Amanda Preisinger experiences worry about her child’s impending 13th birthday party. Not for the typical causes associated with a home packed of loud adolescent kids, but because it’s the first time she will reveal her new face to friends and extended family. “Clearly I’m going to tell all guests as they arrive, ‘Just so you know, this is not the way I look,’” states the 30-year-old real estate agent from Southern Florida.
How she looks is, admittedly, a somewhat startling – her face puffed up and unnaturally tightened, as though secured by heavy-duty tape. Her new – and she’s eager to emphasize, short-term – appearance is the result of half a dozen aesthetic surgeries, such as an endoscopic mid-facelift, performed by a doctor in Turkey’s Istanbul, last month. “My spouse teared up when he saw 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 house. “I needed to inform him: ‘Babe, I’m okay, I’m not hurting. I just appear as if someone jumped me.’”
Growing Trend of Early Facelifts
Based on cosmetic specialists, Preisinger is one of a growing number of individuals electing to have a facelift in their twenties and thirties – significantly before a decade prior to typical surgeons’ usual candidate age of forty to sixty. (Although most surgeons are keen to emphasise the industry edict of: “We address genetics, not years.”) “I have 28-year-olds requesting facial lifts,” states London-based cosmetic surgeon Georgios Orfaniotis, a ex-NHS doctor who focuses on the head and neck. “It’s a very significant procedure, and I’m a bit concerned when I see people choosing it as a lifestyle choice.”
Understanding the Rhytidectomy Surgery
A rhytidectomy, alternatively called a rhytidectomy, lifts the ligaments in the face that begin to droop as we grow older. “Human faces are structured a bit like onion layers,” explains Kent-based facial plastic surgeon Marc Pacifico. “Skin and fat on the surface, then a layer of supportive tissue known as the SMAS. Consider the facial framework as the structural foundation of the face. And that is what ages us; that’s what becomes lax and pulls the dermis down with it.”
You risk performing surgery on individuals that have deeper issues. It’s not a practice for an conscientious surgeon to pursue
Previously reserved of moneyed older people, overuse of injectables – when overuse of dermal fillers stretches the face and causes looseness in the dermis – combined with the common adoption of slimming medications, low-cost surgical travel, and the development of new, celebrity-endorsed surgical techniques are attracting a different type of patient towards this major operation. Reports show an 8% increase in facial lifts over the last year in the United Kingdom; while a survey revealed that the portion of younger facelift patients is growing, with one-third of procedures now conducted for patients aged thirty-five to fifty-five.
“Patients are asking now to look like the optimal form of themselves and obviously the techniques are following,” says Orfaniotis. Currently, the operation du jour is the comprehensive facial lift, a method promoted by everyone from Kardashian matriarch Kris Jenner, to fashion designer Marc Jacobs.
Deep Plane Technique
While a conventional facelift involves lifting the superficial layer, the deep plane facelift releases the underlying structures beneath it, enabling doctors to restructure the face by moving the underlying layers, and preventing the tight, stretched appearance sometimes wrought by older methods. “We’re not putting tension on the skin because we’re going below, to the deeper tissue,” explains Harley Street plastic surgeon Rajiv Grover, who focuses on the advanced method. “It is the deeper tissue that is adjusted. The skin comes with it as a passenger.” Elevating the entire soft tissue layer as a unified block allows for a authentic-appearing and longer-lasting outcome. It also means that the procedure is no longer being used for the express purpose of youth preservation – or revitalization, as the aesthetics industry terms it – but for “beautification” and facial restructuring, too. “We’re getting numerous requests from clients aged 28 to 35 for this purpose,” notes Grover.
Personal Journey
Preisinger had not intended on undergoing a facelift – at least not at the thirty years old. But years of using hyaluronic acid dermal fillers in an effort at “symmetry correction” meant that by the time she reached her late twenties, she was “botched”. “I didn’t undergo this because I desired to appear young,” she clarifies. “I underwent it because the filler harmed my face. I regret ever done it. If I had avoided the filler, I don’t think I would be in this situation right now.”
If injectable substances completely disappear has long been a debated topic in the aesthetics industry. “Research have shown that they seldom fully dissipate,” says Grover, “but they move and can obstruct lymphatic channels. A contributing factor to what we term ‘puffy appearance’ is additionally the reality that in a sense, the face becomes slightly waterlogged because its ability to drain bodily fluid has been diminished.” Although studies into the topic is early-stage, cautionary statements on injectables’ possible effects on the lymphatic system have been issued, and further research announced. One highly regarded face specialist, speaking anonymously, says he would never use fillers in a patient because of the risks they present. “Many doctors don’t want to discussing this, because the manufacturers who produce injectables can be quite forceful.” He’s heard stories, he adds, of cosmetic doctors being landed with legal actions after raising their concerns.
Decision and Procedure
For Preisinger, after beginning injecting filler, she believed she needed to continue replenishing it – particularly when it started to migrate to different areas of her face. She was just 28 when a local plastic surgeon in Florida suggested that a face and neck lift might be what she needed 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 clinic assistant at her surgeon’s office.
Originally, Preisinger had scheduled an eyelid surgery – commonly called blepharoplasty – 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 day before her surgery, one day after she’d arrived solo in the country, she opted to include a lip lift. “Then he said, ‘We’re going to lift the lower eyelid puffiness.’ Then he said, ‘I believe if we extract some buccal fat, it will sculpt your face.’ Thus I ultimately adding two more procedures,” she says. She spent $22,000 (£16,500) for the six-hour surgery, including a three-day|
