‘I Wasn’t Able to Even Unseal My Eyes. That’s How Swollen I Was’

Onemanda Preisinger feels anxious about her child’s upcoming 13th birthday celebration. It’s not due to the typical reasons related to a house full of loud preteen children, but since it’s the first time she will reveal her new face to friends and extended family. “Clearly I’m going to tell all guests as they arrive, ‘For your information, this is not the way I appear,’” says the 30-year-old property agent from Southern Florida.

Her appearance is, admittedly, a little startling – her face swollen and unnaturally tightened, as though held together by heavy-duty tape. Her new – and she’s keen to stress, short-term – appearance is the outcome of six aesthetic surgeries, such as an endoscopic mid-facelift, conducted by a doctor in Turkey’s Istanbul, last month. “My spouse became emotional when he saw me for the first time because I wasn’t able to even open my eyes. That’s how puffy I was,” she explains to me via video call from her house. “I needed to inform him: ‘Honey, I’m fine, I’m not hurting. I just look like someone attacked me.’”

Growing Trend of Youthful Facial Lifts

According to cosmetic specialists, Preisinger is one of a rising count of people electing to undergo a facelift in their 20s and 30s – significantly before a ten years prior to most doctors’ typical patient age range of 40 to 60. (Though most surgeons are eager to highlight the professional guideline of: “We treat genetics, not age.”) “I have 28-year-olds asking for facelifts,” states London-based cosmetic surgeon Georgios Orfaniotis, a former NHS consultant who focuses on the head and neck. “It’s a very significant surgery, and I’m a bit concerned when I see people choosing it as a personal preference.”

Understanding the Facelift Procedure

A facelift, alternatively called a facelift, elevates the tissues in the face that start to sag as we age. “Our faces are built a bit like layers of an onion,” explains based in Kent facial plastic surgeon Marc Pacifico. “Dermis and adipose on the top, then a stratum of connective tissue known as the superficial musculoaponeurotic system. Think of the facial framework as the soft tissue skeleton of the face. And that is what causes aging; that is what becomes lax and pulls the dermis down with it.”

You endanger operating on individuals that have deeper issues. It’s not a practice for an ethical plastic surgeon to pursue

Once the preserve of affluent seniors, “filler fatigue” – when excessive use of dermal fillers stretches the face and causes looseness in the dermis – combined with the widespread use of weight-loss drugs, cut-price medical tourism, and the advancement of novel, celebrity-endorsed operative methods are driving a different type of customer towards this major operation. Reports indicate an 8% increase in facelifts over the last year in the UK; while a study revealed that the percentage of youthful candidates is growing, with one-third of procedures 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,” says Orfaniotis. At present, the trending procedure is the comprehensive facial lift, a method evangelised by figures including Kardashian matriarch Kris Jenner, to style creator Marc Jacobs.

Deep Plane Technique

While a conventional facelift involves elevating the SMAS, the comprehensive lift loosens the facial ligaments beneath it, allowing surgeons to restructure the face by moving the deeper tissue, and preventing the tight, stretched appearance occasionally caused by older methods. “We avoid placing tension on the dermis because we’re targeting deeper, to the deeper tissue,” explains Harley Street plastic surgeon Rajiv Grover, who focuses on the deep plane technique. “It is the deeper tissue that is adjusted. The dermis follows along as a passenger.” Lifting the whole facial structure as a single unit results in a authentic-appearing and longer-lasting outcome. It additionally implies that the surgery is not just being used for the primary goal of youth preservation – or rejuvenation, as the cosmetic field terms it – but for “beautification” and contouring, too. “We’re getting numerous requests from patients aged 28 to 35 for this purpose,” says Grover.

Personal Journey

Preisinger had not intended on getting a facial lift – at minimum not at the thirty years old. But long-term using hyaluronic acid dermal fillers in an attempt at “facial balancing” meant that by the time she reached her late 20s, she was “damaged”. “I didn’t do this because I wanted to look young,” she clarifies. “I did it because the injectable harmed my face. I regret ever using it. If I had avoided the filler, I don’t believe I would be in this situation right now.”

If injectable substances ever fully dissolve has historically been a debated topic in the aesthetics industry. “Studies have shown that they seldom completely dissolve,” says Grover, “but they migrate and can block lymphatic channels. A contributing factor to what we call ‘puffy appearance’ is additionally the fact that to some extent, the face becomes somewhat fluid-filled because its ability to drain bodily fluid has been diminished.” Although research into the topic is preliminary, warnings on injectables’ potential impact on the lymphatic system have been issued, and additional studies initiated. One highly regarded facial plastic surgeon, speaking on the condition of anonymity, mentioned he would never use injectables in a client because of the risks they present. “A lot of doctors avoid discussing this, because the companies who make filler can be quite forceful.” He’s heard stories, he says, of plastic surgeons being landed with legal actions after raising their concerns.

Choice and Surgery

For Preisinger, once she started using injectables, she believed she had to keep 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 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 list of recommended hotels in the city, sent to her by the patient coordinator at her doctor’s clinic.

Initially, Preisinger had planned for an upper and lower blepharoplasty – commonly called eyelid surgery – but her surgeon recommended 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 surgery, one day after she’d arrived alone in the country, she decided to add a mouth enhancement. “Subsequently the surgeon said, ‘We’re going to elevate the lower eyelid puffiness.’ He added, ‘I think if we extract some cheek fat, it will sculpt your face.’ So I ended up including additional procedures,” she recalls. She paid $22,000 (£16,500) for the half-day surgery, plus a three-day|