‘My Eyes Were So Puffy I Couldn’t Even Unseal Them’

Amanda Preisinger experiences worry about her child’s upcoming 13th birthday celebration. Not for the typical causes related to a home packed of loud preteen kids, but since it’s the initial occasion she will debut her new face to friends and relatives. “Obviously I’m going to tell all guests as they come in, ‘For your information, this is not how I look,’” says the 30-year-old real estate agent from Southern Florida.

Her appearance is, well, a somewhat startling – her face puffed up and unnaturally tightened, as though held together by industrial-grade tape. Her altered – and she’s eager to emphasize, temporary – appearance is the result of half a dozen cosmetic procedures, including an endoscopic mid-facelift, conducted by a doctor in Istanbul, Turkey, last month. “My spouse became emotional when he viewed me for the initial time because I couldn’t even unseal my eyes. That indicates swollen I was,” she tells me via video call from her house. “I had to tell him: ‘Babe, I’m okay, I’m not in pain. I just appear as if someone jumped me.’”

Increasing Popularity of Early Facelifts

Based on plastic surgeons, Preisinger is one of a rising count of individuals choosing to have a facelift in their twenties and thirties – significantly before a decade before most doctors’ typical patient age range of 40 to 60. (Though many specialists are keen to emphasise the professional guideline of: “We treat genetics, not years.”) “I have individuals in their late twenties requesting facial lifts,” states based in London cosmetic surgeon Georgios Orfaniotis, a ex-NHS doctor who focuses on 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.”

Explaining the Rhytidectomy Surgery

A rhytidectomy, also known as a facelift, elevates the ligaments in the face that start to sag as we age. “Human faces are structured a bit like onion layers,” explains based in Kent facial plastic surgeon Marc Pacifico. “Dermis and adipose on the surface, then a stratum of connective tissue called the superficial musculoaponeurotic system. 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 dermis downward with it.”

You risk operating on individuals that have underlying problems. It’s not a practice for an conscientious surgeon to follow

Once the preserve of moneyed older people, overuse of injectables – when overuse of injectable gels expands the face and causes looseness in the dermis – alongside the common adoption of slimming medications, low-cost surgical travel, and the development of novel, famous-figure-promoted surgical techniques are attracting a different type of patient towards this major operation. Statistics show an 8% increase in facial lifts over the past 12 months in the United Kingdom; while a study revealed that the percentage of youthful candidates is increasing, with 32% of facelifts now performed on patients aged 35-55.

“People are now requesting to look like the optimal form of themselves and naturally the methods are evolving,” comments Orfaniotis. Currently, the operation du jour is the deep plane facelift, a technique evangelised by figures including Kardashian matriarch Kris Jenner, to style creator Marc Jacobs.

Deep Plane Technique

While a conventional facelift entails lifting the SMAS, the deep plane facelift loosens the underlying structures beneath it, enabling surgeons to reshape the face by repositioning the underlying layers, and avoiding the tight, stretched appearance occasionally caused by older methods. “We’re not putting tension on the dermis because we’re going below, to the underlying structures,” explains prestigious London cosmetic doctor Rajiv Grover, who focuses on the advanced method. “It is the deeper tissue that is repositioned. The skin follows along as a secondary element.” Lifting the entire soft tissue layer as a single unit allows for a more natural-looking and more durable result. It also means that the procedure is no longer being used for the primary goal of youth preservation – or rejuvenation, as the cosmetic field terms it – but for “enhancement” and contouring, too. “We’re getting numerous requests from clients aged late twenties to mid-thirties for this purpose,” notes Grover.

Individual Experience

Preisinger had not intended on undergoing a facial lift – at minimum not at the age of 30. But long-term using injectable gels in an effort at “symmetry correction” implied that by the time she entered her late twenties, she was “botched”. “I didn’t do this because I wanted to look young,” she says. “I did it because the injectable ruined my face. I wish I had never using it. If I had avoided the filler, I don’t believe I would be where I’m at currently.”

If injectable substances completely disappear has long been a point of contention in the cosmetic field. “Studies have shown that they seldom fully dissipate,” states Grover, “but they migrate and can obstruct lymphatic channels. One of the contributors to what we call ‘pillow face’ is also the fact that to some extent, the face gets somewhat fluid-filled because its ability to remove bodily fluid has been reduced.” Though research into the topic is preliminary, warnings on dermal fillers’ possible effects on the body’s drainage have been issued, and further research initiated. An esteemed facial plastic surgeon, commenting anonymously, mentioned he would never use fillers in a client because of the dangers they present. “A lot of doctors avoid talk about this, because the companies who make injectables can be quite forceful.” He’s heard stories, he adds, of plastic surgeons being landed with court orders after raising their concerns.

Decision and Procedure

For Preisinger, after beginning injecting filler, she felt as if she needed to continue adding more – especially as it started to migrate to different areas of her face. She was only twenty-eight when a local plastic surgeon in the state proposed that a facial and neck surgery might be what she required to finally step off the injectable hamster wheel. Two years later, she ended up selecting from a list of recommended hotels in Istanbul, texted to her by the clinic assistant at her surgeon’s office.

Originally, Preisinger had planned for an upper and lower blepharoplasty – commonly called blepharoplasty – but her doctor recommended that a facelift was the right solution for the laxity she was finding in her face. She arranged a brow lift, a mid-facelift and a jawline surgery. The eve of her operation, 24 hours post she’d arrived solo in the country, she opted to include a mouth enhancement. “Subsequently the surgeon stated, ‘We’re going to elevate the lower eyelid puffiness.’ Then he said, ‘I believe if we extract some buccal fat, it will sculpt your face.’ Thus I ultimately adding two more procedures,” she recalls. She spent $22,000 (£16,500) for the half-day operation, plus a three-day|