‘I Couldn’t Even Unseal My Eyes. That’s The Extent of the Swelling I Was’

Onemanda Preisinger is nervous about her child’s impending 13th birthday party. Not for the typical reasons related to a house full of clamorous adolescent kids, but because it’s the first time she will showcase her new face to acquaintances and relatives. “Obviously I’m going to tell all guests as they come in, ‘For your information, this is not the way I look,’” says the 30-year-old real estate agent from Southern Florida.

How she looks is, well, a somewhat startling – her face puffed up and preternaturally lifted, as though secured by industrial-grade tape. Her altered – and she’s eager to emphasize, short-term – look is the outcome of six cosmetic procedures, such as an endoscopic mid-facelift, performed by a doctor in Turkey’s Istanbul, the previous month. “My poor husband became emotional when he viewed me for the initial time because I couldn’t even unseal my eyes. That indicates swollen I was,” she tells me via online call from her house. “I needed to inform him: ‘Honey, I’m okay, I’m not hurting. I just look like someone jumped me.’”

Growing Trend of Youthful Facial Lifts

According to plastic surgeons, Preisinger is among a growing number of individuals choosing to have a facelift in their 20s and 30s – significantly before a decade prior to typical surgeons’ usual candidate age of forty to sixty. (Although many specialists are eager to highlight the industry edict of: “We address genetics, not age.”) “I have 28-year-olds asking for facial lifts,” states London-based cosmetic surgeon Georgios Orfaniotis, a ex-NHS doctor who specialises in the facial area. “It’s a very significant procedure, and I’m a somewhat worried when I see people opting for it as a personal preference.”

Explaining the Facelift Procedure

A facelift, alternatively called a facelift, elevates the ligaments in the face that begin to droop as we grow older. “Human faces are structured a little like onion layers,” says based in Kent facial plastic surgeon Marc Pacifico. “Dermis and adipose on the top, then a stratum of connective tissue known as the superficial musculoaponeurotic system. Think of the SMAS as the structural foundation of the face. And that’s what causes aging; that is what loosens and sags and drags the dermis downward with it.”

You endanger operating on individuals that have deeper issues. It’s not a practice for an ethical plastic surgeon to follow

Previously reserved of affluent seniors, overuse of injectables – when excessive use of dermal fillers expands the face and leads to laxity in the skin – combined with the common adoption of weight-loss drugs, cut-price surgical travel, and the development of new, celebrity-endorsed operative methods are attracting a different type of customer towards this invasive surgery. Reports indicate an eight percent rise in facial lifts over the last year in the UK; while a survey found that the percentage of youthful candidates is increasing, with one-third of procedures now performed on individuals aged thirty-five to fifty-five.

“Patients are now requesting to look like the best version of themselves and naturally the techniques are following,” says Orfaniotis. At present, the operation du jour is the deep plane facelift, a technique promoted by everyone from Kardashian matriarch Kris Jenner, to fashion designer Marc Jacobs.

Advanced Lifting Method

Where a more traditional facelift involves lifting the SMAS, the comprehensive lift loosens the underlying structures beneath it, enabling 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,” says Harley Street cosmetic doctor Rajiv Grover, who specialises in the advanced method. “It is the underlying layers that is adjusted. The dermis follows along as a passenger.” Elevating the entire soft tissue layer as a single unit allows for a authentic-appearing and more durable outcome. It also means that the surgery is no longer being used for the express purpose of anti-ageing – or rejuvenation, as the cosmetic field describes it – but for “enhancement” and facial restructuring, too. “We’re getting many inquiries from clients aged 28 to 35 for this purpose,” says Grover.

Individual Experience

Preisinger had never planned on undergoing a facelift – at least not at the thirty years old. But years of 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 do this because I desired to appear youthful,” she clarifies. “I underwent it because the filler harmed my face. I wish I had never done it. If I didn’t have the filler, I don’t believe I would be where I’m at currently.”

If dermal fillers completely disappear has historically been a debated topic in the aesthetics industry. “Research have shown that they seldom fully dissipate,” says Grover, “but they migrate and can block lymphatic channels. A contributing factor to what we term ‘puffy appearance’ is additionally the reality that to some extent, the face gets slightly fluid-filled because its ability to drain bodily fluid has been reduced.” Although research into the area is early-stage, warnings on injectables’ possible effects on the body’s drainage have been released, and further research announced. An esteemed facial plastic surgeon, speaking on the condition of anonymity, says he would never use injectables in a client because of the dangers they present. “Many doctors don’t want to discussing this, because the companies who produce injectables can be quite forceful.” He’s heard stories, he says, of plastic surgeons being landed with legal actions after raising their concerns.

Decision and Procedure

For Preisinger, after beginning using injectables, she felt as if she had to keep adding more – especially as it started to migrate to other parts of her face. She was just 28 when a local plastic surgeon in the state suggested that a face and neck lift might be what she required to finally step off the injectable hamster wheel. Two years later, she ended up 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 planned for an upper and lower blepharoplasty – commonly called blepharoplasty – but her surgeon recommended that a facial lift was the right solution for the looseness she was experiencing in her face. She booked a forehead lift, a mid-facelift and a neck lift. The eve of her operation, one day after she’d touched down alone in Turkey, she opted to include a mouth enhancement. “Subsequently the surgeon said, ‘We’re going to lift the under-eye bags.’ Then he said, ‘I believe if we extract some cheek fat, it will sculpt your face.’ So I ended up adding two more procedures,” she recalls. She paid $22,000 (£16,500) for the half-day operation, including a three-day|