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

Onemanda Preisinger is nervous about her child’s upcoming 13th birthday party. Not for the typical reasons related to a house full of loud preteen children, but since it’s the first time she will debut her new face to acquaintances and relatives. “Obviously I’m going to inform all guests as they come in, ‘For your information, this is not how I appear,’” says the thirty-year-old real estate agent from Southern Florida.

Her appearance is, well, a little surprising – her face puffed up and unnaturally tightened, as though secured by industrial-grade tape. Her altered – and she’s keen to stress, temporary – look is the outcome of half a dozen cosmetic procedures, including an minimally invasive facelift, performed by a surgeon in Istanbul, Turkey, last month. “My spouse became emotional when he viewed me for the initial time because I wasn’t able to even unseal my eyes. That indicates swollen I was,” she explains to me via online call from her house. “I had to tell him: ‘Babe, I’m fine, I’m not in pain. I just appear as if someone attacked me.’”

Growing Trend of Youthful Facial Lifts

According to cosmetic specialists, Preisinger is one of a rising count of individuals electing to undergo a facelift in their 20s and 30s – well over a ten years prior to most doctors’ usual candidate age of 40 to 60. (Although most surgeons are eager to highlight the industry edict of: “We treat heredity, not years.”) “I have 28-year-olds asking for facelifts,” says based in London aesthetic plastic surgeon Georgios Orfaniotis, a former NHS consultant who specialises in the head and neck. “It’s a major procedure, and I’m a somewhat worried when I observe people opting for it as a lifestyle choice.”

Understanding the Facelift Procedure

A rhytidectomy, alternatively called a rhytidectomy, lifts the tissues in the face that start to sag as we age. “Our faces are structured a little like layers of an onion,” explains based in Kent face specialist Marc Pacifico. “Skin and fat on the top, then a layer of supportive tissue called the SMAS. Think of the SMAS as the structural foundation of the face. And that is what ages us; that’s what loosens and sags and drags the dermis down with it.”

You risk operating on individuals that have deeper issues. It’s not advisable for an conscientious surgeon to pursue

Previously reserved of moneyed older people, “filler fatigue” – when overuse of dermal fillers expands the face and causes laxity in the dermis – combined with the common adoption of weight-loss drugs, cut-price surgical travel, and the advancement of new, famous-figure-promoted surgical techniques are driving a new kind of patient towards this major operation. 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 32% of facelifts now performed on individuals aged thirty-five to fifty-five.

“People are now requesting to appear as the best version of themselves and naturally the methods are following,” comments Orfaniotis. At present, the operation du jour is the comprehensive facial lift, a method promoted by figures including Kardashian matriarch Kris Jenner, to fashion designer Marc Jacobs.

Advanced Lifting Method

Where a conventional facelift involves lifting the superficial layer, the comprehensive lift releases the underlying structures beneath it, enabling doctors to reshape the face by moving the deeper tissue, and preventing the tight, stretched appearance sometimes wrought by older methods. “We avoid placing stress on the dermis because we’re targeting deeper, to the deeper tissue,” says prestigious London plastic surgeon Rajiv Grover, who focuses on the advanced method. “It is the deeper tissue that is repositioned. The skin comes with it as a secondary element.” Lifting the whole facial structure as a single unit results in a more natural-looking and longer-lasting result. It additionally implies that the surgery is not just being used for the express purpose of anti-ageing – or rejuvenation, as the cosmetic field describes it – but for “enhancement” and contouring, too. “We receive numerous requests from clients aged 28 to 35 for this purpose,” says Grover.

Individual Experience

Preisinger had never planned on undergoing a facial lift – at minimum not at the thirty years old. But years of using hyaluronic acid dermal fillers 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 injectable ruined 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 ever fully dissolve has long been a debated topic in the aesthetics industry. “Research have shown that they seldom fully dissipate,” states Grover, “but they move and can obstruct lymphatic channels. One of the contributors to what we term ‘pillow face’ is also the fact that to some extent, the face becomes somewhat waterlogged because its ability to remove lymphatic fluid has been reduced.” Although studies into the area is early-stage, cautionary statements on injectables’ potential impact on the lymphatic system have been issued, and additional studies announced. An esteemed face specialist, speaking on the condition of anonymity, mentioned he would avoid using fillers in a client because of the risks they present. “Many doctors don’t want to talk about this, because the manufacturers who make injectables can be pretty aggressive.” He’s been told accounts, he says, of cosmetic doctors facing court orders after raising their concerns.

Choice and Surgery

For Preisinger, once she started using injectables, she believed she needed to continue adding more – especially as it began moving to other parts of her face. She was just 28 when a nearby cosmetic doctor in Florida proposed that a face and neck lift could be what she needed to exit the injectable hamster wheel. Two years later, she ended up choosing between a selection of recommended hotels in Istanbul, sent to her by the patient coordinator at her surgeon’s office.

Initially, Preisinger had scheduled an eyelid surgery – commonly called eyelid surgery – but her surgeon recommended that a facelift was the right solution for the looseness she was experiencing in her face. She booked a forehead lift, a cheek lift and a jawline surgery. The day before her operation, 24 hours post she’d touched down solo in the country, she decided to add a mouth enhancement. “Subsequently the surgeon stated, ‘We will lift the lower eyelid puffiness.’ He added, ‘I believe if we remove some buccal fat, it will sculpt your face.’ So I ended up adding two more procedures,” she says. She paid $22,000 (sixteen thousand five hundred pounds) for the half-day operation, including a three-day|