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

Onemanda Preisinger experiences worry about her daughter’s impending 13th birthday party. Not for the usual causes related to a house full of clamorous adolescent kids, but because it’s the first time she will reveal her recently altered face to acquaintances and extended family. “Obviously I’m going to inform everyone as they arrive, ‘Just so you know, this is not the way I appear,’” states the 30-year-old property agent from south Florida.

How she looks is, admittedly, a little surprising – her face puffed up and preternaturally lifted, as though secured by industrial-grade tape. Her new – and she’s keen to stress, temporary – appearance is the outcome of six cosmetic procedures, such as an endoscopic mid-facelift, conducted by a doctor in Istanbul, Turkey, last month. “My poor husband teared up when he viewed me for the initial time because I wasn’t able to even open my eyes. That indicates swollen I was,” she explains to me via video call from her home. “I needed to inform him: ‘Honey, I’m okay, I’m not in pain. I just look like someone attacked me.’”

Increasing Popularity of Youthful Facial Lifts

According to plastic surgeons, Preisinger is one of a rising count of people electing to have a rhytidectomy in their 20s and 30s – significantly before a decade before typical surgeons’ usual candidate age of 40 to 60. (Although most surgeons are eager to highlight the professional guideline of: “We treat genetics, not age.”) “I have individuals in their late twenties asking for facial lifts,” says London-based aesthetic plastic surgeon Georgios Orfaniotis, a ex-NHS doctor who specialises in the head and neck. “It’s a major surgery, and I’m a bit concerned when I see individuals opting for it as a personal preference.”

Understanding the Facelift Procedure

A rhytidectomy, alternatively called a facelift, elevates the ligaments in the face that begin to droop as we grow older. “Human faces are built a little like onion layers,” explains Kent-based facial plastic surgeon Marc Pacifico. “Dermis and adipose on the surface, then a layer of connective tissue known as the superficial musculoaponeurotic system. Consider the SMAS as the soft tissue skeleton 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 people that have deeper issues. It’s not advisable for an conscientious surgeon to pursue

Once the preserve of affluent seniors, overuse of injectables – when excessive use of dermal fillers expands the face and leads to looseness in the skin – combined with the widespread use of slimming medications, cut-price surgical travel, and the development of novel, celebrity-endorsed surgical techniques are driving a different type of customer towards this invasive surgery. Reports show an 8% increase in facelifts over the past 12 months in the United Kingdom; while a survey revealed that the percentage of youthful candidates is increasing, with 32% of facelifts now performed on patients aged thirty-five to fifty-five.

“Patients are asking now to look like the optimal form of themselves and obviously the techniques are following,” says Orfaniotis. At present, the operation du jour is the comprehensive facial lift, a method promoted by everyone from Kardashian matriarch Kris Jenner, to fashion designer Marc Jacobs.

Deep Plane Technique

While a conventional facelift involves elevating the SMAS, the comprehensive lift loosens the facial ligaments underneath, enabling surgeons to reshape the face by moving the underlying layers, and preventing the tight, stretched look occasionally caused by older methods. “We’re not putting tension on the dermis because we’re targeting deeper, to the deeper tissue,” explains Harley Street cosmetic doctor Rajiv Grover, who focuses on the advanced method. “It is the underlying layers that is adjusted. The skin comes with it as a secondary element.” Lifting the entire soft tissue layer as a unified block results in a more natural-looking and more durable outcome. It additionally implies that the surgery is not just being used for the primary goal of youth preservation – or revitalization, as the cosmetic field describes it – but for “enhancement” and contouring, too. “We receive many inquiries from patients aged 28 to 35 for this purpose,” notes Grover.

Personal Journey

Preisinger had never planned on getting a facial lift – at minimum not at the thirty years old. But long-term using injectable gels in an effort at “symmetry correction” implied that by the time she entered her late 20s, she was “botched”. “I didn’t undergo this because I desired to appear youthful,” she clarifies. “I underwent it because the filler ruined 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.”

Whether injectable substances completely disappear has long been a point of contention in the cosmetic field. “Studies have indicated that not only do they rarely fully dissipate,” states Grover, “but they move and can block drainage pathways. One of the contributors to what we term ‘pillow face’ is additionally the reality that in a sense, the face gets somewhat fluid-filled because its capacity to remove bodily fluid has been diminished.” Although studies into the area is early-stage, cautionary statements on injectables’ potential impact on the lymphatic system have been released, and additional studies initiated. One highly regarded face specialist, commenting on the condition of anonymity, mentioned he would avoid using fillers in a client because of the risks they pose. “Many doctors avoid discussing this, because the companies who make filler can be pretty aggressive.” He’s heard stories, he says, of cosmetic doctors facing court orders after raising their concerns.

Decision and Procedure

For Preisinger, once she started using injectables, she believed she had to keep replenishing it – particularly when it began moving to different areas of her face. She was just 28 when a nearby cosmetic doctor in Florida suggested that a face and neck lift could be what she needed to exit the injectable hamster wheel. Two years later, she ended up choosing between a selection of recommended hotels in Istanbul, texted to her by the clinic assistant at her surgeon’s office.

Initially, Preisinger had scheduled an eyelid surgery – better known as blepharoplasty – but her surgeon advised her that a facial lift was the correct option for the laxity she was experiencing in her face. She arranged a forehead lift, a cheek lift and a jawline surgery. The eve of her operation, 24 hours post she’d arrived solo in the country, she opted to include a lip lift. “Then he said, ‘We’re going to elevate the under-eye bags.’ He added, ‘I think if we remove some cheek fat, it will contour your face.’ So I ended up adding two more procedures,” she says. She paid $22,000 (£16,500) for the half-day surgery, plus a three-day|