Onemanda Preisinger feels anxious about her daughter’s upcoming 13th birthday party. It’s not due to the typical reasons related to a home packed of loud adolescent kids, but because it’s the first time she will debut her recently altered face to friends and extended family. “Clearly I’m going to inform everyone as they arrive, ‘Just so you know, this is not how I appear,’” states the 30-year-old real estate agent from south Florida.
Her appearance is, admittedly, a little surprising – her face puffed up and unnaturally tightened, as though held together by heavy-duty tape. Her new – and she’s keen to stress, short-term – appearance is the outcome of half a dozen aesthetic surgeries, such as an endoscopic mid-facelift, performed by a surgeon in Turkey’s Istanbul, the previous month. “My spouse became emotional when he saw me for the first time because I couldn’t even open my eyes. That’s how puffy I was,” she tells me via online call from her house. “I had to tell him: ‘Babe, I’m okay, I’m not in pain. I just look like someone jumped me.’”
Growing Trend of Early Facelifts
According to cosmetic specialists, Preisinger is one of a growing number of individuals electing to undergo a rhytidectomy in their 20s and 30s – significantly before a ten years prior to most doctors’ usual candidate age of forty to sixty. (Though most surgeons are eager to highlight the professional guideline of: “We address genetics, not age.”) “I have 28-year-olds requesting facelifts,” says based in London aesthetic plastic surgeon Georgios Orfaniotis, a former NHS consultant who focuses on the head and neck. “It’s a very significant surgery, and I’m a bit concerned when I see people choosing it as a personal preference.”
Explaining the Rhytidectomy Surgery
A facelift, also known as a rhytidectomy, lifts the tissues in the face that start to sag as we grow older. “Our faces are structured a little like layers of an onion,” says Kent-based facial plastic surgeon Marc Pacifico. “Dermis and adipose on the top, then a stratum of supportive tissue known as the SMAS. Think of the facial framework as the soft tissue skeleton of the face. And that is what ages us; that is what loosens and sags and drags the dermis downward with it.”
You endanger operating on individuals that have deeper issues. It’s not advisable for an ethical plastic surgeon to pursue
Once the preserve of affluent seniors, overuse of injectables – when excessive use of dermal fillers expands the face and leads to laxity in the dermis – alongside the widespread use of weight-loss drugs, low-cost surgical travel, and the advancement of new, celebrity-endorsed operative methods are driving a different type of patient towards this invasive surgery. Statistics show an 8% increase in facial lifts over the past 12 months in the United Kingdom; while a survey found that the portion of younger facelift patients is increasing, with one-third of procedures now performed on individuals aged 35-55.
“Patients are asking now to look like 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 technique promoted by figures including reality TV star Kris Jenner, to style creator Marc Jacobs.
Advanced Lifting Method
Where a more traditional facelift involves lifting the superficial layer, the deep plane facelift releases the underlying structures beneath it, allowing doctors to restructure the face by repositioning the deeper tissue, and preventing the taut, pulled look sometimes wrought by more traditional techniques. “We’re not putting tension on the dermis because we’re targeting deeper, to the deeper tissue,” explains Harley Street cosmetic doctor Rajiv Grover, who specialises in the deep plane technique. “It is the deeper tissue that is repositioned. The dermis follows along as a passenger.” Lifting the whole facial structure as a single unit allows for a more natural-looking and longer-lasting outcome. It also means that the procedure is not just being used for the primary goal of youth preservation – or revitalization, as the cosmetic field describes it – but for “enhancement” and facial restructuring, too. “We receive many inquiries from clients aged late twenties to mid-thirties for this reason,” notes Grover.
Personal Journey
Preisinger had not intended on undergoing a facial lift – at least not at the age of 30. But years of using hyaluronic acid dermal fillers in an effort at “symmetry correction” implied that by the time she reached her late twenties, she was “botched”. “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 using it. If I didn’t have the injectable, I don’t think I would be where I’m at currently.”
Whether dermal fillers ever fully dissolve has historically been a point of contention in the aesthetics industry. “Research have shown that not only do they rarely fully dissipate,” states Grover, “but they move and can obstruct drainage pathways. One of the contributors to what we call ‘pillow face’ is additionally the fact that in a sense, the face becomes somewhat waterlogged because its capacity to remove bodily fluid has been diminished.” Though studies into the topic is early-stage, cautionary statements on dermal fillers’ possible effects on the lymphatic system have been issued, and additional studies announced. One highly regarded facial plastic surgeon, commenting anonymously, says he would never use injectables in a patient because of the risks they pose. “Many surgeons avoid talk about this, because the companies who produce injectables can be quite forceful.” He’s heard stories, he adds, of plastic surgeons facing court orders after raising their concerns.
Decision and Procedure
For Preisinger, after beginning injecting filler, she believed she had to keep adding more – particularly when it began moving to different areas of her face. She was only twenty-eight when a nearby cosmetic doctor in the state suggested that a facial and neck surgery could be what she needed to finally step off the cycle of treatments. Two years later, she found herself choosing between a selection of recommended hotels in Istanbul, texted to her by the clinic assistant at her surgeon’s office.
Initially, Preisinger had scheduled an eyelid surgery – better known as blepharoplasty – but her doctor recommended that a facial lift was the correct option for the laxity she was experiencing in her face. She arranged a brow lift, a cheek lift and a jawline surgery. The day before her operation, 24 hours post she’d arrived solo in the country, she decided to add a mouth enhancement. “Subsequently the surgeon stated, ‘We will elevate the lower eyelid puffiness.’ He added, ‘I believe if we remove some buccal fat, it will sculpt your face.’ So I ended up including additional surgeries,” she says. She spent $22,000 (£16,500) for the half-day operation, including a three-day|
