‘My Eyes Were So Puffy I Was Unable to Even Open Them’

Onemanda Preisinger experiences worry about her daughter’s impending 13th birthday party. Not for the usual causes associated with a home packed of clamorous adolescent kids, but since it’s the first time she will reveal her recently altered face to acquaintances and relatives. “Obviously I’m going to tell all guests as they arrive, ‘Just so you know, this is not the way I appear,’” states the 30-year-old real estate agent from south Florida.

How she looks is, well, a somewhat startling – her face puffed up and unnaturally tightened, as though secured by industrial-grade tape. Her new – and she’s keen to stress, short-term – look is the outcome of six cosmetic procedures, such as an endoscopic mid-facelift, conducted by a surgeon in Istanbul, Turkey, the previous month. “My spouse became emotional when he viewed me for the first time because I wasn’t able to even open my eyes. That’s how puffy I was,” she tells me via online call from her home. “I had to tell him: ‘Babe, I’m okay, I’m not in pain. I just look like someone jumped me.’”

Growing Trend of Early Facelifts

According to plastic surgeons, Preisinger is one of a rising count of individuals choosing to undergo a facelift in their 20s and 30s – well over a decade prior to typical surgeons’ typical patient age range of 40 to 60. (Although many specialists are eager to highlight the industry edict of: “We address heredity, not years.”) “I have 28-year-olds asking for facial lifts,” states London-based cosmetic surgeon Georgios Orfaniotis, a former NHS consultant who specialises in the facial area. “It’s a major surgery, and I’m a somewhat worried when I observe individuals choosing it as a personal preference.”

Understanding the Facelift Procedure

A facelift, also known as a facelift, lifts the tissues in the face that start to sag as we grow older. “Human faces are structured a bit like layers of an onion,” explains based in Kent face specialist Marc Pacifico. “Dermis and adipose on the surface, then a layer of supportive tissue known as the SMAS. Think of the SMAS as the structural foundation of the face. And that is what ages us; that is what loosens and sags and pulls 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 pursue

Previously reserved of affluent seniors, “filler fatigue” – when excessive use of dermal fillers stretches the face and causes looseness in the dermis – alongside the common adoption of weight-loss drugs, cut-price medical tourism, and the development of new, celebrity-endorsed operative methods are attracting a different type of patient towards this major operation. Reports show an eight percent rise in facial lifts over the last year in the UK; while a survey found that the portion of younger facelift patients is growing, with one-third of procedures now performed on patients aged thirty-five to fifty-five.

“People are asking now to look like the best version of themselves and naturally the methods are evolving,” says Orfaniotis. Currently, the operation du jour is the deep plane facelift, a technique promoted by everyone from Kardashian matriarch Kris Jenner, to style creator Marc Jacobs.

Deep Plane Technique

While a more traditional rhytidectomy involves lifting the SMAS, the deep plane facelift loosens the facial ligaments beneath it, enabling surgeons to restructure the face by moving the underlying layers, and avoiding the tight, stretched look occasionally caused by more traditional techniques. “We avoid placing stress on the skin because we’re going below, to the deeper tissue,” explains prestigious London cosmetic doctor Rajiv Grover, who focuses on the advanced method. “It is the deeper tissue that is adjusted. The skin comes with it as a secondary element.” Elevating the whole facial structure as a single unit results in a authentic-appearing and longer-lasting result. It additionally implies that the procedure is not just being used for the express purpose of anti-ageing – or rejuvenation, as the aesthetics industry describes it – but for “enhancement” and facial restructuring, too. “We’re getting numerous requests from clients aged 28 to 35 for this purpose,” says Grover.

Individual Experience

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

If dermal fillers completely disappear has long been a point of contention in the cosmetic field. “Studies have shown that they seldom completely dissolve,” states Grover, “but they move and can obstruct drainage pathways. One of the contributors to what we term ‘pillow face’ is additionally the fact that in a sense, the face gets slightly waterlogged because its ability to remove lymphatic fluid has been reduced.” Although studies into the topic is preliminary, warnings on injectables’ potential impact on the body’s drainage have been released, and additional studies initiated. One highly regarded face specialist, speaking on the condition of anonymity, mentioned he would never use fillers in a client because of the risks they present. “A lot of surgeons don’t want to discussing this, because the companies who make filler 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, once she started using injectables, she felt as if she needed to continue adding more – particularly when it started to migrate to other parts of her face. She was just 28 when a local plastic surgeon in Florida suggested that a facial and neck surgery could be what she required to finally step off the injectable hamster wheel. After 24 months, she ended up choosing between a list of recommended hotels in the city, sent to her by the patient coordinator at her surgeon’s office.

Originally, Preisinger had scheduled an eyelid surgery – commonly called eyelid surgery – but her surgeon advised her that a facelift was the right solution for the laxity she was finding in her face. She arranged a brow lift, a cheek lift and a neck lift. The eve of her operation, 24 hours post she’d arrived solo in the country, she opted to include a mouth enhancement. “Subsequently the surgeon said, ‘We’re going to lift the under-eye bags.’ He added, ‘I believe if we extract some buccal fat, it will contour your face.’ Thus I ultimately including additional procedures,” she says. She spent $22,000 (£16,500) for the six-hour surgery, including a three-day|