Onemanda Preisinger experiences worry about her child’s upcoming 13th birthday party. Not for the usual reasons related to a house full of loud adolescent children, but since it’s the first time she will reveal her recently altered face to acquaintances and extended family. “Clearly I’m going to inform everyone as they come in, ‘For your information, this is not how I appear,’” says the 30-year-old real estate agent from Southern Florida.
Her appearance is, admittedly, a little startling – her face puffed up and preternaturally lifted, as though secured by industrial-grade tape. Her new – and she’s eager to emphasize, short-term – appearance is the outcome of half a dozen cosmetic procedures, including an minimally invasive facelift, performed by a surgeon in Istanbul, Turkey, last month. “My spouse teared up when he viewed me for the initial time because I couldn’t even open my eyes. That indicates puffy I was,” she tells me via video call from her home. “I needed to inform him: ‘Babe, I’m okay, I’m not in pain. I just appear as if someone jumped me.’”
Increasing Popularity of Youthful Facial Lifts
Based on plastic surgeons, Preisinger is one of a rising count of people choosing to undergo a facelift in their twenties and thirties – well over a ten years prior to most doctors’ typical patient age range of 40 to 60. (Though many specialists are eager to highlight the professional guideline of: “We address heredity, not age.”) “I have 28-year-olds requesting facelifts,” states London-based aesthetic plastic surgeon Georgios Orfaniotis, a former NHS consultant who specialises in the facial area. “It’s a very significant procedure, and I’m a somewhat worried when I observe people opting for it as a personal preference.”
Understanding the Facelift Procedure
A rhytidectomy, also known as a facelift, elevates the tissues in the face that begin to droop as we grow older. “Our faces are built a bit like onion layers,” explains based in Kent facial plastic surgeon Marc Pacifico. “Skin and fat on the surface, then a layer of supportive tissue known as the SMAS. Think of the facial framework as the structural foundation of the face. And that’s what causes aging; that is what loosens and sags and drags the dermis down with it.”
You risk performing surgery on individuals that have underlying problems. It’s not a practice for an ethical plastic surgeon to follow
Previously reserved of moneyed older people, “filler fatigue” – when overuse of dermal fillers stretches the face and causes laxity in the dermis – combined with the widespread use of weight-loss drugs, low-cost surgical travel, and the advancement of new, celebrity-endorsed surgical techniques are attracting a new kind of patient towards this invasive surgery. Reports indicate an eight percent rise in facelifts over the past 12 months in the United Kingdom; while a study revealed that the portion of youthful candidates is growing, with one-third of procedures now conducted for patients aged 35-55.
“Patients are asking now to look like the best version of themselves and obviously the techniques are following,” says Orfaniotis. Currently, the operation du jour is the deep plane facelift, a technique promoted by figures including Kardashian matriarch Kris Jenner, to fashion designer Marc Jacobs.
Deep Plane Technique
While a conventional rhytidectomy entails elevating the SMAS, the deep plane facelift loosens the facial ligaments beneath it, allowing doctors to reshape the face by repositioning the underlying layers, and avoiding the tight, stretched look sometimes wrought by more traditional techniques. “We’re not putting stress on the skin because we’re targeting deeper, to the deeper tissue,” explains prestigious London plastic surgeon 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 entire soft tissue layer as a single unit allows for a more natural-looking and longer-lasting result. It also means that the surgery is no longer being used for the express purpose of anti-ageing – or rejuvenation, as the aesthetics industry describes it – but for “beautification” and facial restructuring, too. “We’re getting numerous requests from patients aged late twenties to mid-thirties for this reason,” says Grover.
Personal Journey
Preisinger had never planned on undergoing a facelift – at minimum not at the age of 30. But years of using injectable gels in an effort at “facial balancing” implied that by the time she reached her late 20s, she was “botched”. “I didn’t undergo this because I wanted to look youthful,” she says. “I did it because the filler harmed my face. I wish I had never done it. If I had avoided the filler, I don’t think I would be in this situation currently.”
If dermal fillers completely disappear has historically been a debated topic in the cosmetic field. “Studies have shown that they seldom completely dissolve,” states Grover, “but they migrate and can obstruct drainage pathways. A contributing factor to what we term ‘pillow face’ is additionally the fact that in a sense, the face gets somewhat fluid-filled because its ability to remove lymphatic fluid has been diminished.” Though studies into the topic is early-stage, cautionary statements on injectables’ possible effects on the body’s drainage have been issued, and further research announced. An esteemed facial plastic surgeon, speaking anonymously, mentioned he would never use fillers in a patient because of the dangers they present. “Many doctors don’t want to talk about this, because the manufacturers who produce filler can be pretty aggressive.” He’s heard stories, he says, of plastic surgeons being landed with legal actions after expressing worries.
Choice and Surgery
For Preisinger, once she started injecting filler, 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 Florida 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 suggested accommodations in the city, sent to her by the clinic assistant at her doctor’s clinic.
Originally, Preisinger had planned for an upper and lower blepharoplasty – better known as blepharoplasty – but her doctor advised her that a facial lift was the right solution for the looseness she was finding in her face. She arranged a brow lift, a mid-facelift and a jawline surgery. The day before her surgery, one day after she’d touched down alone in the country, she opted to include a mouth enhancement. “Subsequently the surgeon stated, ‘We’re going to elevate the lower eyelid puffiness.’ He added, ‘I think if we extract some cheek fat, it will sculpt your face.’ So I ended up including additional procedures,” she recalls. She paid $22,000 (£16,500) for the half-day operation, plus a three-day|
