Amanda Preisinger experiences worry about her daughter’s upcoming 13th birthday celebration. Not for the usual causes related to a house full of clamorous adolescent kids, but since it’s the initial occasion she will debut her new face to friends and extended family. “Obviously I’m going to inform everyone as they arrive, ‘For your information, this is not how I look,’” says the thirty-year-old real estate agent from Southern Florida.
Her appearance is, admittedly, a somewhat startling – her face puffed up and unnaturally tightened, as though held together by industrial-grade tape. Her new – and she’s eager to emphasize, temporary – appearance is the outcome of half a dozen cosmetic procedures, including an minimally invasive facelift, performed by a doctor in Istanbul, Turkey, the previous month. “My poor husband teared up when he saw me for the first time because I couldn’t even unseal my eyes. That’s how puffy I was,” she tells me via online call from her home. “I had to tell him: ‘Babe, I’m fine, I’m not hurting. I just look like someone jumped me.’”
Increasing Popularity of Youthful Facial Lifts
Based on cosmetic specialists, Preisinger is among a rising count of people choosing to have a rhytidectomy in their 20s and 30s – well over a decade prior to typical surgeons’ usual candidate age of 40 to 60. (Although most surgeons are keen to emphasise the industry edict of: “We address heredity, not age.”) “I have individuals in their late twenties requesting facelifts,” states based in London cosmetic 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 choosing it as a personal preference.”
Explaining the Rhytidectomy Surgery
A facelift, alternatively called a rhytidectomy, lifts the tissues in the face that start to sag as we age. “Our faces are structured a bit like layers of an onion,” says based in Kent face specialist Marc Pacifico. “Skin and fat on the surface, then a stratum of connective tissue called the SMAS. Consider the SMAS as the soft tissue skeleton of the face. And that’s what causes aging; that’s what loosens and sags and drags the dermis downward with it.”
You risk operating on people that have underlying problems. It’s not advisable for an ethical plastic surgeon to pursue
Previously reserved of moneyed older people, overuse of injectables – when excessive use of injectable gels expands the face and causes laxity in the dermis – alongside the common adoption of weight-loss drugs, low-cost surgical travel, and the development of novel, celebrity-endorsed surgical techniques are driving a different type of patient towards this major operation. Statistics indicate an eight percent rise in facial lifts over the past 12 months in the United Kingdom; while a study revealed that the portion of youthful candidates is increasing, with 32% of facelifts now conducted for individuals aged thirty-five to fifty-five.
“People are now requesting to look like the optimal form of themselves and obviously the techniques are evolving,” says Orfaniotis. Currently, the trending procedure is the comprehensive facial lift, a method promoted by everyone from reality TV star Kris Jenner, to fashion designer Marc Jacobs.
Deep Plane Technique
Where a conventional rhytidectomy entails elevating the superficial layer, the deep plane facelift loosens the underlying structures beneath it, allowing doctors to reshape the face by moving the deeper tissue, and preventing the tight, stretched look occasionally caused by older methods. “We avoid placing stress on the skin because we’re going below, to the deeper tissue,” says Harley Street cosmetic doctor Rajiv Grover, who focuses on the deep plane technique. “It is the underlying layers that is adjusted. The skin comes with it as a passenger.” Elevating the whole facial structure as a unified block allows for a authentic-appearing and more durable result. It additionally implies that the surgery is no longer being used for the express purpose of anti-ageing – or revitalization, as the cosmetic field terms it – but for “beautification” and contouring, too. “We receive numerous requests from patients aged 28 to 35 for this purpose,” notes Grover.
Individual Experience
Preisinger had not intended on undergoing a facelift – at least not at the thirty years old. But long-term using hyaluronic acid dermal fillers 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 young,” she says. “I underwent it because the injectable ruined my face. I wish I had never using it. If I had avoided the filler, I don’t think I would be in this situation right now.”
Whether dermal fillers completely disappear has historically been a debated topic in the cosmetic field. “Studies have indicated that they seldom fully dissipate,” states Grover, “but they move and can obstruct lymphatic channels. A contributing factor to what we call ‘pillow face’ is also the fact that to some extent, the face gets somewhat fluid-filled because its capacity to remove bodily fluid has been diminished.” Although studies into the area is early-stage, cautionary statements on dermal fillers’ possible effects on the lymphatic system have been issued, and additional studies announced. An esteemed face specialist, speaking anonymously, mentioned he would avoid using fillers in a client because of the dangers they pose. “A lot of doctors don’t want to discussing this, because the companies who make injectables can be pretty aggressive.” He’s been told accounts, he says, of cosmetic doctors facing legal actions after raising their concerns.
Decision and Procedure
For Preisinger, once she started using injectables, she believed she needed to continue adding more – especially as it started to migrate to other parts of her face. She was only twenty-eight when a nearby cosmetic doctor in the state suggested that a face and neck lift could be what she required to finally step off the injectable hamster wheel. After 24 months, she found herself selecting from a selection of recommended hotels in Istanbul, sent to her by the clinic assistant at her surgeon’s office.
Originally, Preisinger had scheduled an eyelid surgery – commonly called blepharoplasty – but her surgeon advised her that a facial lift was the right solution for the laxity she was experiencing in her face. She booked a forehead lift, a cheek lift and a jawline surgery. The day before her operation, one day after she’d touched down alone in Turkey, she opted to include a mouth enhancement. “Then he stated, ‘We will lift the lower eyelid puffiness.’ He added, ‘I believe if we remove some cheek fat, it will contour your face.’ Thus I ultimately adding two more procedures,” she says. She spent $22,000 (sixteen thousand five hundred pounds) for the six-hour operation, including a three-day|
