Onemanda Preisinger is nervous about her child’s impending 13th birthday celebration. It’s not due to the usual reasons associated with a home packed of clamorous preteen kids, but since it’s the first time she will debut her recently altered face to acquaintances and extended family. “Obviously I’m going to tell all guests as they come in, ‘For your information, this is not the way I look,’” says the 30-year-old property agent from Southern Florida.
Her appearance is, admittedly, a somewhat startling – her face puffed up and preternaturally lifted, as though secured by heavy-duty tape. Her new – and she’s keen to stress, temporary – look is the outcome of six cosmetic procedures, including an endoscopic mid-facelift, conducted by a doctor in Turkey’s Istanbul, last month. “My spouse teared up when he saw me for the initial 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 needed to inform him: ‘Honey, I’m fine, I’m not hurting. I just look like someone jumped me.’”
Growing Trend of Youthful Facial Lifts
According to plastic surgeons, Preisinger is among a rising count of people choosing to have a rhytidectomy in their 20s and 30s – well over a decade prior to most doctors’ typical patient age range of 40 to 60. (Although most surgeons are keen to emphasise the professional guideline of: “We treat heredity, not age.”) “I have 28-year-olds asking for facial lifts,” says based in London aesthetic plastic surgeon Georgios Orfaniotis, a former NHS consultant who specialises in the facial area. “It’s a major procedure, and I’m a bit concerned when I observe people opting for it as a personal preference.”
Understanding the Facelift Procedure
A facelift, alternatively called a rhytidectomy, lifts the ligaments in the face that begin to droop as we age. “Human faces are structured a bit like onion layers,” explains based in Kent facial plastic surgeon Marc Pacifico. “Dermis and adipose on the top, then a layer of connective tissue known as the superficial musculoaponeurotic system. Think of the facial framework as the structural foundation of the face. And that’s what ages us; that’s what loosens and sags and drags the skin downward with it.”
You risk performing surgery on individuals that have deeper issues. It’s not advisable for an ethical plastic surgeon to follow
Once the preserve of affluent seniors, overuse of injectables – when excessive use of dermal fillers expands the face and causes looseness in the skin – alongside the common adoption of weight-loss drugs, cut-price surgical travel, and the development of novel, celebrity-endorsed operative methods are driving a new kind of patient towards this invasive surgery. Reports show an 8% increase in facial lifts over the past 12 months in the UK; while a survey revealed that the percentage of youthful candidates is increasing, with 32% of facelifts now conducted for patients aged 35-55.
“Patients are now requesting to look like the best version 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 everyone from Kardashian matriarch Kris Jenner, to style creator Marc Jacobs.
Deep Plane Technique
Where a more traditional rhytidectomy entails lifting the superficial layer, the deep plane facelift loosens the facial ligaments underneath, allowing doctors to restructure the face by repositioning the deeper tissue, and preventing the taut, pulled appearance sometimes wrought by more traditional techniques. “We’re not putting stress on the skin because we’re going below, to the underlying structures,” explains prestigious London cosmetic doctor Rajiv Grover, who specialises in the advanced method. “It is the deeper tissue that is adjusted. The dermis follows along as a secondary element.” Lifting the whole facial structure as a single unit results in a more natural-looking and longer-lasting outcome. It additionally implies that the procedure is no longer being used for the express purpose of youth preservation – or revitalization, as the cosmetic field describes it – but for “enhancement” and contouring, too. “We’re getting many inquiries from clients aged 28 to 35 for this purpose,” says Grover.
Personal Journey
Preisinger had not intended on undergoing a facelift – 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 entered her late twenties, she was “damaged”. “I didn’t do this because I wanted to look youthful,” she says. “I did it because the filler harmed my face. I wish I had never done it. If I didn’t have the injectable, I don’t believe I would be where I’m at currently.”
If injectable substances completely disappear has long been a point of contention 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 ‘puffy appearance’ is also the reality that to some extent, the face gets somewhat fluid-filled because its ability to remove bodily fluid has been diminished.” Although studies into the topic is early-stage, cautionary statements on injectables’ possible effects on the body’s drainage have been issued, and additional studies initiated. One highly regarded face specialist, commenting anonymously, says he would avoid using fillers in a client because of the dangers they present. “Many doctors avoid discussing this, because the companies who make filler can be quite forceful.” He’s been told accounts, he says, of cosmetic doctors facing court orders after expressing worries.
Choice and Surgery
For Preisinger, once she started using injectables, she felt as if she needed to continue replenishing it – especially as it started to migrate to other parts of her face. She was only twenty-eight when a local plastic surgeon in the state suggested that a facial and neck surgery might be what she required to exit the injectable hamster wheel. After 24 months, she ended up selecting from a list of recommended hotels in the city, sent to her by the patient coordinator at her doctor’s clinic.
Originally, Preisinger had planned for an eyelid surgery – better known as eyelid surgery – but her doctor advised her that a facial lift was the correct option for the looseness she was experiencing in her face. She arranged a brow lift, a mid-facelift and a jawline surgery. The eve of her operation, 24 hours post she’d touched down alone in Turkey, she decided to add a mouth enhancement. “Then he stated, ‘We’re going to lift the under-eye bags.’ He added, ‘I think if we remove some cheek fat, it will contour your face.’ So I ended up including additional procedures,” she says. She paid $22,000 (sixteen thousand five hundred pounds) for the six-hour surgery, plus a three-day|
