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

Amanda Preisinger feels anxious about her daughter’s upcoming 13th birthday celebration. Not for the typical reasons associated with a house full of clamorous preteen children, but since it’s the first time she will showcase her new face to acquaintances and relatives. “Obviously I’m going to inform everyone as they arrive, ‘For your information, this is not how I appear,’” states the 30-year-old real estate agent from Southern Florida.

Her appearance is, admittedly, a little surprising – her face swollen and preternaturally lifted, as though held together by heavy-duty tape. Her altered – and she’s eager to emphasize, short-term – look is the result of half a dozen aesthetic surgeries, including an minimally invasive facelift, performed by a surgeon in Turkey’s Istanbul, last month. “My spouse teared up when he viewed me for the first time because I couldn’t even open my eyes. That indicates puffy I was,” she tells me via video call from her house. “I needed to inform him: ‘Honey, I’m fine, I’m not in pain. I just look like someone attacked me.’”

Growing Trend of Early Facelifts

Based on cosmetic specialists, Preisinger is among a growing number of people choosing to have a facelift in their 20s and 30s – well over a ten years prior to most doctors’ usual candidate age of forty to sixty. (Although many specialists are eager to highlight the professional guideline of: “We treat heredity, not age.”) “I have 28-year-olds asking for facelifts,” states based in London aesthetic plastic surgeon Georgios Orfaniotis, a ex-NHS doctor who specialises in the head and neck. “It’s a very significant surgery, and I’m a somewhat worried when I observe individuals choosing it as a personal preference.”

Understanding the Facelift Procedure

A rhytidectomy, alternatively called a facelift, lifts the tissues in the face that start to sag as we age. “Our faces are structured a little like layers of an onion,” says based in Kent facial plastic surgeon Marc Pacifico. “Dermis and adipose on the surface, then a layer 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’s 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

Previously reserved of affluent seniors, overuse of injectables – when overuse of dermal fillers expands the face and leads to laxity in the dermis – combined with the widespread use of weight-loss drugs, cut-price medical tourism, and the development of new, celebrity-endorsed surgical techniques are attracting a new kind of customer towards this invasive surgery. Reports show an eight percent rise in facial lifts over the last year in the UK; while a survey found that the portion of youthful candidates is increasing, with one-third of procedures now conducted for individuals aged 35-55.

“People are asking now to look like the best version of themselves and naturally the methods are evolving,” says Orfaniotis. Currently, the trending procedure is the deep plane facelift, a method promoted by figures including Kardashian matriarch Kris Jenner, to fashion designer Marc Jacobs.

Deep Plane Technique

While a more traditional rhytidectomy entails lifting the superficial layer, the comprehensive lift releases the underlying structures underneath, allowing surgeons to reshape the face by repositioning the deeper tissue, and preventing the tight, stretched appearance occasionally caused by older methods. “We avoid placing tension on the skin because we’re targeting deeper, 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.” Lifting the whole facial structure as a single unit allows for a more natural-looking and more durable result. It additionally implies that the procedure is not just being used for the primary goal of anti-ageing – or rejuvenation, as the cosmetic field terms it – but for “beautification” and contouring, too. “We’re getting many inquiries from patients aged late twenties to mid-thirties for this purpose,” says Grover.

Individual Experience

Preisinger had not intended on getting a facial lift – at minimum not at the thirty years old. But years of using injectable gels in an effort at “symmetry correction” meant that by the time she reached her late 20s, she was “botched”. “I didn’t undergo this because I wanted to look young,” she says. “I did it because the filler ruined my face. I wish I had never done it. If I had avoided the injectable, I don’t think I would be where I’m at currently.”

Whether injectable substances ever fully dissolve has historically been a debated topic in the aesthetics industry. “Studies have indicated that they seldom fully dissipate,” says Grover, “but they move and can block lymphatic channels. A contributing factor to what we term ‘pillow face’ is additionally the fact that in a sense, the face becomes somewhat fluid-filled because its ability to drain bodily fluid has been diminished.” Though studies into the area 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, says he would avoid using fillers in a patient because of the risks they present. “A lot of surgeons avoid discussing this, because the companies who make filler can be pretty aggressive.” He’s been told accounts, he says, of plastic surgeons facing court orders after raising their concerns.

Decision and Procedure

For Preisinger, once she started using injectables, she felt as if she had to keep replenishing it – especially as it started to migrate 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 required to finally step off the cycle of treatments. After 24 months, she found herself choosing between a selection of suggested accommodations in the city, sent 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 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 solo in Turkey, she decided to add a lip lift. “Subsequently the surgeon stated, ‘We’re going to elevate the under-eye bags.’ He added, ‘I believe if we extract some buccal fat, it will contour your face.’ Thus I ultimately including additional surgeries,” she says. She spent $22,000 (£16,500) for the half-day operation, including a three-day|