‘I Couldn’t Even Open My Eyes. That’s The Extent of the Swelling I Was’

Amanda Preisinger feels anxious about her child’s impending 13th birthday party. Not for the typical reasons related to a house full of loud adolescent kids, but because it’s the initial occasion she will debut her new face to friends and relatives. “Clearly I’m going to inform all guests as they come in, ‘For your information, this is not how I look,’” says the 30-year-old property agent from south Florida.

Her appearance is, well, a somewhat surprising – her face puffed up and preternaturally lifted, as though secured by heavy-duty tape. Her altered – and she’s keen to stress, temporary – look is the result of six aesthetic surgeries, such as an minimally invasive facelift, performed by a surgeon in Istanbul, Turkey, last month. “My poor husband became emotional when he viewed me for the first time because I wasn’t able to even open my eyes. That’s how swollen I was,” she tells me via online call from her house. “I needed to inform him: ‘Babe, I’m okay, I’m not in pain. I just appear as if someone attacked me.’”

Growing Trend of Early Facelifts

According to cosmetic specialists, Preisinger is among a growing number of individuals choosing to have a rhytidectomy in their twenties and thirties – significantly before a decade prior to typical surgeons’ typical patient age range of forty to sixty. (Though many specialists are eager to highlight the professional guideline of: “We treat genetics, not age.”) “I have individuals in their late twenties asking for facelifts,” says London-based cosmetic surgeon Georgios Orfaniotis, a ex-NHS doctor who focuses on the facial area. “It’s a very significant procedure, and I’m a bit concerned when I see people choosing it as a lifestyle choice.”

Explaining the Facelift Procedure

A facelift, also known as a rhytidectomy, lifts the ligaments in the face that begin to droop as we grow older. “Our faces are built a bit like layers of an onion,” explains Kent-based facial plastic surgeon Marc Pacifico. “Skin and fat on the surface, then a stratum of supportive tissue called the SMAS. Think of the SMAS as the soft tissue skeleton of the face. And that’s what causes aging; that’s what loosens and sags and drags the skin downward with it.”

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

Previously reserved of affluent seniors, “filler fatigue” – when excessive use of injectable gels stretches the face and causes looseness in the dermis – alongside the widespread use of slimming medications, low-cost medical tourism, and the advancement of novel, famous-figure-promoted surgical techniques are attracting a different type of patient towards this invasive surgery. Reports 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 growing, with one-third of procedures now conducted for patients aged thirty-five to fifty-five.

“Patients are now requesting to look like the optimal form of themselves and obviously the methods are evolving,” comments Orfaniotis. Currently, the operation du jour is the comprehensive facial lift, a technique promoted by everyone from Kardashian matriarch Kris Jenner, to style creator Marc Jacobs.

Advanced Lifting Method

Where a more traditional facelift involves lifting the SMAS, the deep plane facelift releases the underlying structures beneath it, enabling doctors to reshape the face by repositioning the underlying layers, and avoiding the tight, stretched look sometimes wrought by older methods. “We’re not putting tension on the skin because we’re targeting deeper, to the deeper tissue,” says Harley Street plastic surgeon Rajiv Grover, who specialises in the advanced method. “It is the underlying layers that is adjusted. The skin follows along as a passenger.” Lifting the whole facial structure as a single unit allows for a authentic-appearing and longer-lasting outcome. It additionally implies that the surgery is not just being used for the primary goal of anti-ageing – or revitalization, as the aesthetics industry describes it – but for “enhancement” and facial restructuring, too. “We’re getting numerous requests from patients aged late twenties to mid-thirties for this reason,” notes Grover.

Personal Journey

Preisinger had never planned on undergoing a facial lift – at minimum not at the thirty years old. But long-term using injectable gels in an attempt at “facial balancing” implied that by the time she reached her late 20s, she was “damaged”. “I didn’t do this because I wanted to look youthful,” she says. “I did it because the filler 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.”

Whether dermal fillers completely disappear has long been a point of contention in the aesthetics industry. “Research have shown that not only do they rarely completely dissolve,” states Grover, “but they migrate and can block drainage pathways. One of the contributors to what we call ‘pillow face’ is additionally the reality that in a sense, the face becomes somewhat fluid-filled because its capacity to drain bodily fluid has been reduced.” Though studies into the area is early-stage, cautionary statements on dermal fillers’ possible effects on the lymphatic system have been released, and further research initiated. One highly regarded face specialist, speaking on the condition of anonymity, says he would avoid using injectables in a client because of the dangers they present. “A lot of surgeons avoid discussing this, because the companies who make injectables can be pretty aggressive.” He’s heard stories, he adds, of cosmetic doctors facing legal actions after expressing worries.

Decision and Procedure

For Preisinger, after beginning injecting filler, she felt as if she had to keep replenishing it – especially as it began moving to other parts of her face. She was only twenty-eight when a nearby cosmetic doctor in the state suggested that a facial and neck surgery might be what she required to finally step off the cycle of treatments. After 24 months, she found herself choosing between a selection of recommended hotels in the city, sent to her by the patient coordinator at her doctor’s clinic.

Initially, Preisinger had planned for an eyelid surgery – better known as blepharoplasty – but her doctor advised her that a facial lift was the correct option for the laxity she was finding in her face. She arranged a forehead lift, a mid-facelift and a jawline surgery. The day before her operation, one day after she’d touched down solo in the country, she decided to add a mouth enhancement. “Subsequently the surgeon said, ‘We will lift the under-eye bags.’ Then he said, ‘I believe if we remove some buccal fat, it will contour your face.’ Thus I ultimately adding two more surgeries,” she says. She paid $22,000 (£16,500) for the half-day operation, including a three-day|