Amanda Preisinger experiences worry about her daughter’s impending 13th birthday party. Not for the typical causes related to a house full of clamorous preteen kids, but because it’s the initial occasion she will debut her new face to friends and extended family. “Obviously I’m going to inform everyone as they come in, ‘Just so you know, this is not how I appear,’” states the thirty-year-old property agent from south Florida.
Her appearance is, admittedly, a somewhat startling – 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 result of half a dozen aesthetic surgeries, such as an endoscopic mid-facelift, performed by a doctor in Istanbul, Turkey, last month. “My poor husband teared up when he viewed me for the initial time because I couldn’t even open my eyes. That indicates swollen I was,” she tells me via online call from her home. “I had to tell him: ‘Babe, I’m okay, I’m not in pain. I just look like someone attacked me.’”
Increasing Popularity of Early Facelifts
Based on plastic surgeons, Preisinger is among a rising count of people choosing to undergo a facelift in their twenties and thirties – significantly before a ten years prior to most doctors’ usual candidate age of forty to sixty. (Although many specialists are keen to emphasise the professional guideline of: “We treat heredity, not years.”) “I have individuals in their late twenties requesting facial lifts,” states London-based cosmetic surgeon Georgios Orfaniotis, a ex-NHS doctor who specialises in the head and neck. “It’s a major procedure, and I’m a somewhat worried when I see people opting for it as a lifestyle choice.”
Explaining the Facelift Procedure
A rhytidectomy, alternatively called a rhytidectomy, lifts the tissues in the face that begin to droop as we age. “Our faces are built a little like onion layers,” explains based in Kent facial plastic surgeon Marc Pacifico. “Skin and fat on the top, then a stratum of supportive tissue known as the superficial musculoaponeurotic system. Consider the facial framework as the soft tissue skeleton of the face. And that is what ages us; that is what loosens and sags and pulls the skin downward with it.”
You risk performing surgery on individuals that have deeper issues. It’s not advisable for an ethical plastic surgeon to follow
Previously reserved of moneyed older people, overuse of injectables – when overuse of dermal fillers stretches the face and causes laxity in the skin – combined with the widespread use of weight-loss drugs, low-cost surgical travel, and the development of novel, famous-figure-promoted operative methods are attracting a different type of customer towards this invasive surgery. Reports show an 8% increase in facial lifts 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 35-55.
“Patients are asking now to appear as the best version of themselves and obviously the methods are evolving,” comments Orfaniotis. At present, the operation du jour is the deep plane facelift, a technique promoted by figures including reality TV star Kris Jenner, to style creator Marc Jacobs.
Deep Plane Technique
Where a more traditional rhytidectomy entails lifting the superficial layer, the comprehensive lift releases the facial ligaments underneath, enabling doctors to restructure the face by moving the underlying layers, and preventing the taut, pulled look occasionally caused by more traditional techniques. “We’re not putting tension on the skin because we’re targeting deeper, to the deeper tissue,” says Harley Street plastic surgeon Rajiv Grover, who specialises in the deep plane technique. “It is the deeper tissue that is repositioned. The dermis follows along as a passenger.” Elevating the whole facial structure as a unified block allows for a more natural-looking and longer-lasting outcome. It additionally implies that the procedure is no longer being used for the express purpose of youth preservation – or rejuvenation, as the aesthetics industry terms it – but for “enhancement” and facial restructuring, too. “We’re getting many inquiries from clients aged late twenties to mid-thirties for this purpose,” says Grover.
Individual Experience
Preisinger had never planned on getting a facelift – at least not at the thirty years old. 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 desired to appear youthful,” she clarifies. “I did it because the filler ruined my face. I wish I had never done it. If I had avoided the injectable, I don’t think I would be where I’m at right now.”
If injectable substances completely disappear has historically been a point of contention in the cosmetic field. “Studies have indicated that they seldom fully dissipate,” states Grover, “but they move and can block lymphatic channels. A contributing factor to what we term ‘puffy appearance’ is additionally the fact that in a sense, the face becomes somewhat fluid-filled because its ability to drain bodily fluid has been reduced.” Although studies into the topic is preliminary, cautionary statements on dermal fillers’ possible effects on the lymphatic system have been issued, and further research announced. One highly regarded facial plastic surgeon, speaking on the condition of anonymity, mentioned he would avoid using injectables in a patient because of the risks they present. “A lot of doctors avoid discussing this, because the companies who produce filler can be pretty aggressive.” He’s been told accounts, he says, of plastic surgeons facing court orders after raising their concerns.
Decision and Procedure
For Preisinger, once she started injecting filler, she believed she needed to continue adding more – especially as it started to migrate to other parts of her face. She was only twenty-eight when a local plastic surgeon in Florida proposed that a facial and neck surgery might be what she needed to exit the injectable hamster wheel. Two years later, she ended up selecting from a list of recommended hotels in the city, texted to her by the patient coordinator at her doctor’s clinic.
Originally, Preisinger had planned for an eyelid surgery – commonly called 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 alone in the country, she opted to include a lip lift. “Subsequently the surgeon stated, ‘We’re going to elevate the lower eyelid puffiness.’ Then he said, ‘I think if we remove some buccal fat, it will sculpt your face.’ Thus I ultimately including additional procedures,” she recalls. She paid $22,000 (£16,500) for the half-day operation, plus a three-day|
