‘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 associated with a home packed of clamorous preteen kids, but since it’s the initial occasion she will reveal her recently altered face to acquaintances and extended family. “Clearly I’m going to inform everyone as they arrive, ‘Just so you know, this is not how I look,’” states the 30-year-old property agent from south Florida.

Her appearance is, admittedly, a little surprising – her face puffed up and preternaturally lifted, as though secured by heavy-duty tape. Her new – and she’s eager to emphasize, temporary – appearance is the outcome of half a dozen aesthetic surgeries, such as an minimally invasive facelift, conducted by a surgeon in Turkey’s Istanbul, the previous month. “My poor husband became emotional when he saw me for the first time because I wasn’t able to even unseal my eyes. That’s how swollen I was,” she explains to me via online call from her house. “I needed to inform him: ‘Honey, I’m fine, I’m not hurting. I just look like someone jumped me.’”

Increasing Popularity of Youthful Facial Lifts

According to cosmetic specialists, Preisinger is one of a growing number of individuals electing to undergo a facelift in their twenties and thirties – significantly before a decade prior to typical surgeons’ typical patient age range of 40 to 60. (Though many specialists are eager to highlight the industry edict of: “We address heredity, not age.”) “I have individuals in their late twenties requesting facelifts,” says London-based aesthetic plastic surgeon Georgios Orfaniotis, a former NHS consultant who focuses on the head and neck. “It’s a major surgery, and I’m a somewhat worried when I see individuals opting for it as a personal preference.”

Explaining the Rhytidectomy Surgery

A rhytidectomy, alternatively called a facelift, lifts the tissues in the face that start to sag as we grow older. “Our faces are built a little like layers of an onion,” says based in Kent facial plastic surgeon Marc Pacifico. “Skin and fat on the surface, then a stratum of supportive tissue called the SMAS. Think of the facial framework as the soft tissue skeleton of the face. And that’s what causes aging; that is what becomes lax and drags the dermis down with it.”

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

Once the preserve of moneyed older people, “filler fatigue” – when overuse of injectable gels stretches the face and causes laxity in the skin – alongside the widespread use of weight-loss drugs, cut-price surgical travel, and the advancement of novel, famous-figure-promoted surgical techniques are driving a new kind of customer 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 portion of youthful candidates is increasing, with one-third of procedures now conducted for patients aged thirty-five to fifty-five.

“People are asking now to look like the optimal form of themselves and naturally the techniques are evolving,” says Orfaniotis. At present, the operation du jour is the comprehensive facial lift, a technique evangelised by figures including reality TV star Kris Jenner, to style creator Marc Jacobs.

Advanced Lifting Method

While a more traditional facelift involves elevating the SMAS, the comprehensive lift releases the facial ligaments beneath it, allowing doctors to restructure the face by moving the deeper tissue, and preventing the tight, stretched look occasionally caused by more traditional techniques. “We avoid placing stress on the dermis because we’re going below, to the deeper tissue,” says prestigious London cosmetic doctor Rajiv Grover, who focuses on the deep plane technique. “It is the underlying layers that is repositioned. The skin follows along as a passenger.” Elevating the entire soft tissue layer as a single unit results in a more natural-looking and more durable result. It also means that the procedure is not just being used for the express purpose of youth preservation – or revitalization, as the cosmetic field terms it – but for “enhancement” and contouring, too. “We’re getting many inquiries from patients aged 28 to 35 for this purpose,” notes Grover.

Personal Journey

Preisinger had never planned on undergoing a facial lift – at least not at the age of 30. But years of using injectable gels in an attempt at “facial balancing” meant that by the time she entered her late twenties, she was “damaged”. “I didn’t undergo this because I wanted to look young,” she says. “I underwent it because the injectable harmed 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.”

If dermal fillers ever fully dissolve has long been a debated topic in the cosmetic field. “Research have shown that they seldom completely dissolve,” states Grover, “but they migrate and can block lymphatic channels. A contributing factor to what we call ‘puffy appearance’ is additionally the reality that to some extent, the face gets slightly waterlogged because its capacity to drain lymphatic fluid has been diminished.” Though research into the topic is early-stage, warnings on injectables’ potential impact on the body’s drainage have been released, and further research announced. One highly regarded facial plastic surgeon, commenting on the condition of anonymity, says he would never use fillers in a patient because of the dangers they pose. “Many surgeons avoid talk about this, because the companies who make filler can be pretty aggressive.” He’s heard stories, he says, of cosmetic doctors being landed with court orders after raising their concerns.

Choice and Surgery

For Preisinger, after beginning using injectables, she believed she had to keep adding more – particularly when it began moving to other parts of her face. She was only twenty-eight when a local plastic surgeon in the state suggested that a facial and neck surgery could be what she needed to exit the cycle of treatments. After 24 months, she ended up selecting from a list of recommended hotels in the city, texted to her by the patient coordinator at her doctor’s clinic.

Originally, Preisinger had planned for an eyelid surgery – better known as blepharoplasty – but her surgeon recommended that a facial lift was the correct option for the laxity she was experiencing in her face. She booked a forehead lift, a mid-facelift and a neck lift. The eve of her operation, 24 hours post she’d arrived solo in Turkey, she decided to add 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 sculpt your face.’ Thus I ultimately including additional surgeries,” she recalls. She spent $22,000 (£16,500) for the six-hour operation, plus a three-day|