Onemanda Preisinger experiences worry about her child’s upcoming 13th birthday celebration. It’s not due to the usual causes associated with a house full of loud adolescent kids, but because it’s the first time 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 look,’” says the thirty-year-old property agent from Southern Florida.
Her appearance is, admittedly, a somewhat surprising – her face puffed up and unnaturally tightened, as though secured by industrial-grade tape. Her altered – and she’s eager to emphasize, short-term – appearance is the outcome of half a dozen aesthetic surgeries, including an endoscopic mid-facelift, performed by a doctor in Turkey’s Istanbul, the previous month. “My spouse teared up when he saw me for the first time because I couldn’t even open my eyes. That indicates puffy I was,” she explains to me via online call from her house. “I needed to inform him: ‘Babe, I’m okay, I’m not in pain. I just look like someone jumped me.’”
Growing Trend of Early Facelifts
According to plastic surgeons, Preisinger is among a growing number of people electing to have a rhytidectomy in their twenties and thirties – well over a ten years prior to 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 individuals in their late twenties requesting facial lifts,” states based in London cosmetic surgeon Georgios Orfaniotis, a former NHS consultant who specialises in the facial area. “It’s a major procedure, and I’m a bit concerned when I see people opting for it as a lifestyle choice.”
Explaining the Rhytidectomy Surgery
A facelift, also known as a facelift, 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 face specialist Marc Pacifico. “Skin and fat on the surface, then a stratum of supportive tissue known as the superficial musculoaponeurotic system. Think of the SMAS as the structural foundation of the face. And that is what ages us; that’s what loosens and sags and drags the skin downward with it.”
You endanger performing surgery on people that have underlying problems. It’s not advisable for an ethical plastic surgeon to pursue
Once the preserve of moneyed older people, “filler fatigue” – when excessive use of injectable gels expands the face and leads to looseness in the skin – combined with the widespread use of slimming medications, low-cost medical tourism, and the development of novel, famous-figure-promoted operative methods are attracting a different type of customer towards this major operation. Statistics indicate an 8% increase in facial lifts over the last year in the UK; while a study found that the percentage of younger facelift patients is growing, with one-third of procedures now performed on individuals aged thirty-five to fifty-five.
“People are now requesting to appear as the best version of themselves and naturally the techniques are following,” comments Orfaniotis. At present, the operation du jour is the comprehensive facial lift, a method evangelised by everyone from reality TV star Kris Jenner, to fashion designer Marc Jacobs.
Deep Plane Technique
While a conventional rhytidectomy entails elevating the SMAS, the comprehensive lift loosens the underlying structures beneath it, allowing doctors to reshape the face by moving the deeper tissue, and preventing the tight, stretched appearance occasionally caused by more traditional techniques. “We’re not putting tension on the dermis because we’re going below, to the underlying structures,” explains Harley Street cosmetic doctor Rajiv Grover, who focuses on the deep plane technique. “It is the underlying layers that is adjusted. The dermis follows along as a passenger.” Elevating the whole facial structure as a single unit results in a more natural-looking and longer-lasting outcome. It also means that the procedure is no longer being used for the express purpose of youth preservation – or rejuvenation, as the cosmetic field describes it – but for “beautification” and contouring, too. “We’re getting numerous requests from patients aged 28 to 35 for this purpose,” says Grover.
Individual Experience
Preisinger had never planned on undergoing a facelift – at minimum not at the age of 30. But long-term using injectable gels in an effort at “facial balancing” implied that by the time she entered her late 20s, she was “botched”. “I didn’t undergo this because I wanted to look young,” she clarifies. “I did it because the injectable harmed my face. I regret ever done it. If I didn’t have the filler, I don’t think I would be in this situation right now.”
If dermal fillers ever fully dissolve has historically been a debated topic in the cosmetic field. “Studies have shown that not only do they rarely fully dissipate,” says Grover, “but they move and can obstruct lymphatic channels. A contributing factor to what we term ‘puffy appearance’ is additionally the fact that in a sense, the face gets slightly fluid-filled because its capacity to drain lymphatic fluid has been reduced.” Although research into the area is early-stage, warnings on dermal fillers’ possible effects on the lymphatic system have been issued, and additional studies announced. One highly regarded face specialist, commenting on the condition of anonymity, mentioned he would never use fillers in a client because of the risks they present. “A lot of surgeons don’t want to discussing this, because the companies who produce injectables can be quite forceful.” He’s heard stories, he says, of plastic surgeons facing court orders after expressing worries.
Choice and Surgery
For Preisinger, after beginning using injectables, she felt as if she needed to continue adding more – especially as it began moving to other parts of her face. She was just 28 when a local plastic surgeon in the state proposed that a face and neck lift could be what she required to finally step off the cycle of treatments. After 24 months, she ended up choosing between a list of recommended hotels in the city, sent to her by the clinic assistant at her surgeon’s office.
Initially, Preisinger had scheduled an upper and lower blepharoplasty – commonly called eyelid surgery – but her surgeon recommended that a facelift was the correct option for the laxity she was finding in her face. She booked a forehead lift, a mid-facelift and a neck lift. The day before her operation, 24 hours post she’d touched down alone in the country, she decided to add a lip lift. “Then he said, ‘We will elevate the under-eye bags.’ He added, ‘I believe if we remove some buccal fat, it will sculpt your face.’ Thus I ultimately including additional procedures,” she says. She spent $22,000 (£16,500) for the half-day operation, including a three-day|
