Onemanda Preisinger experiences worry about her daughter’s upcoming 13th birthday celebration. It’s not due to the typical reasons related to a house full of loud preteen children, but because it’s the first time she will reveal her new face to acquaintances and relatives. “Obviously I’m going to tell all guests as they arrive, ‘Just so you know, this is not how I appear,’” states the 30-year-old property agent from south Florida.
Her appearance is, admittedly, a somewhat startling – her face swollen and unnaturally tightened, as though held together by heavy-duty tape. Her altered – and she’s keen to stress, short-term – appearance is the result of six aesthetic surgeries, including an minimally invasive facelift, conducted by a surgeon in Turkey’s Istanbul, the previous month. “My spouse teared up when he saw me for the first time because I couldn’t even open my eyes. That indicates puffy I was,” she tells me via online call from her house. “I needed to inform him: ‘Honey, I’m fine, I’m not hurting. I just appear as if someone attacked me.’”
Increasing Popularity of Early Facelifts
Based on cosmetic specialists, Preisinger is one of a rising count of individuals choosing to have a rhytidectomy in their twenties and thirties – significantly before a ten years before typical surgeons’ typical patient age range of forty to sixty. (Although many specialists are eager to highlight the industry edict of: “We address heredity, not years.”) “I have individuals in their late twenties requesting facelifts,” states London-based cosmetic surgeon Georgios Orfaniotis, a former NHS consultant who specialises in the head and neck. “It’s a very significant surgery, and I’m a somewhat worried when I observe people opting for it as a lifestyle choice.”
Explaining the Rhytidectomy Surgery
A rhytidectomy, also known as a rhytidectomy, lifts the ligaments in the face that start to sag as we age. “Our faces are structured a little like onion layers,” says Kent-based face specialist Marc Pacifico. “Skin and fat on the surface, then a stratum of supportive tissue called the SMAS. Consider the facial framework as the soft tissue skeleton of the face. And that is what causes aging; that’s what becomes lax and drags the skin down with it.”
You risk performing surgery 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 causes laxity in the skin – alongside the widespread use of weight-loss drugs, cut-price surgical travel, and the development of new, famous-figure-promoted operative methods are driving a different type of customer towards this major operation. Statistics indicate an eight percent rise in facial lifts over the past 12 months in the UK; while a study found that the percentage of youthful candidates 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 following,” says Orfaniotis. Currently, the trending procedure is the deep plane facelift, a method evangelised by everyone from reality TV star Kris Jenner, to fashion designer Marc Jacobs.
Advanced Lifting Method
Where a conventional facelift involves elevating the SMAS, the deep plane facelift releases the facial ligaments beneath it, enabling surgeons to reshape the face by repositioning the underlying layers, and preventing the tight, stretched appearance sometimes wrought by older methods. “We’re not putting stress on the skin because we’re going below, to the deeper tissue,” says prestigious London plastic surgeon Rajiv Grover, who focuses on the advanced method. “It is the deeper tissue that is adjusted. The skin comes with it as a secondary element.” Elevating the whole facial structure as a single unit allows for a authentic-appearing and longer-lasting result. It also means that the procedure is no longer being used for the primary goal of anti-ageing – or rejuvenation, as the cosmetic field describes it – but for “beautification” and contouring, too. “We’re getting numerous requests from patients aged late twenties to mid-thirties for this purpose,” notes Grover.
Personal Journey
Preisinger had not intended on getting a facelift – at least not at the thirty years old. But long-term using hyaluronic acid dermal fillers in an attempt at “facial balancing” meant that by the time she reached her late 20s, she was “damaged”. “I didn’t do this because I desired to appear youthful,” she says. “I did it because the injectable harmed my face. I wish I had never using it. If I didn’t have the injectable, I don’t think I would be in this situation currently.”
Whether dermal fillers ever fully dissolve has long been a point of contention in the aesthetics industry. “Studies have indicated that they seldom completely dissolve,” states Grover, “but they move and can obstruct lymphatic channels. One of the contributors to what we call ‘pillow face’ is also the fact that in a sense, the face becomes somewhat waterlogged because its capacity to drain lymphatic fluid has been diminished.” Though studies into the topic is early-stage, warnings on dermal fillers’ potential impact on the body’s drainage have been issued, and additional studies announced. An esteemed face specialist, speaking on the condition of anonymity, mentioned he would never use fillers in a client because of the risks they pose. “A lot of doctors avoid talk about this, because the companies who make filler can be pretty aggressive.” He’s heard stories, he says, of plastic surgeons facing legal actions after expressing worries.
Choice and Surgery
For Preisinger, after beginning injecting filler, she felt as if she had to keep replenishing it – particularly when it started to migrate to different areas of her face. She was just 28 when a nearby cosmetic doctor in the state suggested that a face and neck lift could be what she required to exit the cycle of treatments. After 24 months, she ended up choosing between a list of suggested accommodations in the city, texted to her by the patient coordinator at her surgeon’s office.
Originally, Preisinger had scheduled an eyelid surgery – commonly called eyelid surgery – but her surgeon recommended that a facelift was the correct option for the looseness she was experiencing in her face. She booked a forehead lift, a cheek lift and a jawline surgery. The eve of her operation, one day after she’d touched down solo in the country, she opted to include a mouth enhancement. “Then he said, ‘We will elevate the lower eyelid puffiness.’ He added, ‘I believe if we remove some cheek fat, it will sculpt your face.’ So I ended up adding two more surgeries,” she says. She spent $22,000 (£16,500) for the six-hour surgery, plus a three-day|
