‘I Wasn’t Able to Even Open My Eyes. That’s How Swollen I Was’

Amanda Preisinger feels anxious about her daughter’s upcoming 13th birthday celebration. Not for the usual causes associated with a house full of clamorous preteen children, but since it’s the first time she will reveal her new face to acquaintances and relatives. “Obviously I’m going to inform all guests as they arrive, ‘For your information, this is not the way I appear,’” says the thirty-year-old property agent from south Florida.

Her appearance is, well, a somewhat surprising – her face puffed up and unnaturally tightened, as though secured by heavy-duty tape. Her altered – and she’s keen to stress, short-term – look is the outcome of six cosmetic procedures, including an endoscopic mid-facelift, conducted by a surgeon in Turkey’s Istanbul, the previous month. “My poor husband became emotional when he saw me for the initial time because I couldn’t even unseal my eyes. That indicates puffy I was,” she tells me via online call from her house. “I needed to inform him: ‘Babe, I’m okay, I’m not in pain. I just appear as if someone jumped me.’”

Growing Trend of Youthful Facial Lifts

According to cosmetic specialists, Preisinger is among a rising count of people electing to undergo a facelift in their 20s and 30s – well over a decade prior to most doctors’ usual candidate age of forty to sixty. (Though many specialists are eager to highlight the industry edict of: “We address genetics, not years.”) “I have individuals in their late twenties requesting facial lifts,” states based in London aesthetic plastic surgeon Georgios Orfaniotis, a former NHS consultant who focuses on the facial area. “It’s a very significant surgery, and I’m a somewhat worried when I see people opting for it as a personal preference.”

Understanding the Facelift Procedure

A rhytidectomy, also known as a facelift, elevates the ligaments in the face that begin to droop as we age. “Our faces are structured a bit like layers of an onion,” explains Kent-based face specialist Marc Pacifico. “Dermis and adipose on the top, then a layer of connective tissue known as the superficial musculoaponeurotic system. Think of the SMAS as the structural foundation of the face. And that is what causes aging; that is what loosens and sags and drags the skin down with it.”

You endanger performing surgery on individuals that have deeper issues. It’s not a practice for an conscientious surgeon to follow

Previously reserved of moneyed older people, overuse of injectables – when overuse of injectable gels stretches the face and leads to laxity in the dermis – combined with the common adoption of weight-loss drugs, low-cost medical tourism, and the advancement of novel, celebrity-endorsed operative methods are attracting a different type of patient towards this invasive surgery. Reports show an eight percent rise in facial lifts over the last year in the United Kingdom; while a survey revealed that the percentage of youthful candidates is growing, with 32% of facelifts now performed on individuals aged 35-55.

“People are now requesting to look like the best version of themselves and obviously the methods are following,” says Orfaniotis. At present, the operation du jour is the deep plane facelift, a technique promoted by everyone from reality TV star Kris Jenner, to style creator Marc Jacobs.

Deep Plane Technique

While a more traditional rhytidectomy entails lifting the SMAS, the deep plane facelift releases the facial ligaments beneath it, enabling doctors to reshape the face by repositioning the underlying layers, and preventing the tight, stretched look sometimes wrought by more traditional techniques. “We avoid placing tension on the dermis because we’re going below, to the deeper tissue,” says prestigious London plastic surgeon Rajiv Grover, who specialises in the advanced method. “It is the underlying layers that is repositioned. The skin follows along as a passenger.” Elevating the whole facial structure as a single unit results in a more natural-looking and longer-lasting outcome. It also means that the surgery is no longer being used for the primary goal of youth preservation – or rejuvenation, as the aesthetics industry terms it – but for “enhancement” and contouring, too. “We’re getting many inquiries from clients aged 28 to 35 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 years of using injectable gels in an effort at “symmetry correction” implied that by the time she entered her late twenties, she was “damaged”. “I didn’t do this because I desired to appear young,” she says. “I did it because the filler ruined my face. I regret ever done it. If I didn’t have the injectable, I don’t believe I would be in this situation currently.”

If dermal fillers ever fully dissolve has long been a debated topic in the aesthetics industry. “Studies have indicated that they seldom fully dissipate,” states Grover, “but they move and can obstruct drainage pathways. One of the contributors to what we term ‘puffy appearance’ is also the reality that to some extent, the face gets slightly fluid-filled because its capacity to remove lymphatic fluid has been diminished.” Although research into the area is early-stage, warnings on dermal fillers’ potential impact on the lymphatic system have been issued, and additional studies announced. One highly regarded face specialist, commenting on the condition of anonymity, mentioned he would avoid using fillers in a client because of the dangers they present. “A lot of surgeons avoid talk about this, because the manufacturers who make injectables can be quite forceful.” He’s heard stories, he adds, of cosmetic doctors facing legal actions after raising their concerns.

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 different areas of her face. She was only twenty-eight when a nearby cosmetic doctor in Florida suggested that a face and neck lift could be what she required to exit the injectable hamster wheel. Two years later, she ended up choosing between a selection of recommended hotels in Istanbul, sent to her by the patient coordinator at her surgeon’s office.

Initially, Preisinger had scheduled an eyelid surgery – better known as blepharoplasty – but her surgeon recommended that a facelift was the correct option for the looseness she was finding in her face. She booked a forehead lift, a cheek lift and a jawline surgery. The day before her operation, 24 hours post she’d touched down alone in Turkey, she decided to add a lip lift. “Subsequently the surgeon stated, ‘We will lift the lower eyelid puffiness.’ He added, ‘I believe if we extract some buccal fat, it will sculpt your face.’ Thus I ultimately including additional surgeries,” she says. She spent $22,000 (sixteen thousand five hundred pounds) for the six-hour operation, including a three-day|