Amanda Preisinger experiences worry about her child’s impending 13th birthday party. Not for the usual causes related to a house full of clamorous preteen kids, but since it’s the first time she will debut her new face to acquaintances and relatives. “Clearly I’m going to tell all guests as they come in, ‘Just so you know, this is not the way I appear,’” says the thirty-year-old property agent from south Florida.
How she looks is, well, a somewhat surprising – her face swollen and preternaturally lifted, as though held together by heavy-duty tape. Her new – and she’s eager to emphasize, temporary – appearance is the result of six cosmetic procedures, including an endoscopic mid-facelift, performed by a doctor in Turkey’s Istanbul, last month. “My poor husband became emotional when he viewed me for the initial time because I couldn’t even unseal my eyes. That indicates swollen I was,” she tells me via video call from her home. “I needed to inform him: ‘Honey, I’m okay, I’m not hurting. I just appear as if someone jumped me.’”
Increasing Popularity of Early Facelifts
According to cosmetic specialists, Preisinger is one of a growing number of individuals choosing to have a rhytidectomy in their 20s and 30s – well over a decade before most doctors’ typical patient age range of forty to sixty. (Although most surgeons are keen to emphasise the industry edict of: “We address genetics, not age.”) “I have individuals in their late twenties requesting facelifts,” says London-based cosmetic surgeon Georgios Orfaniotis, a ex-NHS doctor who focuses on the head and neck. “It’s a major surgery, and I’m a bit concerned when I observe people choosing it as a lifestyle choice.”
Explaining the Rhytidectomy Surgery
A facelift, also known as a rhytidectomy, elevates the ligaments in the face that start to sag as we age. “Our faces are structured a little like onion layers,” explains based in Kent facial plastic surgeon Marc Pacifico. “Skin and fat on the top, then a layer of supportive tissue called the superficial musculoaponeurotic system. Think of the SMAS as the soft tissue skeleton of the face. And that is what ages us; that is what loosens and sags and drags the dermis down with it.”
You endanger performing surgery on individuals that have underlying problems. It’s not advisable for an conscientious surgeon to pursue
Previously reserved of moneyed older people, “filler fatigue” – when overuse of injectable gels stretches the face and causes looseness in the skin – combined with the common adoption of weight-loss drugs, low-cost medical tourism, and the development of new, celebrity-endorsed surgical techniques are attracting a different type of patient towards this invasive surgery. Reports show an 8% increase in facelifts over the last year in the UK; while a survey revealed that the portion of younger facelift patients is increasing, with one-third of procedures now performed on individuals aged 35-55.
“People are now requesting to look like the optimal form of themselves and naturally the methods are evolving,” comments Orfaniotis. Currently, the operation du jour is the deep plane facelift, a technique promoted by figures including reality TV star Kris Jenner, to style creator Marc Jacobs.
Deep Plane Technique
Where a more traditional facelift entails lifting the SMAS, the deep plane facelift loosens the facial ligaments beneath it, enabling doctors to restructure the face by repositioning the deeper tissue, and preventing the taut, pulled appearance sometimes wrought by older methods. “We’re not putting stress on the dermis because we’re targeting deeper, to the underlying structures,” explains Harley Street plastic surgeon Rajiv Grover, who specialises in 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 results in a more natural-looking and longer-lasting result. It also means that the surgery is no longer being used for the primary goal of anti-ageing – or rejuvenation, as the aesthetics industry describes it – but for “enhancement” and facial restructuring, too. “We’re getting many inquiries from clients aged 28 to 35 for this purpose,” says Grover.
Personal Journey
Preisinger had never planned on undergoing a facelift – at least not at the thirty years old. But years of using injectable gels in an attempt at “symmetry correction” implied that by the time she reached her late twenties, she was “damaged”. “I didn’t undergo this because I wanted to look youthful,” she says. “I underwent it because the injectable ruined my face. I regret ever done it. If I didn’t have the injectable, I don’t think I would be in this situation right now.”
Whether dermal fillers completely disappear has long been a point of contention in the cosmetic field. “Research have indicated that they seldom fully dissipate,” says Grover, “but they migrate and can block lymphatic channels. A contributing factor to what we term ‘puffy appearance’ is additionally the reality that to some extent, the face becomes slightly fluid-filled because its capacity to drain bodily fluid has been reduced.” Though research into the area is preliminary, cautionary statements on dermal fillers’ possible effects on the lymphatic system have been issued, and further research initiated. One highly regarded face specialist, commenting anonymously, says he would avoid using fillers in a patient because of the risks they present. “A lot of surgeons avoid talk about this, because the manufacturers who make filler can be quite forceful.” He’s been told accounts, he adds, of plastic surgeons facing court orders after expressing worries.
Decision and Procedure
For Preisinger, after beginning injecting filler, she felt as if she needed to continue adding more – especially as it began moving to different areas of her face. She was just 28 when a nearby cosmetic doctor in Florida suggested that a face and neck lift could be what she required to finally step off the injectable hamster wheel. After 24 months, she ended up choosing between a list of recommended hotels in Istanbul, texted to her by the patient coordinator at her surgeon’s office.
Initially, Preisinger had planned for an upper and lower blepharoplasty – better known as eyelid surgery – but her surgeon recommended that a facelift was the right solution for the looseness she was finding in her face. She arranged a forehead lift, a cheek lift and a neck lift. The eve of her operation, 24 hours post she’d touched down solo in the country, she opted to include a lip lift. “Subsequently the surgeon stated, ‘We will elevate the lower eyelid puffiness.’ He added, ‘I think if we extract some buccal fat, it will contour your face.’ Thus I ultimately including additional surgeries,” she recalls. She paid $22,000 (£16,500) for the half-day surgery, including a three-day|
