‘My Eyes Were So Puffy I Couldn’t Even Open Them’

Onemanda Preisinger experiences worry about her child’s upcoming 13th birthday party. It’s not due to the typical causes related to a house full of clamorous adolescent kids, but because it’s the initial occasion she will debut her recently altered face to acquaintances and relatives. “Clearly I’m going to tell all guests as they arrive, ‘For your information, this is not how I look,’” states the thirty-year-old property agent from south Florida.

How she looks is, admittedly, a somewhat surprising – her face swollen and preternaturally lifted, as though secured by industrial-grade tape. Her altered – and she’s keen to stress, temporary – look is the result of six cosmetic procedures, including an endoscopic mid-facelift, performed by a doctor in Turkey’s Istanbul, the previous month. “My spouse teared up when he viewed me for the initial time because I wasn’t able to even unseal my eyes. That indicates swollen I was,” she tells me via video call from her house. “I needed to inform him: ‘Honey, I’m fine, I’m not hurting. I just look like someone jumped me.’”

Growing Trend of Early Facelifts

According to cosmetic specialists, Preisinger is among a growing number of individuals choosing to undergo a rhytidectomy in their 20s and 30s – significantly before a ten years before most doctors’ usual candidate age of forty to sixty. (Although most surgeons are keen to emphasise the industry edict of: “We address genetics, not age.”) “I have individuals in their late twenties requesting facial lifts,” says based in London cosmetic surgeon Georgios Orfaniotis, a ex-NHS doctor who specialises in the head and neck. “It’s a very significant procedure, and I’m a somewhat worried when I see people choosing it as a personal preference.”

Understanding the Rhytidectomy Surgery

A facelift, alternatively called a rhytidectomy, lifts the tissues in the face that start to sag as we grow older. “Our faces are structured a bit like layers of an onion,” explains Kent-based face specialist Marc Pacifico. “Dermis and adipose on the surface, then a stratum of connective tissue called the superficial musculoaponeurotic system. Consider the SMAS as the structural foundation of the face. And that is what causes aging; that’s what becomes lax and drags the dermis downward with it.”

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

Previously reserved of affluent seniors, overuse of injectables – when overuse of injectable gels expands the face and leads to looseness in the skin – alongside the widespread use of weight-loss drugs, cut-price surgical travel, and the development of novel, celebrity-endorsed operative methods are attracting a different type of customer towards this invasive surgery. Reports show an 8% increase in facelifts over the past 12 months in the UK; while a study revealed that the portion of youthful candidates is growing, with 32% of facelifts now performed on individuals aged 35-55.

“Patients are asking now to look like the optimal form of themselves and naturally the methods are following,” comments Orfaniotis. At present, the trending procedure is the deep plane facelift, a method promoted by figures including reality TV star Kris Jenner, to fashion designer Marc Jacobs.

Deep Plane Technique

While a conventional rhytidectomy entails elevating the SMAS, the comprehensive lift releases the underlying structures underneath, enabling surgeons to reshape the face by moving the deeper tissue, and avoiding the tight, stretched look occasionally caused by more traditional techniques. “We avoid placing tension on the dermis because we’re going below, to the underlying structures,” explains prestigious London cosmetic doctor Rajiv Grover, who specialises in the advanced method. “It is the underlying layers that is repositioned. 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 outcome. It additionally implies that the surgery is no longer being used for the express purpose of youth preservation – or revitalization, as the cosmetic field terms it – but for “enhancement” and facial restructuring, too. “We’re getting numerous requests from clients aged 28 to 35 for this reason,” notes Grover.

Individual Experience

Preisinger had never planned on getting a facial lift – at minimum not at the age of 30. But years of using hyaluronic acid dermal fillers in an attempt at “symmetry correction” implied that by the time she entered her late 20s, she was “damaged”. “I didn’t undergo this because I desired to appear youthful,” she clarifies. “I did it because the injectable harmed my face. I wish I had never done it. If I didn’t have the filler, I don’t think I would be where I’m at right now.”

If dermal fillers ever fully dissolve has long been a point of contention in the aesthetics industry. “Studies have indicated that they seldom completely dissolve,” states Grover, “but they move and can obstruct drainage pathways. A contributing factor to what we term ‘pillow face’ is also the fact that in a sense, the face gets somewhat waterlogged because its capacity to remove lymphatic fluid has been diminished.” Though research into the area is early-stage, cautionary statements on injectables’ potential impact on the body’s drainage have been released, and additional studies initiated. An esteemed facial plastic surgeon, commenting anonymously, mentioned he would avoid using fillers in a patient because of the dangers they present. “Many doctors avoid talk about this, because the manufacturers who make injectables can be quite forceful.” He’s heard stories, he adds, of cosmetic doctors being landed with legal actions after expressing worries.

Decision and Procedure

For Preisinger, after beginning using injectables, she believed she needed to continue replenishing it – especially as it started to migrate to different areas of her face. She was just 28 when a nearby cosmetic doctor in Florida suggested that a facial and neck surgery might be what she needed to exit the injectable hamster wheel. Two years later, she found herself choosing between a selection of recommended hotels in the city, sent to her by the clinic assistant at her doctor’s clinic.

Originally, Preisinger had scheduled an eyelid surgery – better known as blepharoplasty – but her surgeon advised her that a facelift was the correct option for the laxity she was finding in her face. She arranged a forehead lift, a cheek lift and a jawline surgery. The eve of her surgery, 24 hours post she’d arrived alone in the country, she decided to add a mouth enhancement. “Then he said, ‘We’re going to elevate the lower eyelid puffiness.’ Then he said, ‘I believe if we extract some cheek fat, it will sculpt your face.’ Thus I ultimately adding two more surgeries,” she recalls. She paid $22,000 (£16,500) for the half-day surgery, including a three-day|