Amanda Preisinger is nervous about her daughter’s upcoming 13th birthday celebration. It’s not due to the typical reasons associated with a home packed of loud adolescent children, but because it’s the initial occasion she will debut her new face to acquaintances and relatives. “Clearly I’m going to tell all guests as they arrive, ‘Just so you know, this is not the way I appear,’” states the thirty-year-old real estate agent from Southern Florida.
Her appearance is, admittedly, a somewhat surprising – her face puffed up and preternaturally lifted, as though held together by heavy-duty tape. Her new – and she’s keen to stress, temporary – look is the result of half a dozen cosmetic procedures, including an minimally invasive facelift, conducted by a surgeon in Istanbul, Turkey, last month. “My spouse teared up when he viewed me for the first time because I wasn’t able to even open my eyes. That indicates puffy I was,” she explains to me via video call from her house. “I needed to inform him: ‘Babe, I’m okay, I’m not hurting. I just look like someone jumped me.’”
Increasing Popularity of Youthful Facial Lifts
According to plastic surgeons, Preisinger is among a growing number of people choosing to have a rhytidectomy in their 20s and 30s – well over a decade before most doctors’ usual candidate age of 40 to 60. (Though many specialists are keen to emphasise the industry edict of: “We treat genetics, not years.”) “I have individuals in their late twenties requesting facelifts,” states London-based cosmetic surgeon Georgios Orfaniotis, a former NHS consultant who focuses on the head and neck. “It’s a major procedure, and I’m a bit concerned when I observe people choosing it as a lifestyle choice.”
Explaining the Facelift Procedure
A facelift, alternatively called a rhytidectomy, elevates the tissues in the face that begin to droop as we grow older. “Human faces are structured a bit like layers of an onion,” explains Kent-based facial plastic surgeon Marc Pacifico. “Dermis and adipose on the top, then a stratum of supportive tissue called the superficial musculoaponeurotic system. Consider the facial framework as the soft tissue skeleton of the face. And that is what ages us; that is what becomes lax and drags the dermis down with it.”
You risk performing surgery on individuals that have underlying problems. It’s not advisable for an conscientious surgeon to pursue
Previously reserved of affluent seniors, overuse of injectables – when overuse of dermal fillers stretches the face and causes laxity in the dermis – combined with the common adoption of weight-loss drugs, low-cost surgical travel, and the advancement of novel, famous-figure-promoted surgical techniques are driving a new kind of patient towards this invasive surgery. Reports indicate an eight percent rise in facial lifts over the last year in the UK; while a study found that the percentage of youthful candidates is increasing, with one-third of procedures now conducted for patients aged 35-55.
“People are now requesting to appear as the optimal form of themselves and naturally the techniques are following,” says Orfaniotis. Currently, the operation du jour is the deep plane facelift, a method promoted by figures including reality TV star Kris Jenner, to fashion designer Marc Jacobs.
Advanced Lifting Method
While a more traditional rhytidectomy entails elevating the SMAS, the comprehensive lift loosens the facial ligaments beneath it, allowing doctors to restructure the face by repositioning the underlying layers, and preventing the tight, stretched look occasionally caused by older methods. “We avoid placing tension on the skin because we’re going below, to the underlying structures,” explains prestigious London plastic surgeon Rajiv Grover, who specialises in the deep plane technique. “It is the deeper tissue that is repositioned. The skin follows along as a secondary element.” Lifting the whole facial structure as a single unit allows for a authentic-appearing and more durable result. It also means that the surgery is no longer being used for the express purpose of anti-ageing – or revitalization, as the cosmetic field terms it – but for “beautification” and facial restructuring, too. “We’re getting numerous requests from patients aged late twenties to mid-thirties for this reason,” notes Grover.
Personal Journey
Preisinger had never planned on undergoing a facelift – at minimum not at the age of 30. But long-term using injectable gels in an effort at “symmetry correction” implied that by the time she reached her late twenties, she was “botched”. “I didn’t do this because I desired to appear youthful,” she clarifies. “I did it because the filler harmed my face. I regret ever done it. If I didn’t have the filler, I don’t believe I would be where I’m at right now.”
Whether injectable substances ever fully dissolve has historically been a debated topic in the aesthetics industry. “Research have indicated that they seldom completely dissolve,” says Grover, “but they migrate and can block drainage pathways. One of the contributors to what we call ‘pillow face’ is also the reality that in a sense, 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 injectables’ possible effects on the body’s drainage have been released, and further research initiated. One highly regarded face specialist, commenting anonymously, says he would never use fillers in a patient because of the dangers they pose. “Many doctors avoid discussing this, because the companies who produce injectables can be quite forceful.” He’s been told accounts, he adds, of cosmetic doctors being landed with court orders after expressing worries.
Decision and Procedure
For Preisinger, once she started injecting filler, she felt as if she had to keep replenishing it – especially as it began moving to other parts of her face. She was only twenty-eight when a local plastic surgeon in Florida proposed that a facial and neck surgery could be what she required to exit the injectable hamster wheel. Two years later, she ended up choosing between a list of suggested accommodations in Istanbul, sent to her by the patient coordinator at her doctor’s clinic.
Originally, Preisinger had scheduled an upper and lower blepharoplasty – commonly called blepharoplasty – 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 mid-facelift and a neck lift. The day before her surgery, one day after she’d arrived solo in Turkey, she opted to include a lip lift. “Then he said, ‘We will elevate the lower eyelid puffiness.’ He added, ‘I believe if we remove some buccal fat, it will contour your face.’ Thus I ultimately including additional procedures,” she says. She paid $22,000 (£16,500) for the six-hour surgery, plus a three-day|
