Onemanda Preisinger experiences worry about her child’s impending 13th birthday celebration. Not for the typical reasons associated with a home packed of clamorous preteen children, but since it’s the first time she will showcase her recently altered face to acquaintances 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 30-year-old property agent from south Florida.
How she looks is, admittedly, a little startling – her face puffed up and unnaturally tightened, as though secured by industrial-grade tape. Her new – and she’s keen to stress, temporary – appearance is the outcome of six cosmetic procedures, such as an minimally invasive facelift, conducted by a surgeon in Istanbul, Turkey, the previous month. “My poor husband became emotional when he viewed me for the initial time because I couldn’t even unseal my eyes. That’s how puffy I was,” she tells me via video call from her house. “I needed to inform him: ‘Honey, I’m okay, I’m not hurting. I just appear as if someone attacked me.’”
Increasing Popularity of Early Facelifts
Based on plastic surgeons, Preisinger is one of a growing number of individuals choosing to undergo a facelift in their twenties and thirties – well over a decade prior to typical surgeons’ typical patient age range of forty to sixty. (Although many specialists are keen to emphasise the industry edict of: “We treat heredity, not years.”) “I have 28-year-olds asking for facelifts,” says London-based aesthetic plastic surgeon Georgios Orfaniotis, a former NHS consultant who specialises in the facial area. “It’s a very significant surgery, and I’m a somewhat worried when I see people opting for it as a lifestyle choice.”
Explaining the Rhytidectomy Surgery
A rhytidectomy, also known as a rhytidectomy, lifts the tissues in the face that begin to droop as we grow older. “Our faces are structured a little like layers of an onion,” explains based in Kent facial plastic surgeon Marc Pacifico. “Skin and fat on the top, then a layer of connective tissue called the SMAS. Think of the SMAS as the soft tissue skeleton of the face. And that is what causes aging; that is what loosens and sags and drags the dermis down with it.”
You risk operating on individuals that have underlying problems. It’s not advisable for an conscientious surgeon to pursue
Once the preserve of affluent seniors, overuse of injectables – when overuse of injectable gels stretches the face and causes laxity in the dermis – alongside the common adoption of slimming medications, cut-price medical tourism, and the advancement of novel, celebrity-endorsed operative methods are driving a different type of patient towards this major operation. Reports show an 8% increase in facelifts over the past 12 months in the United Kingdom; while a study found that the percentage of younger facelift patients is increasing, with 32% of facelifts now conducted for patients aged thirty-five to fifty-five.
“People are asking now to appear as the optimal form of themselves and naturally the methods are evolving,” says Orfaniotis. At present, the operation du jour is the comprehensive facial lift, a method promoted by everyone from reality TV star Kris Jenner, to style creator Marc Jacobs.
Deep Plane Technique
Where a more traditional facelift entails elevating the SMAS, the deep plane facelift releases the underlying structures beneath it, enabling surgeons to reshape the face by moving the underlying layers, and avoiding the tight, stretched appearance occasionally caused by more traditional techniques. “We’re not putting tension on the skin because we’re targeting deeper, to the deeper tissue,” says prestigious London cosmetic doctor Rajiv Grover, who specialises in the advanced method. “It is the deeper tissue that is repositioned. The dermis comes with it as a secondary element.” Elevating the entire soft tissue layer as a single unit results in a more natural-looking and longer-lasting outcome. It also means that the procedure is not just being used for the primary goal of youth preservation – or rejuvenation, as the cosmetic field terms it – but for “beautification” and contouring, too. “We’re getting many inquiries from clients aged late twenties to mid-thirties for this purpose,” notes Grover.
Personal Journey
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 entered her late twenties, she was “damaged”. “I didn’t do this because I desired to appear young,” she says. “I did it because the filler ruined my face. I wish I had never using it. If I didn’t have the injectable, I don’t think I would be where I’m at right now.”
Whether dermal fillers completely disappear has long been a debated topic in the cosmetic field. “Studies have shown that they seldom completely dissolve,” says Grover, “but they move and can obstruct drainage pathways. One of the contributors to what we term ‘pillow face’ is also the fact that to some extent, the face gets somewhat waterlogged because its ability to remove bodily fluid has been reduced.” Although research into the area is preliminary, warnings on dermal fillers’ potential impact on the lymphatic system have been issued, and further research initiated. One highly regarded face specialist, speaking on the condition of anonymity, mentioned he would never use injectables in a client because of the risks they pose. “A lot of surgeons avoid talk about this, because the companies who make injectables can be pretty aggressive.” He’s been told accounts, he adds, of cosmetic doctors facing legal actions after expressing worries.
Decision and Procedure
For Preisinger, once she started using injectables, she believed she had to keep adding more – especially as it started to migrate to different areas of her face. She was just 28 when a nearby cosmetic doctor in the state proposed that a face and neck lift could be what she needed to exit the injectable hamster wheel. Two years later, she ended up selecting from a selection of recommended hotels in the city, texted to her by the patient coordinator at her doctor’s clinic.
Originally, Preisinger had scheduled an upper and lower blepharoplasty – commonly called eyelid surgery – but her doctor recommended that a facial lift was the correct option for the laxity she was experiencing in her face. She booked a brow lift, a cheek lift and a jawline surgery. The eve of her operation, 24 hours post she’d arrived alone in Turkey, she decided to add a mouth enhancement. “Subsequently the surgeon stated, ‘We’re going to lift the lower eyelid puffiness.’ Then he said, ‘I believe if we extract some cheek fat, it will sculpt your face.’ Thus I ultimately adding two more procedures,” she recalls. She paid $22,000 (£16,500) for the six-hour operation, including a three-day|
