Amanda Preisinger experiences worry about her daughter’s upcoming 13th birthday celebration. It’s not due to the typical reasons associated with a home packed of clamorous adolescent children, but since it’s the initial occasion she will reveal her new face to friends and extended family. “Obviously I’m going to tell all guests as they arrive, ‘Just so you know, 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 held together by industrial-grade tape. Her new – and she’s eager to emphasize, short-term – look is the result of half a dozen aesthetic surgeries, including an minimally invasive facelift, conducted by a surgeon in Istanbul, Turkey, the previous month. “My spouse teared up when he viewed me for the initial time because I couldn’t even unseal my eyes. That’s how swollen I was,” she explains to me via online call from her house. “I needed to inform him: ‘Honey, I’m fine, I’m not hurting. I just look like someone jumped me.’”
Increasing Popularity of Youthful Facial Lifts
Based on plastic surgeons, Preisinger is among a growing number of people electing to have a facelift in their 20s and 30s – well over a decade prior to typical surgeons’ usual candidate age of forty to sixty. (Although most surgeons are keen to emphasise the professional guideline of: “We treat genetics, not years.”) “I have 28-year-olds asking for facelifts,” states based in London aesthetic plastic surgeon Georgios Orfaniotis, a ex-NHS doctor who specialises in the facial area. “It’s a very significant procedure, and I’m a bit concerned when I observe 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 grow older. “Human faces are built a little like layers of an onion,” says based in Kent facial plastic surgeon Marc Pacifico. “Skin and fat on the surface, then a layer of connective tissue known as the superficial musculoaponeurotic system. Think of the SMAS as the structural foundation of the face. And that’s what causes aging; that’s what becomes lax and drags the dermis downward with it.”
You risk operating on people that have underlying problems. It’s not advisable for an conscientious surgeon to follow
Once the preserve of moneyed older people, “filler fatigue” – when overuse of dermal fillers expands the face and leads to looseness in the dermis – alongside the widespread use of slimming medications, low-cost surgical travel, and the advancement of new, celebrity-endorsed operative methods are attracting a new kind of patient towards this major operation. Reports show an 8% increase in facial lifts over the last year in the United Kingdom; while a survey found that the percentage of younger facelift patients is growing, with 32% of facelifts now performed on individuals aged 35-55.
“Patients are now requesting to look like the best version of themselves and naturally the techniques are evolving,” comments Orfaniotis. At present, the operation du jour is the deep plane facelift, a method evangelised by figures including reality TV star Kris Jenner, to style creator Marc Jacobs.
Deep Plane Technique
While a more traditional rhytidectomy entails lifting the SMAS, the comprehensive lift releases the underlying structures underneath, 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 deeper tissue,” explains prestigious London cosmetic doctor Rajiv Grover, who focuses on the deep plane technique. “It is the deeper tissue that is adjusted. The skin follows along as a secondary element.” Lifting the whole facial structure as a unified block allows for a more natural-looking and longer-lasting result. It additionally implies that the surgery is not just being used for the primary goal of youth preservation – or revitalization, as the cosmetic field terms it – but for “enhancement” and facial restructuring, too. “We’re getting numerous requests from patients aged 28 to 35 for this purpose,” notes Grover.
Personal Journey
Preisinger had never planned on getting a facial lift – at least not at the thirty years old. But long-term using injectable gels in an effort at “facial balancing” 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 ruined my face. I regret ever using it. If I didn’t have the filler, I don’t believe I would be where I’m at currently.”
Whether dermal fillers completely disappear has long been a debated topic in the aesthetics industry. “Research have indicated that not only do they rarely fully dissipate,” states Grover, “but they move and can block lymphatic channels. A contributing factor to what we call ‘pillow face’ is additionally the reality that to some extent, the face gets slightly waterlogged because its ability to remove bodily fluid has been reduced.” Although research into the area is early-stage, warnings on injectables’ possible effects on the body’s drainage have been released, and further research announced. An esteemed face specialist, speaking anonymously, mentioned he would never use injectables in a patient because of the dangers they pose. “A lot of surgeons avoid discussing this, because the companies who produce filler can be quite forceful.” He’s heard stories, he says, of plastic surgeons facing legal actions after expressing worries.
Choice and Surgery
For Preisinger, once she started using injectables, she believed she needed to continue replenishing it – particularly when 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 might be what she required to exit the injectable hamster wheel. After 24 months, she ended up selecting from a list of suggested accommodations in Istanbul, texted to her by the clinic assistant at her surgeon’s office.
Originally, Preisinger had scheduled an upper and lower blepharoplasty – better known as blepharoplasty – but her surgeon advised her that a facial lift was the correct option for the laxity she was finding in her face. She booked a brow lift, a cheek lift and a neck lift. The eve of her surgery, one day after she’d touched down alone in Turkey, she opted to include a lip lift. “Then he stated, ‘We will lift the under-eye bags.’ He added, ‘I think if we extract some buccal fat, it will contour your face.’ Thus I ultimately adding two more procedures,” she says. She paid $22,000 (£16,500) for the half-day operation, including a three-day|
