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

Onemanda Preisinger feels anxious about her daughter’s upcoming 13th birthday celebration. It’s not due to the typical reasons associated with a home packed of clamorous adolescent children, but because it’s the initial occasion she will showcase her new face to friends and extended family. “Obviously I’m going to inform everyone as they come in, ‘For your information, this is not the way I look,’” says the 30-year-old real estate agent from south Florida.

Her appearance is, admittedly, a somewhat startling – her face puffed up and preternaturally lifted, as though secured by industrial-grade tape. Her altered – and she’s keen to stress, temporary – look is the outcome of six cosmetic procedures, including an endoscopic mid-facelift, conducted by a surgeon in Istanbul, Turkey, the previous month. “My poor husband teared up when he saw me for the initial time because I couldn’t even unseal my eyes. That’s how puffy I was,” she tells me via video call from her home. “I needed to inform him: ‘Honey, I’m fine, I’m not in pain. I just look like someone attacked me.’”

Increasing Popularity of Youthful Facial Lifts

According to cosmetic specialists, Preisinger is one of a growing number of people choosing to have a facelift in their 20s and 30s – significantly before a decade prior to most doctors’ usual candidate age of 40 to 60. (Although most surgeons are eager to highlight 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 specialises in the head and neck. “It’s a very significant surgery, and I’m a bit concerned when I see people opting for it as a personal preference.”

Understanding the Facelift Procedure

A facelift, also known as a rhytidectomy, elevates the ligaments in the face that start to sag as we grow older. “Human faces are built a little like layers of an onion,” explains based in Kent face specialist Marc Pacifico. “Dermis and adipose on the surface, then a stratum of connective tissue called the SMAS. Consider the SMAS as the soft tissue skeleton of the face. And that is what causes aging; that is 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 conscientious surgeon to follow

Previously reserved of affluent seniors, overuse of injectables – when overuse of injectable gels stretches the face and leads to laxity in the skin – combined with the widespread use of weight-loss drugs, cut-price medical tourism, and the development of new, famous-figure-promoted surgical techniques are driving a different type of patient towards this invasive surgery. Reports show an eight percent rise in facial lifts over the past 12 months in the United Kingdom; while a survey found that the portion of younger facelift patients is growing, with one-third of procedures now performed on individuals aged 35-55.

“People are asking now to appear as the best version of themselves and naturally the methods are following,” comments Orfaniotis. Currently, the trending procedure is the comprehensive facial lift, a method promoted by figures including reality TV star Kris Jenner, to style creator Marc Jacobs.

Deep Plane Technique

While a more traditional facelift entails lifting the SMAS, the comprehensive lift loosens the facial ligaments beneath it, enabling doctors to reshape the face by moving the underlying layers, and avoiding the taut, pulled look occasionally caused by more traditional techniques. “We’re not putting stress on the dermis because we’re going below, to the deeper tissue,” says Harley Street cosmetic doctor Rajiv Grover, who specialises in the deep plane technique. “It is the underlying layers that is repositioned. The dermis follows along as a secondary element.” Lifting the whole facial structure as a unified block allows for a more natural-looking and more durable outcome. It also means that the surgery is not just being used for the primary goal of anti-ageing – or revitalization, as the aesthetics industry terms it – but for “beautification” and facial restructuring, too. “We’re getting numerous requests from patients aged 28 to 35 for this reason,” notes Grover.

Personal Journey

Preisinger had never planned on getting a facial lift – at least not at the thirty years old. But long-term using injectable gels in an attempt at “symmetry correction” implied that by the time she entered her late 20s, she was “botched”. “I didn’t undergo this because I wanted to look youthful,” she says. “I underwent it because the filler harmed my face. I wish I had never done it. If I didn’t have the filler, I don’t think I would be in this situation right now.”

Whether injectable substances ever fully dissolve has long been a point of contention in the aesthetics industry. “Studies have indicated that not only do they rarely fully dissipate,” says Grover, “but they migrate and can block drainage pathways. One of the contributors to what we term ‘pillow face’ is also the reality that in a sense, the face becomes somewhat fluid-filled because its capacity to remove bodily fluid has been reduced.” Although studies into the topic is preliminary, cautionary statements on dermal fillers’ possible effects on the body’s drainage have been released, and further research announced. One highly regarded face specialist, commenting anonymously, mentioned he would never use injectables in a patient because of the dangers they present. “A lot of surgeons avoid discussing this, because the manufacturers who make injectables can be pretty aggressive.” He’s been told accounts, he adds, of plastic surgeons facing court orders after raising their concerns.

Choice and Surgery

For Preisinger, once she started using injectables, she felt as if she had to keep replenishing it – especially as it began moving to other parts of her face. She was just 28 when a nearby cosmetic doctor in Florida suggested that a face and neck lift might be what she required to exit the cycle of treatments. After 24 months, she ended up choosing between a list of suggested accommodations in Istanbul, sent to her by the patient coordinator at her doctor’s clinic.

Originally, Preisinger had scheduled an eyelid surgery – better known as eyelid surgery – but her doctor advised her that a facial lift was the correct option for the laxity she was finding in her face. She booked a brow lift, a cheek lift and a neck lift. The eve of her surgery, one day after she’d arrived alone in the country, she opted to include a lip lift. “Subsequently the surgeon said, ‘We’re going to elevate the under-eye bags.’ He added, ‘I believe if we extract some cheek fat, it will sculpt your face.’ So I ended up including additional procedures,” she says. She paid $22,000 (£16,500) for the half-day operation, including a three-day|