Onemanda Preisinger is nervous about her daughter’s impending 13th birthday party. It’s not due to the typical reasons associated with a house full of loud adolescent kids, but since it’s the first time she will debut her recently altered face to acquaintances and extended family. “Clearly I’m going to inform all guests as they arrive, ‘Just so you know, this is not the way I look,’” says the thirty-year-old real estate agent from Southern Florida.
How she looks is, well, a somewhat startling – her face puffed up and preternaturally lifted, as though held together by heavy-duty tape. Her new – and she’s keen to stress, temporary – look is the outcome of half a dozen aesthetic surgeries, such as an endoscopic mid-facelift, conducted by a surgeon in Turkey’s Istanbul, last month. “My poor husband teared up when he viewed me for the first time because I couldn’t even open my eyes. That’s how puffy I was,” she tells me via video call from her home. “I had to tell him: ‘Honey, I’m okay, I’m not hurting. I just look like someone jumped me.’”
Growing Trend of Early Facelifts
According to plastic surgeons, Preisinger is among a rising count of people choosing to have a facelift in their twenties and thirties – well over a ten years before most doctors’ typical patient age range of forty to sixty. (Although most surgeons are eager to highlight the industry edict of: “We treat heredity, not years.”) “I have 28-year-olds requesting facelifts,” states based in London aesthetic plastic surgeon Georgios Orfaniotis, a ex-NHS doctor who focuses on the head and neck. “It’s a very significant procedure, and I’m a bit concerned when I see individuals opting for it as a lifestyle choice.”
Understanding the Facelift Procedure
A rhytidectomy, alternatively called a rhytidectomy, elevates the ligaments in the face that begin to droop as we age. “Human faces are built a little like layers of an onion,” says Kent-based facial plastic surgeon Marc Pacifico. “Skin and fat on the top, then a stratum of supportive tissue called the superficial musculoaponeurotic system. Consider the SMAS as the soft tissue skeleton of the face. And that’s what ages us; that’s what becomes lax and pulls the dermis down with it.”
You endanger operating on people that have underlying problems. It’s not advisable for an conscientious surgeon to follow
Previously reserved of affluent seniors, overuse of injectables – when overuse of injectable gels expands the face and causes laxity in the skin – alongside the common adoption of weight-loss drugs, low-cost medical tourism, and the advancement of new, celebrity-endorsed operative methods are attracting a different type of customer towards this major operation. Reports show an 8% increase in facial lifts over the past 12 months in the UK; while a survey revealed that the percentage of youthful candidates is growing, with one-third of procedures now conducted for individuals aged 35-55.
“Patients are asking now to look like the best version of themselves and naturally the techniques are evolving,” comments Orfaniotis. At present, the operation du jour is the comprehensive facial lift, a method promoted by figures including reality TV star Kris Jenner, to fashion designer Marc Jacobs.
Deep Plane Technique
While a conventional rhytidectomy involves lifting the superficial layer, the deep plane facelift releases the facial ligaments underneath, enabling doctors to restructure the face by moving the underlying layers, and avoiding the taut, pulled look sometimes wrought by more traditional techniques. “We’re not putting tension on the dermis because we’re targeting deeper, to the underlying structures,” says prestigious London plastic surgeon Rajiv Grover, who focuses on the advanced method. “It is the deeper tissue that is adjusted. The skin comes with it as a passenger.” Elevating the whole facial structure as a unified block allows for a more natural-looking and longer-lasting result. It additionally implies that the procedure is not just being used for the express purpose of youth preservation – or rejuvenation, as the aesthetics industry describes it – but for “beautification” and facial restructuring, too. “We’re getting numerous requests from clients aged late twenties to mid-thirties for this purpose,” says Grover.
Individual Experience
Preisinger had never planned on getting a facial lift – at minimum not at the thirty years old. But years of using hyaluronic acid dermal fillers in an effort at “symmetry correction” implied that by the time she reached her late twenties, she was “botched”. “I didn’t do this because I desired to appear youthful,” she says. “I did it because the filler harmed my face. I regret ever using it. If I had avoided the injectable, I don’t believe I would be in this situation currently.”
If injectable substances completely disappear has long been a debated topic in the aesthetics industry. “Research have shown that they seldom fully dissipate,” states Grover, “but they move and can block lymphatic channels. A contributing factor to what we term ‘pillow face’ is also the fact that to some extent, the face gets slightly waterlogged because its ability to remove lymphatic fluid has been diminished.” Although studies into the topic is preliminary, cautionary statements on dermal fillers’ potential impact on the body’s drainage have been released, and additional studies announced. An esteemed face specialist, commenting on the condition of anonymity, says he would avoid using injectables in a patient because of the risks they pose. “A lot of surgeons avoid discussing this, because the manufacturers who make filler can be pretty aggressive.” He’s been told accounts, he says, of plastic surgeons being landed with legal actions after raising their concerns.
Decision and Procedure
For Preisinger, once she started injecting filler, she felt as if she needed to continue replenishing it – especially as it began moving to different areas of her face. She was only twenty-eight when a nearby cosmetic doctor in Florida suggested that a facial and neck surgery could be what she needed to exit the injectable hamster wheel. After 24 months, she ended up selecting from a list of recommended hotels in Istanbul, sent to her by the clinic assistant at her surgeon’s office.
Originally, Preisinger had scheduled an eyelid surgery – commonly called eyelid surgery – but her surgeon recommended that a facial lift was the right solution for the laxity she was experiencing in her face. She booked a forehead lift, a cheek lift and a jawline surgery. The eve of her operation, one day after she’d touched down alone in Turkey, she opted to include a mouth enhancement. “Then he stated, ‘We’re going to lift the lower eyelid puffiness.’ He added, ‘I think if we remove some buccal fat, it will contour your face.’ Thus I ultimately adding two more procedures,” she recalls. She spent $22,000 (£16,500) for the six-hour operation, including a three-day|
