Onemanda Preisinger is nervous about her child’s upcoming 13th birthday party. Not for the usual causes associated with a home packed of loud preteen children, but because it’s the first time she will reveal her new face to friends and relatives. “Obviously I’m going to inform everyone as they arrive, ‘For your information, this is not how I appear,’” says the 30-year-old real estate agent from south Florida.
Her appearance is, admittedly, a somewhat startling – her face swollen and preternaturally lifted, as though secured by heavy-duty tape. Her new – and she’s keen to stress, temporary – appearance is the result of six aesthetic surgeries, including an endoscopic mid-facelift, performed by a surgeon in Istanbul, Turkey, the previous month. “My poor husband teared up when he saw me for the initial time because I wasn’t able to 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 fine, I’m not hurting. I just appear as if someone attacked me.’”
Growing Trend of Early Facelifts
According to plastic surgeons, Preisinger is one of a rising count of people electing to have a facelift in their 20s and 30s – significantly before a ten years before most doctors’ typical patient age range of 40 to 60. (Although many specialists are eager to highlight the industry edict of: “We address heredity, not age.”) “I have individuals in their late twenties requesting facial lifts,” says London-based cosmetic surgeon Georgios Orfaniotis, a ex-NHS doctor who focuses on the facial area. “It’s a very significant procedure, and I’m a bit concerned when I observe people opting for it as a personal preference.”
Understanding the Rhytidectomy Surgery
A facelift, also known as a rhytidectomy, elevates the ligaments in the face that start to sag as we age. “Human faces are built a bit like layers of an onion,” says Kent-based face specialist Marc Pacifico. “Skin and fat on the surface, then a stratum of supportive tissue known as the SMAS. Think of the SMAS as the soft tissue skeleton of the face. And that’s what ages us; that is what becomes lax and pulls the skin down with it.”
You risk operating on people that have deeper issues. It’s not a practice for an ethical plastic surgeon to follow
Previously reserved of affluent seniors, overuse of injectables – when overuse of dermal fillers expands the face and causes looseness in the skin – combined with the common adoption of weight-loss drugs, low-cost medical tourism, and the development of new, celebrity-endorsed operative methods are attracting a different type of customer towards this invasive surgery. Reports indicate an 8% increase in facial lifts over the last year in the UK; while a survey revealed that the portion of youthful candidates is growing, with 32% of facelifts now performed on patients aged 35-55.
“Patients are now requesting to look like the best version of themselves and obviously the methods are following,” says Orfaniotis. Currently, the trending procedure is the deep plane facelift, a method evangelised by figures including reality TV star Kris Jenner, to style creator Marc Jacobs.
Deep Plane Technique
Where a more traditional facelift entails elevating the superficial layer, the comprehensive lift loosens the facial ligaments beneath it, allowing surgeons to reshape the face by repositioning the underlying layers, and avoiding the tight, stretched look sometimes wrought by more traditional techniques. “We avoid placing stress on the skin 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 underlying layers that is repositioned. The skin follows along as a passenger.” Lifting the entire soft tissue layer as a unified block results in a more natural-looking and more durable result. It additionally implies that the surgery is not just being used for the express purpose of youth preservation – or revitalization, as the aesthetics industry terms it – but for “enhancement” and contouring, too. “We receive many inquiries from clients aged late twenties to mid-thirties for this purpose,” says Grover.
Personal Journey
Preisinger had never planned on getting a facial lift – at least not at the thirty years old. But years of using hyaluronic acid dermal fillers in an attempt at “facial balancing” implied that by the time she entered her late 20s, she was “damaged”. “I didn’t undergo this because I desired to appear young,” she clarifies. “I did it because the filler ruined my face. I wish I had never done it. If I didn’t have the injectable, I don’t believe I would be in this situation right now.”
If dermal fillers completely disappear has long been a debated topic in the cosmetic field. “Studies have shown that they seldom completely dissolve,” states Grover, “but they migrate and can block lymphatic channels. One of the contributors to what we term ‘pillow face’ is also the reality that to some extent, the face gets somewhat waterlogged because its capacity to drain bodily fluid has been diminished.” Though research into the area is early-stage, cautionary statements on dermal fillers’ possible effects on the lymphatic system have been issued, and additional studies initiated. One highly regarded face specialist, speaking anonymously, mentioned he would never use injectables in a patient because of the risks they pose. “A lot of doctors avoid talk about this, because the companies who produce filler can be pretty aggressive.” He’s heard stories, he says, of cosmetic doctors being landed with court orders after raising their concerns.
Choice and Surgery
For Preisinger, after beginning injecting filler, she felt as if she had to keep replenishing it – especially as it began moving to different areas of her face. She was just 28 when a nearby cosmetic doctor in the state proposed that a facial and neck surgery might be what she needed to finally step off the cycle of treatments. After 24 months, she ended up selecting from a list of suggested accommodations in the city, sent to her by the clinic assistant at her doctor’s clinic.
Initially, Preisinger had planned for an eyelid surgery – better known as blepharoplasty – but her doctor recommended that a facial lift was the correct option for the laxity she was experiencing in her face. She arranged a forehead lift, a mid-facelift and a jawline surgery. The day before her operation, one day after she’d arrived alone in Turkey, she decided to add a lip lift. “Subsequently the surgeon stated, ‘We’re going to lift the lower eyelid puffiness.’ Then he said, ‘I believe if we remove some cheek fat, it will sculpt your face.’ Thus I ultimately including additional procedures,” she recalls. She spent $22,000 (£16,500) for the half-day surgery, plus a three-day|
