Amanda Preisinger is nervous about her child’s upcoming 13th birthday party. It’s not due to the typical reasons associated with a house full of loud preteen children, but because it’s the initial occasion she will debut her new face to acquaintances and extended family. “Clearly I’m going to inform everyone as they come in, ‘Just so you know, this is not the way I look,’” states the thirty-year-old property agent from south Florida.
How she looks is, admittedly, a somewhat surprising – her face puffed up and preternaturally lifted, as though held together by heavy-duty tape. Her altered – and she’s eager to emphasize, temporary – look is the outcome of six cosmetic procedures, including an minimally invasive facelift, performed by a surgeon in Istanbul, Turkey, 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 online call from her home. “I had to tell him: ‘Honey, I’m okay, I’m not in pain. I just look like someone attacked me.’”
Increasing Popularity of Early Facelifts
According to plastic surgeons, Preisinger is among a growing number of people choosing to have a rhytidectomy in their twenties and thirties – significantly before a ten years before most doctors’ typical patient age range of 40 to 60. (Although many specialists are keen to emphasise the industry edict of: “We treat genetics, not age.”) “I have 28-year-olds requesting facelifts,” says based in London aesthetic plastic surgeon Georgios Orfaniotis, a ex-NHS doctor who focuses on the facial area. “It’s a very significant surgery, and I’m a somewhat worried when I see individuals opting for it as a personal preference.”
Explaining the Facelift Procedure
A rhytidectomy, alternatively called a rhytidectomy, elevates the ligaments in the face that begin to droop as we grow older. “Our faces are structured a bit like layers of an onion,” explains based in Kent face specialist Marc Pacifico. “Dermis and adipose on the surface, then a layer of supportive tissue called the superficial musculoaponeurotic system. 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 skin down with it.”
You risk operating on individuals that have deeper issues. It’s not advisable for an conscientious 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 widespread use of slimming medications, cut-price surgical travel, and the advancement of novel, famous-figure-promoted surgical techniques are driving a different type of patient towards this major operation. Statistics show an eight percent rise in facelifts over the last year in the United Kingdom; while a survey revealed that the percentage 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 appear as the optimal form of themselves and obviously the methods are following,” comments Orfaniotis. Currently, the trending procedure is the deep plane facelift, a technique evangelised by everyone from reality TV star Kris Jenner, to style creator Marc Jacobs.
Deep Plane Technique
While a more traditional rhytidectomy involves lifting the SMAS, the comprehensive lift loosens the underlying structures beneath it, enabling doctors to reshape the face by moving the deeper tissue, and preventing the tight, stretched appearance sometimes wrought by more traditional techniques. “We’re not putting tension on the dermis because we’re targeting deeper, to the deeper tissue,” explains Harley Street plastic surgeon Rajiv Grover, who specialises in 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 results in a authentic-appearing and longer-lasting result. It additionally implies that the procedure is no longer being used for the express purpose of anti-ageing – or rejuvenation, as the cosmetic field describes it – but for “beautification” and contouring, too. “We’re getting numerous requests from patients aged late twenties to mid-thirties for this purpose,” notes Grover.
Personal Journey
Preisinger had never planned on undergoing a facial lift – at least not at the age of 30. But long-term using hyaluronic acid dermal fillers in an attempt at “symmetry correction” meant that by the time she reached her late twenties, she was “damaged”. “I didn’t undergo this because I wanted to look young,” she clarifies. “I underwent it because the injectable ruined my face. I regret ever using it. If I didn’t have the filler, I don’t think 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 fully dissipate,” states Grover, “but they migrate and can obstruct lymphatic channels. One of the contributors to what we term ‘puffy appearance’ is additionally the fact that to some extent, the face becomes slightly fluid-filled because its ability to drain bodily fluid has been diminished.” Although studies into the topic is early-stage, warnings on dermal fillers’ potential impact on the body’s drainage have been issued, and additional studies announced. An esteemed face specialist, speaking anonymously, says he would avoid using injectables in a patient because of the dangers they present. “Many surgeons don’t want to discussing this, because the companies who produce injectables can be quite forceful.” He’s been told accounts, he adds, of plastic surgeons facing legal actions after expressing worries.
Choice and Surgery
For Preisinger, once she started using injectables, she believed she had to keep replenishing it – particularly when it started to migrate to other parts 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 exit the injectable hamster wheel. After 24 months, she found herself selecting from a selection of recommended hotels in the city, texted to her by the patient coordinator at her surgeon’s office.
Originally, Preisinger had scheduled an eyelid surgery – better known as eyelid surgery – but her surgeon recommended that a facelift was the right solution for the looseness she was finding in her face. She arranged a brow lift, a mid-facelift and a jawline surgery. The day before her surgery, 24 hours post she’d touched down solo in Turkey, she decided to add a lip lift. “Subsequently the surgeon stated, ‘We will lift the under-eye bags.’ Then he said, ‘I think if we extract some cheek fat, it will sculpt your face.’ Thus I ultimately including additional surgeries,” she recalls. She paid $22,000 (£16,500) for the half-day surgery, plus a three-day|
