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

Onemanda Preisinger is nervous about her daughter’s upcoming 13th birthday celebration. It’s not due to the usual reasons related to a home packed of clamorous adolescent children, but because it’s the initial occasion she will debut her recently altered face to acquaintances and relatives. “Obviously I’m going to inform everyone as they come in, ‘Just so you know, this is not the way I look,’” states the 30-year-old real estate agent from Southern Florida.

Her appearance is, well, a little surprising – her face swollen and unnaturally tightened, as though held together by heavy-duty tape. Her altered – and she’s keen to stress, temporary – appearance 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 viewed me for the initial time because I couldn’t even unseal my eyes. That’s how swollen I was,” she explains to me via online call from her home. “I needed to inform him: ‘Honey, I’m fine, I’m not in pain. I just appear as if someone jumped me.’”

Growing Trend of Youthful Facial Lifts

Based on cosmetic specialists, Preisinger is among a rising count of individuals choosing to undergo a rhytidectomy in their twenties and thirties – significantly before a ten years before most doctors’ typical patient age range of forty to sixty. (Though many specialists are keen to emphasise the professional guideline of: “We address genetics, not age.”) “I have 28-year-olds asking for facelifts,” says London-based aesthetic plastic surgeon Georgios Orfaniotis, a former NHS consultant who specialises in the head and neck. “It’s a very significant procedure, and I’m a bit concerned when I see individuals opting for it as a personal preference.”

Understanding the Facelift Procedure

A facelift, also known as a facelift, lifts the ligaments in the face that start to sag as we grow older. “Human faces are built a bit like onion layers,” explains Kent-based face specialist Marc Pacifico. “Dermis and adipose on the top, then a stratum of connective tissue called 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 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 moneyed older people, “filler fatigue” – when overuse of dermal fillers stretches the face and causes laxity in the skin – alongside the widespread use of slimming medications, low-cost medical tourism, and the advancement of new, famous-figure-promoted operative methods are attracting a different type of patient towards this major operation. Statistics indicate an 8% increase in facelifts over the past 12 months in the United Kingdom; while a study found that the percentage of younger facelift patients is growing, with one-third of procedures now performed on patients aged 35-55.

“People are now requesting to look like the optimal form of themselves and obviously the methods are evolving,” comments Orfaniotis. At present, the trending procedure is the deep plane facelift, a technique evangelised by figures including Kardashian matriarch Kris Jenner, to style creator Marc Jacobs.

Deep Plane Technique

While a conventional rhytidectomy involves lifting the superficial layer, 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 look occasionally caused by more traditional techniques. “We’re not putting stress on the skin because we’re targeting deeper, to the underlying structures,” says Harley Street cosmetic doctor Rajiv Grover, who focuses on the advanced method. “It is the deeper tissue that is adjusted. The dermis comes with it as a secondary element.” Lifting the entire soft tissue layer as a unified block allows for a more natural-looking and longer-lasting result. It also means that the procedure is not just being used for the express purpose of anti-ageing – or revitalization, 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 purpose,” says Grover.

Individual Experience

Preisinger had not intended on undergoing a facelift – at least not at the age of 30. But years of using hyaluronic acid dermal fillers in an attempt at “symmetry correction” meant that by the time she reached her late twenties, she was “botched”. “I didn’t undergo this because I wanted to look young,” she says. “I did it because the filler ruined my face. I regret ever using it. If I didn’t have the filler, I don’t believe I would be in this situation right now.”

Whether dermal fillers ever fully dissolve has historically been a point of contention in the cosmetic field. “Research have shown that not only do they rarely completely dissolve,” states Grover, “but they move and can obstruct drainage pathways. A contributing factor to what we call ‘pillow face’ is additionally the fact that to some extent, the face becomes somewhat fluid-filled because its ability to remove lymphatic fluid has been reduced.” Though studies into the area is preliminary, cautionary statements on dermal fillers’ possible effects on the lymphatic system have been released, and additional studies initiated. An esteemed face specialist, speaking on the condition of anonymity, says he would never use fillers in a client because of the dangers they pose. “Many doctors don’t want to discussing this, because the manufacturers who make filler can be quite forceful.” He’s heard stories, he says, of plastic surgeons facing legal actions after expressing worries.

Decision and Procedure

For Preisinger, after beginning using injectables, she felt as if she needed to continue adding more – especially as it began moving to different areas of her face. She was only twenty-eight when a nearby cosmetic doctor in Florida proposed that a facial and neck surgery could be what she needed to exit the injectable hamster wheel. After 24 months, she found herself selecting from a list of recommended hotels in the city, texted to her by the patient coordinator at her surgeon’s office.

Originally, Preisinger had scheduled an eyelid surgery – better known as blepharoplasty – but her doctor advised her that a facelift was the right solution for the looseness she was finding in her face. She booked a brow lift, a mid-facelift and a neck lift. The day before her surgery, 24 hours post she’d arrived alone in the country, she opted to include a lip lift. “Then he said, ‘We will elevate the lower eyelid puffiness.’ Then he said, ‘I think if we extract some buccal fat, it will contour your face.’ Thus I ultimately adding two more procedures,” she says. She paid $22,000 (£16,500) for the half-day surgery, plus a three-day|