Amanda Preisinger experiences worry about her daughter’s impending 13th birthday party. It’s not due to the typical reasons related to a home packed of loud preteen kids, but because it’s the initial occasion she will reveal her recently altered face to friends and relatives. “Obviously I’m going to inform all guests as they arrive, ‘Just so you know, this is not the way I appear,’” says the thirty-year-old real estate agent from south 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 – look is the outcome of half a dozen cosmetic procedures, including an minimally invasive facelift, performed by a doctor in Turkey’s Istanbul, last month. “My spouse became emotional when he saw me for the first time because I couldn’t even unseal my eyes. That indicates puffy I was,” she explains to me via video call from her house. “I had to tell him: ‘Babe, I’m okay, I’m not hurting. I just look like someone jumped me.’”
Growing Trend of Youthful Facial Lifts
Based on cosmetic specialists, Preisinger is one of a rising count of individuals choosing to undergo a facelift in their twenties and thirties – significantly before a decade prior to typical surgeons’ typical patient age range of 40 to 60. (Although most surgeons are keen to emphasise the industry edict of: “We treat heredity, not age.”) “I have 28-year-olds requesting facial lifts,” says London-based cosmetic surgeon Georgios Orfaniotis, a former NHS consultant who focuses on the facial area. “It’s a major procedure, and I’m a somewhat worried when I observe people choosing it as a lifestyle choice.”
Understanding the Rhytidectomy Surgery
A facelift, also known as a rhytidectomy, elevates the ligaments in the face that begin to droop as we age. “Our faces are structured a bit like onion layers,” explains Kent-based facial plastic surgeon Marc Pacifico. “Skin and fat on the top, then a layer of connective tissue called the SMAS. Consider 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 down with it.”
You risk performing surgery on individuals that have deeper issues. It’s not advisable for an conscientious surgeon to pursue
Once the preserve of moneyed older people, “filler fatigue” – when overuse of dermal fillers expands the face and causes looseness 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 driving a new kind of patient towards this major operation. Reports indicate an eight percent rise in facelifts over the last year in the United Kingdom; while a survey found that the portion of younger facelift patients is increasing, with 32% of facelifts now conducted for patients aged thirty-five to fifty-five.
“People are asking now to appear as the optimal form of themselves and naturally the techniques are evolving,” says Orfaniotis. Currently, the trending procedure is the deep plane facelift, a technique evangelised by everyone from reality TV star Kris Jenner, to style creator Marc Jacobs.
Advanced Lifting Method
Where a more traditional rhytidectomy involves lifting the SMAS, the comprehensive lift loosens the underlying structures underneath, allowing surgeons to restructure the face by repositioning the deeper tissue, and preventing the tight, stretched look occasionally caused by older methods. “We’re not putting tension on the skin 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 repositioned. The skin follows along as a secondary element.” Lifting the entire soft tissue layer as a single unit results in a authentic-appearing and more durable result. It also means that the surgery is no longer being used for the primary goal of youth preservation – or revitalization, as the cosmetic field describes it – but for “beautification” and contouring, too. “We receive many inquiries from patients aged late twenties to mid-thirties for this reason,” says Grover.
Personal Journey
Preisinger had not intended on undergoing a facelift – at least not at the thirty years old. But years of using injectable gels in an attempt at “symmetry correction” meant that by the time she entered her late twenties, she was “botched”. “I didn’t do this because I wanted to look youthful,” she clarifies. “I did it because the filler harmed my face. I regret ever done it. If I had avoided the injectable, I don’t think I would be where I’m at currently.”
Whether injectable substances ever fully dissolve has long been a debated topic in the aesthetics industry. “Research have shown that they seldom fully dissipate,” says Grover, “but they move and can obstruct drainage pathways. A contributing factor to what we call ‘puffy appearance’ is additionally the reality that to some extent, the face becomes somewhat fluid-filled because its ability to remove lymphatic fluid has been reduced.” Though research into the area is early-stage, cautionary statements on dermal fillers’ possible effects on the body’s drainage have been issued, and additional studies initiated. One highly regarded facial plastic surgeon, commenting on the condition of anonymity, mentioned he would avoid using fillers in a client because of the risks they present. “Many surgeons avoid talk about this, because the companies who make filler can be pretty aggressive.” He’s been told accounts, he says, of plastic surgeons facing legal actions after raising their concerns.
Decision and Procedure
For Preisinger, once she started using injectables, she felt as if she needed to continue replenishing it – particularly when it began moving to different areas of her face. She was only twenty-eight when a nearby cosmetic doctor in Florida suggested that a face and neck lift might be what she needed to finally step off the cycle of treatments. After 24 months, she found herself selecting from a selection of recommended hotels in the city, texted to her by the clinic assistant at her surgeon’s office.
Initially, Preisinger had planned for an eyelid surgery – better known as eyelid surgery – but her doctor recommended that a facelift was the correct option for the looseness she was finding in her face. She booked a forehead lift, a mid-facelift and a neck lift. The eve of her operation, one day after she’d touched down alone in the country, she decided to add a lip lift. “Then he said, ‘We’re going to elevate the under-eye bags.’ He added, ‘I believe if we remove some buccal fat, it will contour your face.’ So I ended up adding two more surgeries,” she recalls. She paid $22,000 (£16,500) for the six-hour operation, including a three-day|
