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

Amanda Preisinger feels anxious about her daughter’s upcoming 13th birthday party. Not for the typical causes related to a home packed of clamorous adolescent kids, but since it’s the initial occasion she will reveal her new face to friends and relatives. “Obviously I’m going to inform everyone as they come in, ‘Just so you know, this is not how I look,’” says the 30-year-old property agent from south Florida.

How she looks is, well, a somewhat surprising – her face puffed up and preternaturally lifted, as though secured by industrial-grade tape. Her altered – and she’s eager to emphasize, short-term – appearance is the outcome of six cosmetic procedures, such as an endoscopic mid-facelift, performed by a doctor in Istanbul, Turkey, last month. “My spouse teared up when he viewed me for the initial time because I wasn’t able to even open my eyes. That’s how puffy I was,” she tells 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 jumped me.’”

Increasing Popularity of Youthful Facial Lifts

According to cosmetic specialists, Preisinger is one of a growing number of people electing to undergo a facelift in their twenties and thirties – significantly before a ten years before most doctors’ typical patient age range of 40 to 60. (Though many specialists are eager to highlight the industry edict of: “We address genetics, not years.”) “I have 28-year-olds requesting facelifts,” states London-based cosmetic surgeon Georgios Orfaniotis, a former NHS consultant who specialises in the facial area. “It’s a major procedure, and I’m a somewhat worried when I observe individuals opting for it as a personal preference.”

Understanding the Facelift Procedure

A facelift, also known as a rhytidectomy, elevates the tissues in the face that start to sag as we age. “Our faces are structured a bit like onion layers,” explains based in Kent face specialist Marc Pacifico. “Dermis and adipose on the top, then a layer 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 drags the dermis down with it.”

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

Once the preserve of moneyed older people, “filler fatigue” – when overuse of injectable gels expands the face and causes looseness in the dermis – combined with the common adoption of slimming medications, low-cost surgical travel, and the development of novel, celebrity-endorsed operative methods are driving a new kind of customer towards this invasive surgery. Statistics indicate an eight percent rise in facelifts over the past 12 months in the UK; while a study revealed that the percentage of youthful candidates is growing, with 32% of facelifts now conducted for patients aged 35-55.

“People are now requesting to look like the optimal form of themselves and naturally the techniques are following,” comments Orfaniotis. Currently, the operation du jour 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 more traditional facelift entails lifting the superficial layer, the deep plane facelift loosens the facial ligaments beneath it, allowing doctors to reshape the face by moving the deeper tissue, and preventing the taut, pulled look sometimes wrought by older methods. “We’re not putting tension on the skin because we’re going below, to the underlying structures,” says prestigious London cosmetic doctor Rajiv Grover, who focuses on the deep plane technique. “It is the underlying layers that is adjusted. The skin follows along as a secondary element.” Elevating the entire soft tissue layer as a unified block results in a authentic-appearing and more durable result. It also means that the surgery is not just being used for the express purpose of anti-ageing – or revitalization, as the aesthetics industry describes it – but for “beautification” and facial restructuring, too. “We’re getting many inquiries from patients aged late twenties to mid-thirties for this reason,” says Grover.

Individual Experience

Preisinger had not intended on undergoing a facelift – at least not at the thirty years old. But years of using injectable gels in an attempt at “facial balancing” implied that by the time she entered her late twenties, she was “damaged”. “I didn’t undergo this because I wanted to look youthful,” she says. “I did it because the injectable harmed my face. I regret ever using it. If I didn’t have the filler, I don’t think I would be where I’m at currently.”

Whether dermal fillers completely disappear has long been a debated topic in the aesthetics industry. “Research have shown that not only do they rarely completely dissolve,” says Grover, “but they move and can obstruct lymphatic channels. A contributing factor to what we term ‘pillow face’ is also the reality that to some extent, the face becomes slightly fluid-filled because its capacity to drain lymphatic fluid has been diminished.” Though research into the topic is early-stage, warnings on dermal fillers’ possible effects on the lymphatic system have been released, and additional studies announced. One highly regarded face specialist, speaking anonymously, says he would never use injectables in a patient because of the risks they present. “A lot of doctors don’t want to discussing this, because the manufacturers who produce injectables can be quite forceful.” He’s heard stories, he adds, of cosmetic doctors being landed with court orders after expressing worries.

Choice and Surgery

For Preisinger, after beginning injecting filler, she believed she needed to continue replenishing it – especially as it started to migrate to other parts of her face. She was just 28 when a local plastic surgeon in Florida suggested that a face and neck lift could be what she needed to finally step off the cycle of treatments. After 24 months, she ended up choosing between a list of recommended hotels in Istanbul, texted to her by the clinic assistant at her doctor’s clinic.

Originally, Preisinger had planned for an upper and lower blepharoplasty – commonly called eyelid surgery – but her surgeon advised her that a facial lift was the right solution for the laxity she was experiencing in her face. She arranged a forehead lift, a cheek lift and a jawline surgery. The eve of her operation, one day after she’d touched down alone in the country, she decided to add a lip lift. “Then he stated, ‘We will elevate the lower eyelid puffiness.’ Then he said, ‘I think if we remove some cheek fat, it will sculpt your face.’ Thus I ultimately including additional procedures,” she recalls. She spent $22,000 (£16,500) for the half-day surgery, including a three-day|