‘My Eyes Were So Swollen I Was Unable to Even Unseal Them’

Onemanda Preisinger is nervous about her daughter’s upcoming 13th birthday celebration. Not for the typical reasons related to a house full of loud adolescent kids, but since it’s the first time she will showcase her new face to acquaintances and relatives. “Clearly I’m going to inform all guests as they come in, ‘For your information, this is not how I look,’” says the 30-year-old property agent from Southern Florida.

Her appearance is, admittedly, a little surprising – her face swollen and preternaturally lifted, as though held together by heavy-duty tape. Her new – and she’s keen to stress, temporary – appearance is the result of six cosmetic procedures, such as an endoscopic mid-facelift, performed by a doctor in Istanbul, Turkey, the previous month. “My spouse became emotional when he saw me for the first time because I couldn’t even unseal my eyes. That indicates puffy I was,” she tells me via online call from her home. “I needed to inform him: ‘Honey, I’m okay, I’m not in pain. I just appear as if someone jumped me.’”

Growing Trend of Early Facelifts

According to plastic surgeons, Preisinger is one of a growing number of individuals choosing to have a facelift in their twenties and thirties – well over a ten years prior to most doctors’ usual candidate age of 40 to 60. (Although most surgeons are keen to emphasise the professional guideline of: “We treat genetics, not age.”) “I have individuals in their late twenties asking for facial lifts,” states London-based cosmetic surgeon Georgios Orfaniotis, a former NHS consultant who specialises in the head and neck. “It’s a very significant surgery, and I’m a somewhat worried when I observe people choosing it as a lifestyle choice.”

Understanding the Facelift Procedure

A facelift, alternatively called a facelift, lifts the tissues in the face that begin to droop as we grow older. “Human faces are built a little like onion layers,” explains based in Kent facial plastic surgeon Marc Pacifico. “Skin and fat on the surface, then a layer of connective tissue called the superficial musculoaponeurotic system. Think of the facial framework as the structural foundation of the face. And that is what ages us; that is what becomes lax and pulls the dermis downward with it.”

You endanger operating on individuals that have deeper issues. It’s not advisable for an conscientious surgeon to follow

Previously reserved of moneyed older people, overuse of injectables – when excessive use of injectable gels stretches the face and leads to laxity in the dermis – combined with the common adoption of slimming medications, low-cost surgical travel, and the advancement of novel, famous-figure-promoted surgical techniques are driving a new kind of patient towards this major operation. Statistics indicate an eight percent rise in facial lifts over the past 12 months in the United Kingdom; while a survey revealed that the percentage of youthful candidates is growing, with one-third of procedures now conducted for patients aged thirty-five to fifty-five.

“People are asking now to appear as the best version of themselves and obviously the techniques are following,” comments Orfaniotis. At present, the operation du jour is the comprehensive facial lift, a technique evangelised by figures including reality TV star Kris Jenner, to style creator Marc Jacobs.

Deep Plane Technique

Where a more traditional rhytidectomy entails lifting the SMAS, the comprehensive lift loosens the facial ligaments underneath, enabling doctors to reshape the face by moving the deeper tissue, and preventing the taut, pulled appearance sometimes wrought by older methods. “We avoid placing tension on the dermis because we’re targeting deeper, to the deeper tissue,” explains Harley Street cosmetic doctor Rajiv Grover, who specialises in the advanced method. “It is the deeper tissue that is adjusted. The skin comes with it as a passenger.” Lifting the whole facial structure as a single unit results in a more natural-looking and longer-lasting result. It also means that the procedure is no longer being used for the primary goal of anti-ageing – or revitalization, as the aesthetics industry terms it – but for “enhancement” and facial restructuring, too. “We’re getting numerous requests from clients aged late twenties to mid-thirties for this reason,” says Grover.

Individual Experience

Preisinger had not intended on undergoing a facelift – at minimum not at the age of 30. But years of using injectable gels in an attempt at “symmetry correction” implied that by the time she reached her late 20s, she was “damaged”. “I didn’t undergo this because I desired to appear young,” she clarifies. “I did it because the filler ruined my face. I regret ever done it. If I didn’t have the injectable, 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. “Research have indicated that not only do they rarely completely dissolve,” says Grover, “but they migrate and can obstruct drainage pathways. One of the contributors to what we term ‘puffy appearance’ is additionally the reality that to some extent, the face becomes somewhat fluid-filled because its ability to drain lymphatic fluid has been diminished.” Although research into the area is early-stage, cautionary statements on injectables’ possible effects on the lymphatic system have been released, and further research initiated. An esteemed face specialist, commenting on the condition of anonymity, says he would avoid using injectables in a client because of the dangers they pose. “Many doctors avoid talk about this, because the manufacturers who produce injectables can be quite forceful.” He’s heard stories, he adds, of cosmetic doctors being landed with court orders after expressing worries.

Decision and Procedure

For Preisinger, once she started injecting filler, she believed she needed to continue adding more – particularly when it started to migrate to different areas of her face. She was only twenty-eight when a local plastic surgeon in Florida suggested that a facial and neck surgery could be what she needed to exit the cycle of treatments. After 24 months, she found herself choosing between a list of suggested accommodations in the city, sent to her by the clinic assistant at her surgeon’s office.

Originally, Preisinger had planned for an eyelid surgery – better known as eyelid surgery – but her doctor recommended that a facelift was the right solution for the laxity she was finding in her face. She arranged a forehead lift, a mid-facelift and a jawline surgery. The day before her surgery, 24 hours post she’d arrived solo in the country, she decided to add a mouth enhancement. “Subsequently the surgeon said, ‘We will elevate the under-eye bags.’ He added, ‘I believe if we extract some cheek fat, it will sculpt your face.’ Thus I ultimately adding two more surgeries,” she recalls. She spent $22,000 (£16,500) for the half-day surgery, including a three-day|