomy entails elevating the SMAS, the deep plane facelift releases the facial ligaments underneath, enabling doctors to reshape the face by moving the deeper tissue, and preventing the tight, stretched look occasionally caused by more traditional techniques. “We avoid placing tension on the dermis because we’re targeting deeper, to the underlying structures,” explains prestigious London plastic surgeon Rajiv Grover, who specialises in the deep plane technique. “It is the underlying layers that is adjusted. The skin follows along as a secondary element.” Lifting the whole facial structure as a unified block allows for a authentic-appearing and longer-lasting result. It additionally implies that the surgery is no longer being used for the express purpose of youth preservation – or revitalization, as the aesthetics industry describes it – but for “enhancement” and facial restructuring, too. “We’re getting numerous requests from clients aged 28 to 35 for this purpose,” notes Grover.
Individual Experience
Preisinger had never planned on getting a facelift – at minimum not at the age of 30. But long-term using injectable gels in an attempt at “symmetry correction” implied that by the time she reached her late 20s, she was “damaged”. “I didn’t do this because I desired to appear youthful,” she says. “I underwent it because the injectable harmed my face. I regret ever done it. If I had avoided the filler, I don’t believe I would be in this situation currently.”
Whether dermal fillers completely disappear has historically been a point of contention in the cosmetic field. “Research have shown that they seldom fully dissipate,” states Grover, “but they move 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 becomes slightly fluid-filled because its ability to drain bodily fluid has been reduced.” Though research into the area is early-stage, cautionary statements on injectables’ potential impact on the body’s drainage have been released, and additional studies announced. An esteemed face specialist, speaking anonymously, says he would avoid using injectables in a patient because of the dangers they present. “Many doctors don’t want to talk about this, because the manufacturers who make injectables can be pretty aggressive.” He’s heard stories, he says, of cosmetic doctors being landed with court orders after raising their concerns.
Decision and Procedure
For Preisinger, once she started using injectables, she believed she had to keep replenishing it – particularly when it started to migrate to other parts of her face. She was just 28 when a nearby cosmetic doctor in Florida suggested that a face and neck lift could be what she required to finally step off the cycle of treatments. After 24 months, she found herself choosing between a list of suggested accommodations in the city, texted to her by the patient coordinator at her doctor’s clinic.
Initially, Preisinger had planned for an eyelid surgery – better known as eyelid surgery – but her surgeon advised her that a facelift was the correct option for the laxity she was experiencing in her face. She arranged a brow lift, a mid-facelift and a jawline surgery. The eve of her operation, 24 hours post she’d arrived solo in the country, she opted to include a lip lift. “Then he said, ‘We’re going to lift the lower eyelid puffiness.’ Then he said, ‘I believe if we extract some buccal fat, it will contour your face.’ So I ended up including additional procedures,” she recalls. She spent $22,000 (£16,500) for the half-day operation, including a three-day|
