‘My Eyes Were So Swollen I Was Unable to Even Unseal Them’

Onemanda Preisinger experiences worry about her child’s impending 13th birthday party. Not for the typical reasons related to a home packed of loud adolescent children, but since it’s the initial occasion she will debut her recently altered face to acquaintances and extended family. “Clearly I’m going to tell all guests as they arrive, ‘Just so you know, this is not how I look,’” says the thirty-year-old real estate agent from Southern Florida.

Her appearance is, well, a somewhat startling – her face puffed up and unnaturally tightened, as though secured by industrial-grade tape. Her altered – and she’s eager to emphasize, temporary – look is the outcome of six aesthetic surgeries, such as an endoscopic mid-facelift, conducted by a surgeon in Istanbul, Turkey, the previous month. “My spouse teared up when he viewed me for the initial time because I wasn’t able to even open my eyes. That’s how puffy I was,” she tells me via video call from her home. “I had to tell him: ‘Honey, I’m okay, I’m not in pain. I just appear as if someone jumped me.’”

Increasing Popularity of Youthful Facial Lifts

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 most doctors’ typical patient age range of forty to sixty. (Although most surgeons are keen to emphasise the professional guideline of: “We address genetics, not years.”) “I have individuals in their late twenties asking for facial lifts,” states based in London cosmetic surgeon Georgios Orfaniotis, a former NHS consultant who focuses on the facial area. “It’s a very significant surgery, and I’m a somewhat worried when I see individuals opting for it as a lifestyle choice.”

Understanding the Facelift Procedure

A rhytidectomy, also known as a facelift, elevates the tissues in the face that start to sag as we age. “Human faces are structured a little like layers of an onion,” explains based in Kent facial plastic surgeon Marc Pacifico. “Dermis and adipose on the top, then a layer of supportive tissue called the SMAS. Think of the facial framework as the structural foundation of the face. And that is what ages us; that’s what becomes lax and pulls the dermis down with it.”

You risk performing surgery on people that have underlying problems. It’s not advisable for an ethical plastic surgeon to pursue

Previously reserved of moneyed older people, “filler fatigue” – when overuse of injectable gels stretches the face and leads to looseness in the dermis – combined with the widespread use of weight-loss drugs, cut-price surgical travel, and the advancement of novel, celebrity-endorsed operative methods are driving a new kind of customer towards this invasive surgery. Statistics indicate an 8% increase in facial lifts over the past 12 months in the United Kingdom; while a study found that the percentage of youthful candidates is increasing, with one-third of procedures now conducted for individuals aged thirty-five to fifty-five.

“Patients are now requesting to look like the optimal form of themselves and naturally the methods are evolving,” says Orfaniotis. At present, the trending procedure is the comprehensive facial lift, a method evangelised by figures including reality TV star Kris Jenner, to fashion designer Marc Jacobs.

Deep Plane Technique

Where a more traditional rhytidectomy entails lifting the superficial layer, the comprehensive lift releases the facial ligaments underneath, allowing surgeons to reshape the face by repositioning the deeper tissue, and preventing the taut, pulled appearance sometimes wrought by more traditional techniques. “We avoid placing stress on the dermis because we’re targeting deeper, to the deeper tissue,” explains prestigious London cosmetic doctor Rajiv Grover, who specialises in 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 unified block results in a more natural-looking and more durable outcome. It additionally implies that the surgery is no longer being used for the express purpose of anti-ageing – or revitalization, as the cosmetic field terms it – but for “beautification” and facial restructuring, too. “We receive many inquiries from patients aged 28 to 35 for this reason,” says Grover.

Personal Journey

Preisinger had never planned on undergoing a facelift – 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 20s, she was “botched”. “I didn’t undergo this because I desired to appear young,” she clarifies. “I underwent it because the injectable ruined my face. I regret ever using it. If I didn’t have the filler, I don’t believe I would be in this situation currently.”

If injectable substances completely disappear has long been a debated topic in the cosmetic field. “Studies have indicated that they seldom fully dissipate,” states Grover, “but they move and can obstruct lymphatic channels. One of the contributors to what we term ‘puffy appearance’ is additionally the reality that in a sense, the face becomes somewhat waterlogged because its capacity to drain bodily fluid has been diminished.” Though research into the area is early-stage, cautionary statements on injectables’ possible effects on the body’s drainage have been released, and further research initiated. One highly regarded face specialist, commenting on the condition of anonymity, mentioned he would avoid using injectables in a client because of the dangers they pose. “Many doctors don’t want to talk about this, because the companies who produce injectables can be pretty aggressive.” He’s heard stories, he says, of cosmetic doctors being landed with legal actions after raising their concerns.

Decision and Procedure

For Preisinger, once she started using injectables, she believed she had to keep replenishing it – especially as it started to migrate to different areas of her face. She was just 28 when a local plastic surgeon in Florida proposed that a face and neck lift could be what she needed to exit the cycle of treatments. Two years later, she ended up selecting from a list of recommended hotels in the city, texted to her by the clinic assistant at her surgeon’s office.

Initially, Preisinger had planned for an upper and lower blepharoplasty – commonly called eyelid surgery – but her surgeon recommended that a facelift was the correct option for the laxity she was finding in her face. She arranged a brow lift, a cheek lift and a jawline surgery. The day before her operation, 24 hours post she’d touched down alone in the country, she decided to add a mouth enhancement. “Subsequently the surgeon stated, ‘We’re going to elevate the under-eye bags.’ He added, ‘I think if we remove some cheek fat, it will sculpt your face.’ Thus I ultimately including additional surgeries,” she recalls. She paid $22,000 (sixteen thousand five hundred pounds) for the six-hour operation, including a three-day|