‘I Wasn’t Able to Even Open My Eyes. That’s The Extent of the Swelling I Was’

Amanda Preisinger experiences worry about her daughter’s impending 13th birthday celebration. Not for the usual causes associated with a home packed of loud preteen children, but since it’s the first time she will reveal her new face to friends and relatives. “Clearly I’m going to tell everyone as they arrive, ‘Just so you know, 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 preternaturally lifted, as though secured by heavy-duty tape. Her altered – and she’s keen to stress, temporary – look is the result of half a dozen aesthetic surgeries, including an minimally invasive facelift, performed by a surgeon in Istanbul, Turkey, the previous month. “My poor husband became emotional when he saw me for the initial time because I couldn’t even unseal my eyes. That’s how swollen I was,” she tells 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.’”

Increasing Popularity of Early Facelifts

According to plastic surgeons, Preisinger is among a rising count of individuals electing to have a rhytidectomy in their twenties and thirties – well over a decade prior to typical surgeons’ typical patient age range of 40 to 60. (Though many specialists are eager to highlight the industry edict of: “We address heredity, not age.”) “I have individuals in their late twenties requesting facelifts,” states 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 observe individuals opting for it as a personal preference.”

Understanding the Rhytidectomy Surgery

A rhytidectomy, also known as a rhytidectomy, elevates the ligaments in the face that begin to droop 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 top, then a stratum of connective tissue called the SMAS. Consider the facial framework as the soft tissue skeleton of the face. And that’s what ages us; that’s what becomes lax and drags the skin down with it.”

You risk 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, overuse of injectables – when overuse of dermal fillers expands the face and leads to laxity in the skin – alongside the widespread use of slimming medications, low-cost medical tourism, and the development of new, celebrity-endorsed surgical techniques are driving a new kind of customer towards this invasive surgery. Reports show an eight percent rise in facelifts over the last year in the UK; while a study found that the percentage of younger facelift patients is growing, with one-third of procedures now performed on patients aged thirty-five to fifty-five.

“Patients are asking now to appear as the best version of themselves and obviously the methods are following,” says Orfaniotis. Currently, the operation du jour is the deep plane facelift, a method promoted by figures including reality TV star Kris Jenner, to style creator Marc Jacobs.

Deep Plane Technique

While a more traditional facelift involves lifting the superficial layer, the comprehensive lift releases the facial ligaments underneath, enabling doctors to restructure the face by repositioning the underlying layers, and avoiding the taut, pulled look occasionally caused by more traditional techniques. “We’re not putting stress on the skin because we’re going below, to the underlying structures,” says prestigious London plastic surgeon Rajiv Grover, who specialises in the deep plane technique. “It is the deeper tissue that is repositioned. The skin follows along as a passenger.” Lifting the whole facial structure as a unified block allows for a more natural-looking and longer-lasting outcome. It also means that the surgery is not just being used for the primary goal of anti-ageing – or revitalization, as the cosmetic field terms it – but for “enhancement” and facial restructuring, too. “We’re getting many inquiries from patients aged 28 to 35 for this reason,” notes Grover.

Individual Experience

Preisinger had never planned on undergoing a facelift – at least not at the age of 30. But long-term using hyaluronic acid dermal fillers in an attempt at “facial balancing” meant that by the time she entered her late 20s, she was “damaged”. “I didn’t do this because I wanted to look youthful,” she clarifies. “I underwent it because the injectable ruined my face. I regret ever using it. If I didn’t have the injectable, I don’t think I would be in this situation currently.”

Whether injectable substances ever fully dissolve has long been a point of contention in the cosmetic field. “Research have indicated that not only do they rarely fully dissipate,” states Grover, “but they migrate and can block drainage pathways. A contributing factor to what we call ‘pillow face’ is also the reality that in a sense, the face gets somewhat fluid-filled because its ability to remove lymphatic fluid has been diminished.” Although research into the topic is preliminary, warnings on injectables’ potential impact on the lymphatic system have been issued, and further research initiated. One highly regarded face specialist, speaking anonymously, says he would never use fillers in a patient because of the risks they pose. “A lot of surgeons don’t want to discussing this, because the manufacturers who produce injectables can be quite forceful.” He’s been told accounts, he says, of plastic surgeons facing court orders after raising their concerns.

Choice and Surgery

For Preisinger, after beginning using injectables, 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 facial and neck surgery could be what she required to exit the cycle of treatments. Two years later, she ended up selecting from a selection of recommended hotels in the city, sent to her by the patient coordinator at her doctor’s clinic.

Originally, Preisinger had scheduled an eyelid surgery – commonly called eyelid surgery – but her surgeon advised her that a facelift was the right solution for the looseness she was experiencing in her face. She arranged a brow lift, a cheek lift and a neck lift. The eve of her surgery, 24 hours post she’d arrived solo in Turkey, she decided to add a mouth enhancement. “Subsequently the surgeon said, ‘We will elevate the lower eyelid puffiness.’ Then he said, ‘I think if we extract some cheek fat, it will contour your face.’ So I ended up adding two more procedures,” she recalls. She spent $22,000 (£16,500) for the half-day surgery, plus a three-day|