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

Onemanda Preisinger is nervous about her daughter’s upcoming 13th birthday party. It’s not due to the usual reasons related to a home packed of loud preteen children, but because it’s the first time she will showcase her new face to acquaintances and extended family. “Clearly I’m going to tell everyone as they arrive, ‘For your information, this is not how I appear,’” says the thirty-year-old property agent from south Florida.

Her appearance is, admittedly, a somewhat surprising – her face puffed up and preternaturally lifted, as though secured by industrial-grade tape. Her altered – and she’s eager to emphasize, temporary – look is the result of six cosmetic procedures, such as an minimally invasive facelift, conducted by a surgeon 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’s how puffy I was,” she explains to me via online call from her home. “I had to tell him: ‘Honey, I’m fine, I’m not in pain. I just look like someone attacked me.’”

Increasing Popularity of Youthful Facial Lifts

According to cosmetic specialists, Preisinger is one of a growing number of individuals choosing to undergo a rhytidectomy in their twenties and thirties – significantly before a ten years prior to most doctors’ usual candidate age of forty to sixty. (Though most surgeons are eager to highlight the professional guideline of: “We treat genetics, not age.”) “I have individuals in their late twenties requesting facelifts,” states based in London cosmetic surgeon Georgios Orfaniotis, a ex-NHS doctor who focuses on the head and neck. “It’s a very significant procedure, and I’m a somewhat worried when I observe individuals choosing it as a personal preference.”

Explaining the Facelift Procedure

A rhytidectomy, alternatively called a facelift, lifts the ligaments in the face that begin to droop as we age. “Human faces are built a little like layers of an onion,” explains based in Kent facial plastic surgeon Marc Pacifico. “Dermis and adipose on the surface, then a stratum of supportive 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 skin down with it.”

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

Once the preserve of affluent seniors, overuse of injectables – when excessive use of dermal fillers stretches the face and leads to laxity in the dermis – combined with the common adoption of slimming medications, low-cost medical tourism, and the advancement of new, famous-figure-promoted operative methods are attracting a different type of customer towards this major operation. Reports show an eight percent rise in facial lifts over the last year in the UK; while a study revealed that the percentage of youthful candidates is increasing, with 32% of facelifts now conducted for individuals aged thirty-five to fifty-five.

“People are asking now to look like the best version of themselves and obviously the techniques are following,” says Orfaniotis. At present, the operation du jour is the comprehensive facial lift, a technique evangelised by figures including Kardashian matriarch Kris Jenner, to style creator Marc Jacobs.

Deep Plane Technique

While a more traditional facelift entails elevating the SMAS, the deep plane facelift loosens the underlying structures underneath, enabling doctors to reshape the face by moving the underlying layers, and avoiding the tight, stretched appearance sometimes wrought by older methods. “We avoid placing stress on the skin because we’re targeting deeper, to the underlying structures,” explains Harley Street plastic surgeon Rajiv Grover, who focuses on the advanced method. “It is the underlying layers that is repositioned. The skin follows along as a passenger.” Lifting the entire soft tissue layer as a single unit allows for a more natural-looking and more durable outcome. It also means that the procedure is not just being used for the primary goal of anti-ageing – or revitalization, as the cosmetic field terms it – but for “beautification” and facial restructuring, too. “We’re getting numerous requests from patients aged 28 to 35 for this reason,” notes Grover.

Personal Journey

Preisinger had never planned on getting a facelift – at least not at the age of 30. But years of using injectable gels in an attempt at “symmetry correction” meant that by the time she reached her late twenties, she was “botched”. “I didn’t do this because I wanted to look young,” she clarifies. “I underwent it because the injectable ruined my face. I regret ever using it. If I had avoided the filler, I don’t believe I would be where I’m at right now.”

Whether dermal fillers ever fully dissolve has historically been a point of contention in the cosmetic field. “Research have indicated that not only do they rarely completely dissolve,” says Grover, “but they migrate and can block lymphatic channels. One of the contributors to what we call ‘puffy appearance’ is additionally the fact that in a sense, the face becomes somewhat waterlogged because its capacity to remove lymphatic fluid has been diminished.” Although studies into the area is preliminary, warnings on dermal fillers’ potential impact on the body’s drainage have been released, and further research initiated. An esteemed facial plastic surgeon, commenting anonymously, says he would avoid using fillers in a client because of the risks they pose. “A lot of doctors avoid talk about this, because the manufacturers who make injectables can be pretty aggressive.” He’s been told accounts, he adds, of plastic surgeons being landed with court orders after expressing worries.

Decision and Procedure

For Preisinger, after beginning injecting filler, she felt as if she needed to continue replenishing it – especially as it began moving to different areas of her face. She was just 28 when a nearby cosmetic doctor in Florida proposed that a facial and neck surgery could be what she required to exit the injectable hamster wheel. After 24 months, she found herself choosing between a selection of suggested accommodations 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 recommended that a facelift was the right solution for the laxity she was finding in her face. She arranged a forehead lift, a cheek lift and a neck lift. The day before her operation, one day after she’d touched down solo in the country, she opted to include a mouth enhancement. “Subsequently the surgeon stated, ‘We’re going to lift the under-eye bags.’ Then he said, ‘I believe if we extract some cheek fat, it will contour your face.’ Thus I ultimately including additional surgeries,” she recalls. She paid $22,000 (sixteen thousand five hundred pounds) for the half-day operation, plus a three-day|