Amanda Preisinger experiences worry about her child’s impending 13th birthday celebration. Not for the typical reasons associated with a house full of clamorous adolescent children, but because it’s the first time she will showcase her recently altered face to friends and extended family. “Clearly I’m going to inform everyone as they come in, ‘For your information, this is not the way I appear,’” says the thirty-year-old property agent from south Florida.
Her appearance is, admittedly, a somewhat surprising – her face swollen and unnaturally tightened, as though secured by heavy-duty tape. Her new – and she’s eager to emphasize, temporary – look is the outcome of six cosmetic procedures, including an endoscopic mid-facelift, performed by a doctor in Istanbul, Turkey, last month. “My poor husband teared up when he viewed 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 house. “I needed to inform him: ‘Babe, I’m fine, I’m not hurting. I just look like someone attacked me.’”
Growing Trend of Early Facelifts
Based on cosmetic specialists, Preisinger is one of a growing number of people choosing to undergo a facelift in their twenties and thirties – significantly before a ten years before most doctors’ typical patient age range of 40 to 60. (Although most surgeons are eager to highlight the professional guideline of: “We address genetics, not years.”) “I have individuals in their late twenties requesting facelifts,” says based in London cosmetic surgeon Georgios Orfaniotis, a ex-NHS doctor who specialises in the head and neck. “It’s a very significant procedure, and I’m a somewhat worried when I observe people choosing it as a lifestyle choice.”
Explaining the Facelift Procedure
A rhytidectomy, also known as a facelift, lifts the tissues in the face that begin to droop as we age. “Human faces are built a little like layers of an onion,” explains Kent-based facial plastic surgeon Marc Pacifico. “Skin and fat on the surface, then a stratum of supportive tissue called the SMAS. Think of the SMAS as the structural foundation of the face. And that’s what causes aging; that’s what loosens and sags and drags the skin down with it.”
You risk performing surgery on individuals that have underlying problems. It’s not advisable for an conscientious surgeon to follow
Once the preserve of affluent seniors, “filler fatigue” – when overuse of dermal fillers expands the face and leads to looseness in the skin – combined with the widespread use of weight-loss drugs, low-cost medical tourism, and the advancement of new, celebrity-endorsed operative methods are driving a new kind of customer towards this invasive surgery. Statistics indicate an 8% increase in facelifts over the past 12 months in the UK; while a survey revealed that the portion of youthful candidates is growing, with one-third of procedures now conducted for individuals aged thirty-five to fifty-five.
“Patients are asking now to look like the optimal form of themselves and naturally the methods are evolving,” comments Orfaniotis. At present, the operation du jour is the deep plane facelift, a technique evangelised by figures including Kardashian matriarch Kris Jenner, to style creator Marc Jacobs.
Deep Plane Technique
Where a more traditional facelift entails lifting the superficial layer, the comprehensive lift releases the facial ligaments beneath it, enabling surgeons to reshape the face by repositioning the underlying layers, and avoiding the tight, stretched appearance sometimes wrought by older methods. “We’re not putting stress on the dermis because we’re going below, to the deeper tissue,” says Harley Street cosmetic doctor Rajiv Grover, who specialises in the advanced method. “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 more durable result. It additionally implies that the procedure is no longer being used for the express purpose of anti-ageing – or rejuvenation, as the cosmetic field describes it – but for “beautification” and contouring, too. “We’re getting many inquiries from clients aged 28 to 35 for this purpose,” notes Grover.
Personal Journey
Preisinger had never planned on undergoing a facial lift – at least not at the thirty years old. But years of using injectable gels in an attempt at “facial balancing” meant that by the time she entered her late twenties, she was “botched”. “I didn’t undergo this because I desired to appear youthful,” she says. “I underwent it because the injectable ruined my face. I wish I had never done it. If I didn’t have the injectable, I don’t think I would be in this situation right now.”
If dermal fillers completely disappear has historically been a point of contention in the aesthetics industry. “Studies have indicated that not only do they rarely fully dissipate,” states Grover, “but they migrate and can block lymphatic channels. One of the contributors to what we call ‘puffy appearance’ is also the reality that to some extent, the face becomes somewhat waterlogged because its capacity to drain lymphatic fluid has been reduced.” Though studies into the area is preliminary, warnings on dermal fillers’ potential impact on the body’s drainage have been released, and further research initiated. An esteemed face specialist, speaking on the condition of anonymity, says he would avoid using injectables in a patient because of the dangers they pose. “Many surgeons don’t want to talk about this, because the companies who produce filler can be pretty aggressive.” He’s been told accounts, he says, of plastic surgeons being landed with court orders after expressing worries.
Decision and Procedure
For Preisinger, once she started injecting filler, she felt as if she had to keep replenishing it – particularly when it began moving to different areas of her face. She was just 28 when a nearby cosmetic doctor in the state suggested that a facial and neck surgery could be what she required to exit the cycle of treatments. Two years later, she found herself selecting from a selection of suggested accommodations in Istanbul, sent to her by the clinic assistant at her doctor’s clinic.
Initially, Preisinger had planned for an upper and lower blepharoplasty – commonly called blepharoplasty – but her doctor recommended that a facial lift was the correct option for the looseness she was experiencing in her face. She booked a brow lift, a mid-facelift and a neck lift. The day before her surgery, one day after she’d touched down solo in the country, she decided to add a mouth enhancement. “Subsequently the surgeon stated, ‘We will elevate the under-eye bags.’ He added, ‘I believe if we extract some cheek fat, it will sculpt your face.’ Thus I ultimately adding two more surgeries,” she says. She paid $22,000 (£16,500) for the six-hour operation, plus a three-day|
