Amanda Preisinger is nervous about her daughter’s upcoming 13th birthday party. It’s not due to the typical reasons associated with a house full of loud adolescent children, but since it’s the first time she will debut her recently altered face to acquaintances and extended family. “Obviously I’m going to inform everyone as they come in, ‘For your information, this is not the way I look,’” states the 30-year-old real estate agent from south Florida.
How she looks is, well, a somewhat surprising – her face swollen and preternaturally lifted, as though secured by industrial-grade tape. Her new – and she’s eager to emphasize, temporary – appearance is the outcome of six cosmetic procedures, such as an minimally invasive facelift, performed by a doctor in Turkey’s Istanbul, last month. “My poor husband teared up when he viewed me for the initial time because I wasn’t able to even open my eyes. That’s how swollen I was,” she tells me via video call from her home. “I needed to inform him: ‘Babe, I’m okay, I’m not in pain. I just look like someone attacked me.’”
Growing Trend of Youthful Facial Lifts
According to cosmetic specialists, Preisinger is one of a growing number of individuals electing to undergo a facelift in their twenties and thirties – significantly before a ten years prior to most doctors’ usual candidate age of 40 to 60. (Although many specialists are eager to highlight the professional guideline of: “We address genetics, not years.”) “I have individuals in their late twenties asking for facial lifts,” states London-based cosmetic surgeon Georgios Orfaniotis, a former NHS consultant who specialises in the head and neck. “It’s a very significant surgery, and I’m a somewhat worried when I observe people choosing it as a lifestyle choice.”
Explaining the Rhytidectomy Surgery
A facelift, alternatively called a facelift, lifts the ligaments in the face that begin to droop as we age. “Our faces are built a little like onion layers,” explains based in Kent face specialist Marc Pacifico. “Dermis and adipose on the top, then a layer of supportive tissue known as the SMAS. Think of the facial framework as the structural foundation of the face. And that’s what causes aging; that is what becomes lax and pulls the dermis down with it.”
You endanger performing surgery on individuals that have underlying problems. It’s not a practice for an ethical plastic surgeon to follow
Previously reserved of moneyed older people, “filler fatigue” – when overuse of dermal fillers stretches the face and leads to looseness in the skin – combined with the common adoption of weight-loss drugs, low-cost surgical travel, and the development of novel, celebrity-endorsed surgical techniques are attracting 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 survey found that the percentage of youthful candidates is growing, with 32% of facelifts now conducted for patients aged 35-55.
“Patients are asking now to look like the optimal form of themselves and naturally the techniques are evolving,” comments Orfaniotis. Currently, the operation du jour is the comprehensive facial lift, a technique promoted by everyone from reality TV star Kris Jenner, to style creator Marc Jacobs.
Advanced Lifting Method
While a more traditional rhytidectomy involves lifting the SMAS, the deep plane facelift loosens the underlying structures underneath, enabling doctors to reshape the face by moving the deeper tissue, and preventing the taut, pulled appearance occasionally caused by older methods. “We’re not putting stress on the skin because we’re targeting deeper, to the deeper tissue,” explains Harley Street plastic surgeon Rajiv Grover, who focuses on the deep plane technique. “It is the deeper tissue that is repositioned. The skin comes with it as a secondary element.” Lifting the whole facial structure as a unified block allows for 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 revitalization, as the aesthetics industry terms it – but for “beautification” and facial restructuring, too. “We receive many inquiries from clients aged 28 to 35 for this purpose,” notes Grover.
Personal Journey
Preisinger had never planned on undergoing a facelift – at minimum not at the age of 30. But long-term using hyaluronic acid dermal fillers in an attempt at “facial balancing” implied that by the time she reached her late 20s, she was “damaged”. “I didn’t undergo this because I wanted to look young,” she says. “I did it because the injectable harmed my face. I regret ever done it. If I had avoided the injectable, I don’t think I would be in this situation currently.”
If dermal fillers ever fully dissolve has historically been a point of contention in the cosmetic field. “Studies have shown that not only do they rarely fully dissipate,” says Grover, “but they migrate and can block lymphatic channels. One of the contributors to what we call ‘pillow face’ is also the reality that to some extent, the face gets somewhat fluid-filled because its ability to remove bodily fluid has been diminished.” Though research into the area is early-stage, cautionary statements on dermal fillers’ potential impact on the lymphatic system have been released, and additional studies initiated. An esteemed face specialist, commenting anonymously, says he would avoid using fillers in a patient because of the risks they present. “A lot of doctors avoid discussing this, because the manufacturers who produce injectables can be pretty aggressive.” He’s heard stories, he says, of plastic surgeons 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 began moving to different areas of her face. She was only twenty-eight when a nearby cosmetic doctor in the state proposed that a face and neck lift could be what she required to exit the cycle of treatments. After 24 months, she found herself choosing between a list of recommended hotels in Istanbul, sent to her by the patient coordinator at her surgeon’s office.
Initially, Preisinger had planned for an upper and lower blepharoplasty – better known as eyelid surgery – but her doctor advised her that a facelift was the correct option for the looseness she was experiencing in her face. She booked a brow lift, a cheek lift and a jawline surgery. The eve of her surgery, one day after she’d touched down alone in the country, she decided to add a lip lift. “Subsequently the surgeon stated, ‘We’re going to lift the under-eye bags.’ He added, ‘I believe if we remove some buccal fat, it will contour 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|
