Amanda Preisinger feels anxious about her child’s impending 13th birthday party. Not for the typical reasons associated with a home packed of loud adolescent children, but because it’s the initial occasion she will reveal her new face to friends and extended family. “Obviously I’m going to tell everyone as they come in, ‘Just so you know, this is not how I look,’” says the 30-year-old real estate agent from Southern Florida.
How she looks is, admittedly, a little surprising – her face swollen and preternaturally lifted, as though secured by heavy-duty tape. Her new – and she’s eager to emphasize, temporary – appearance is the result of six aesthetic surgeries, such as an minimally invasive facelift, conducted by a doctor in Istanbul, Turkey, the previous month. “My poor husband teared up when he viewed me for the initial time because I couldn’t even open my eyes. That’s how puffy I was,” she tells me via video call from her home. “I needed to inform him: ‘Honey, I’m okay, I’m not in pain. 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 twenties and thirties – well over a ten years before most doctors’ typical patient age range of forty to sixty. (Though many specialists are keen to emphasise the industry edict of: “We address genetics, not age.”) “I have 28-year-olds requesting facelifts,” states based in London aesthetic plastic surgeon Georgios Orfaniotis, a former NHS consultant who specialises in the head and neck. “It’s a very significant procedure, and I’m a bit concerned when I observe people choosing it as a lifestyle choice.”
Understanding the Rhytidectomy Surgery
A facelift, alternatively called a facelift, lifts the tissues in the face that start to sag as we age. “Human faces are built a little 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 SMAS as the structural foundation of the face. And that is what causes aging; that is what becomes lax and drags the dermis down with it.”
You risk performing surgery on people that have deeper issues. It’s not advisable for an conscientious surgeon to pursue
Previously reserved of affluent seniors, overuse of injectables – when overuse of injectable gels expands the face and causes laxity in the skin – alongside the common adoption of weight-loss drugs, low-cost medical tourism, and the advancement of novel, famous-figure-promoted surgical techniques are attracting a different type of patient towards this major operation. Statistics show an 8% increase in facelifts over the past 12 months in the United Kingdom; while a study revealed that the percentage of youthful candidates is growing, with one-third of procedures now performed on patients aged 35-55.
“People are asking now to look like the best version of themselves and obviously the methods are following,” comments Orfaniotis. At present, the operation du jour is the deep plane facelift, a method evangelised by figures including reality TV star Kris Jenner, to fashion designer Marc Jacobs.
Deep Plane Technique
While a more traditional rhytidectomy involves lifting the SMAS, the comprehensive lift loosens the underlying structures underneath, enabling doctors to reshape the face by repositioning the deeper tissue, and avoiding the tight, stretched appearance sometimes wrought by more traditional techniques. “We avoid placing tension on the skin because we’re targeting deeper, to the deeper tissue,” says prestigious London plastic surgeon Rajiv Grover, who specialises in the deep plane technique. “It is the underlying layers that is adjusted. The dermis comes with it as a secondary element.” Elevating the entire soft tissue layer as a single unit results in a authentic-appearing and longer-lasting outcome. It also means that the surgery is no longer being used for the primary goal of youth preservation – or revitalization, as the cosmetic field terms it – but for “enhancement” and contouring, too. “We receive numerous requests from clients aged late twenties to mid-thirties for this reason,” says Grover.
Individual Experience
Preisinger had never planned on undergoing a facelift – at least not at the age of 30. But years of using hyaluronic acid dermal fillers in an attempt at “facial balancing” meant that by the time she reached her late twenties, she was “damaged”. “I didn’t do this because I wanted to look young,” she says. “I underwent it because the filler harmed my face. I wish I had never using it. If I had avoided the injectable, I don’t think I would be where I’m at currently.”
If dermal fillers ever fully dissolve has long been a debated topic in the aesthetics industry. “Research have indicated that they seldom fully dissipate,” says Grover, “but they migrate and can obstruct drainage pathways. A contributing factor to what we term ‘puffy appearance’ is additionally the fact that in a sense, the face becomes slightly waterlogged because its capacity to drain lymphatic fluid has been reduced.” Though studies into the area is preliminary, cautionary statements on injectables’ potential impact on the lymphatic system have been released, and further research announced. One highly regarded face specialist, commenting on the condition of anonymity, says he would never use injectables in a patient because of the risks they pose. “Many doctors avoid discussing this, because the companies who make injectables can be pretty aggressive.” He’s been told accounts, he says, of cosmetic doctors facing court orders after raising their concerns.
Choice and Surgery
For Preisinger, once she started 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 only twenty-eight when a local plastic surgeon in Florida suggested that a facial and neck surgery could be what she required to finally step off the injectable hamster wheel. After 24 months, she found herself choosing between a selection of recommended hotels in the city, sent to her by the clinic assistant at her surgeon’s office.
Originally, Preisinger had scheduled an eyelid surgery – commonly called blepharoplasty – but her doctor recommended that a facelift was the correct option for the looseness she was experiencing in her face. She booked 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 lip lift. “Then he said, ‘We will lift 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 procedures,” she says. She paid $22,000 (£16,500) for the six-hour surgery, plus a three-day|
