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

Onemanda Preisinger feels anxious about her daughter’s upcoming 13th birthday party. Not for the typical causes associated with a home packed of loud preteen kids, but since it’s the first time she will showcase her new face to acquaintances and relatives. “Clearly I’m going to tell everyone as they arrive, ‘Just so you know, this is not how I look,’” states the thirty-year-old real estate agent from south Florida.

How she looks is, admittedly, a little startling – her face puffed up and preternaturally lifted, as though secured by heavy-duty tape. Her new – and she’s eager to emphasize, temporary – appearance is the outcome of six cosmetic procedures, including an minimally invasive facelift, conducted by a surgeon in Istanbul, Turkey, the previous month. “My spouse teared up when he saw me for the first time because I wasn’t able to even unseal my eyes. That’s how swollen I was,” she tells me via video call from her house. “I needed to inform him: ‘Babe, I’m fine, I’m not in pain. I just look like someone attacked me.’”

Increasing Popularity of Early Facelifts

Based on cosmetic specialists, Preisinger is one of a growing number of individuals electing to have a facelift in their 20s and 30s – 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 age.”) “I have individuals in their late twenties asking for facial lifts,” says based in London cosmetic surgeon Georgios Orfaniotis, a former NHS consultant who focuses on the facial area. “It’s a very significant procedure, and I’m a bit concerned when I see people opting for it as a lifestyle choice.”

Explaining the Rhytidectomy Surgery

A rhytidectomy, alternatively called a facelift, lifts the tissues in the face that start to sag as we grow older. “Human faces are structured a little like layers of an onion,” says Kent-based facial plastic surgeon Marc Pacifico. “Skin and fat on the surface, then a stratum of connective tissue known as the SMAS. Consider the SMAS as the soft tissue skeleton of the face. And that’s what ages us; that’s what loosens and sags and drags the skin down with it.”

You risk operating on individuals that have underlying problems. 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 expands the face and leads to looseness in the skin – combined with the widespread use of slimming medications, cut-price medical tourism, and the advancement of novel, celebrity-endorsed operative methods are attracting a new kind of customer towards this major operation. Statistics show an 8% increase in facial lifts over the past 12 months in the UK; while a study revealed that the percentage of younger facelift patients is growing, with one-third of procedures now performed on individuals aged thirty-five to fifty-five.

“Patients are now requesting to appear as the optimal form of themselves and obviously the techniques are evolving,” comments Orfaniotis. Currently, the trending procedure is the comprehensive facial lift, a technique promoted by everyone from reality TV star Kris Jenner, to fashion designer Marc Jacobs.

Advanced Lifting Method

While a conventional facelift entails lifting the superficial layer, the deep plane facelift loosens the underlying structures underneath, enabling doctors to restructure the face by repositioning the underlying layers, and avoiding the taut, pulled look sometimes wrought by more traditional techniques. “We’re not putting tension on the dermis because we’re going below, to the underlying structures,” explains prestigious London plastic surgeon Rajiv Grover, who specialises in the advanced method. “It is the underlying layers that is repositioned. The skin follows along as a passenger.” Elevating the whole facial structure as a single unit allows for a more natural-looking and longer-lasting result. It additionally implies that the surgery is no longer being used for the express purpose of anti-ageing – or rejuvenation, as the cosmetic field describes it – but for “enhancement” and contouring, too. “We’re getting numerous requests from patients aged 28 to 35 for this purpose,” says Grover.

Personal Journey

Preisinger had never planned on undergoing a facial lift – at least not at the thirty years old. But years of using hyaluronic acid dermal fillers in an effort at “symmetry correction” meant that by the time she reached her late 20s, she was “botched”. “I didn’t undergo this because I desired to appear young,” she says. “I underwent it because the injectable ruined my face. I wish I had never using it. If I didn’t have the injectable, I don’t think I would be in this situation currently.”

Whether injectable substances completely disappear has long been a debated topic in the cosmetic field. “Research have indicated that not only do they rarely fully dissipate,” says 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 becomes somewhat waterlogged because its capacity to remove bodily fluid has been reduced.” Although research into the area is preliminary, warnings on injectables’ possible effects on the body’s drainage have been issued, and additional studies initiated. An esteemed face specialist, speaking on the condition of anonymity, says he would avoid using injectables in a client because of the risks they present. “A lot of doctors don’t want to talk about this, because the manufacturers who make filler can be quite forceful.” He’s been told accounts, he says, of cosmetic doctors being landed with court orders after expressing worries.

Choice and Surgery

For Preisinger, once she started injecting filler, she felt as if she had to keep replenishing it – especially as it started to migrate to other parts of her face. She was just 28 when a nearby cosmetic doctor in the state suggested that a facial and neck surgery might be what she required to finally step off the injectable hamster wheel. After 24 months, she found herself selecting from a list of recommended hotels in Istanbul, texted to her by the clinic assistant at her doctor’s clinic.

Originally, Preisinger had scheduled an eyelid surgery – commonly called eyelid surgery – but her surgeon advised her that a facial lift was the right solution for the looseness she was finding in her face. She booked 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 opted to include a lip lift. “Subsequently the surgeon said, ‘We’re going to elevate the lower eyelid puffiness.’ He added, ‘I believe if we extract some buccal fat, it will contour your face.’ Thus I ultimately adding two more surgeries,” she says. She spent $22,000 (£16,500) for the six-hour operation, including a three-day|