Amanda Preisinger is nervous about her daughter’s upcoming 13th birthday celebration. Not for the usual reasons associated with a house full of clamorous adolescent children, but because it’s the first time she will debut her new face to acquaintances and extended family. “Clearly I’m going to inform everyone as they arrive, ‘For your information, this is not the way I appear,’” states the thirty-year-old property agent from Southern Florida.
How she looks is, admittedly, a little surprising – her face swollen and preternaturally lifted, as though secured by heavy-duty tape. Her altered – and she’s eager to emphasize, short-term – look is the result of six aesthetic surgeries, including an minimally invasive facelift, performed by a surgeon in Turkey’s Istanbul, last month. “My poor husband became emotional when he saw me for the first time because I wasn’t able to even open my eyes. That’s how swollen I was,” she explains to me via online call from her home. “I had to tell him: ‘Babe, 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 one of a growing number of individuals electing to have a facelift in their twenties and thirties – significantly before a decade prior to most doctors’ typical patient age range of 40 to 60. (Though most surgeons are keen to emphasise the industry edict of: “We treat genetics, not years.”) “I have individuals in their late twenties requesting facelifts,” states based in London cosmetic surgeon Georgios Orfaniotis, a former NHS consultant who specialises in the head and neck. “It’s a major procedure, and I’m a bit concerned when I see individuals choosing it as a lifestyle choice.”
Understanding the Rhytidectomy Surgery
A rhytidectomy, also known as a rhytidectomy, lifts the ligaments in the face that begin to droop as we age. “Our faces are built a little like onion layers,” says based in Kent face specialist Marc Pacifico. “Skin and fat on the surface, then a stratum of connective tissue called the SMAS. Think of the SMAS as the soft tissue skeleton of the face. And that’s what causes aging; that is what loosens and sags and drags the dermis downward with it.”
You risk operating on individuals that have underlying problems. It’s not advisable for an conscientious surgeon to follow
Once the preserve of moneyed older people, “filler fatigue” – when excessive use of dermal fillers expands the face and leads to laxity in the dermis – combined with the widespread use of slimming medications, low-cost medical tourism, and the development of novel, celebrity-endorsed surgical techniques are attracting a different type of customer towards this invasive surgery. Statistics show an 8% increase in facelifts over the last year in the UK; while a survey revealed that the percentage of youthful candidates is growing, with 32% of facelifts now performed on individuals aged thirty-five to fifty-five.
“People are asking now to appear as the best version of themselves and obviously the methods are following,” says Orfaniotis. Currently, the trending procedure is the deep plane facelift, a technique evangelised by everyone from reality TV star Kris Jenner, to fashion designer Marc Jacobs.
Advanced Lifting Method
While a more traditional facelift involves lifting the SMAS, the deep plane facelift loosens the underlying structures beneath it, enabling doctors to restructure the face by repositioning the deeper tissue, and preventing the taut, pulled appearance occasionally caused by older methods. “We’re not putting stress on the dermis because we’re going below, to the underlying structures,” says prestigious London plastic surgeon Rajiv Grover, who focuses on the advanced method. “It is the deeper tissue that is adjusted. The dermis follows along as a secondary element.” Elevating the whole facial structure as a single unit allows for a more natural-looking and more durable result. It additionally implies that the surgery is not just being used for the primary goal of youth preservation – or rejuvenation, as the aesthetics industry terms it – but for “beautification” and contouring, too. “We’re getting many inquiries from patients aged 28 to 35 for this reason,” says Grover.
Personal Journey
Preisinger had never planned on getting a facial lift – at least not at the age of 30. But years of using hyaluronic acid dermal fillers in an effort at “symmetry correction” implied that by the time she entered her late 20s, she was “botched”. “I didn’t do this because I wanted to look youthful,” she clarifies. “I underwent it because the injectable harmed my face. I wish I had never using it. If I had avoided the injectable, I don’t think I would be in this situation right now.”
If injectable substances completely disappear has historically been a debated topic in the aesthetics industry. “Studies have shown that they seldom fully dissipate,” states Grover, “but they migrate and can block drainage pathways. One of the contributors to what we call ‘pillow face’ is additionally the fact that in a sense, the face becomes somewhat waterlogged because its ability to drain lymphatic fluid has been reduced.” Although studies into the area is preliminary, cautionary statements on dermal fillers’ potential impact on the body’s drainage have been issued, and further research announced. One highly regarded facial plastic surgeon, commenting anonymously, says he would never use injectables in a patient because of the risks they pose. “A lot of surgeons avoid discussing this, because the companies who produce injectables can be quite forceful.” He’s heard stories, he adds, of plastic surgeons being landed with legal actions after expressing worries.
Decision and Procedure
For Preisinger, after beginning injecting filler, she believed she needed to continue adding more – especially as it started to migrate to other parts of her face. She was only twenty-eight when a nearby cosmetic doctor in the state suggested that a face and neck lift might be what she needed to finally step off the injectable hamster wheel. After 24 months, she ended up selecting from a list of recommended hotels in the city, sent to her by the patient coordinator at her doctor’s clinic.
Initially, Preisinger had planned for an upper and lower blepharoplasty – commonly called eyelid surgery – but her doctor recommended that a facial lift was the correct option for the looseness she was experiencing in her face. She booked a forehead lift, a cheek lift and a neck lift. The eve of her operation, one day after she’d arrived solo in Turkey, she opted to include a mouth enhancement. “Subsequently the surgeon stated, ‘We’re going to lift the under-eye bags.’ He added, ‘I think if we remove some buccal fat, it will contour your face.’ So I ended up including additional surgeries,” she recalls. She paid $22,000 (£16,500) for the six-hour operation, including a three-day|
