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

Amanda Preisinger feels anxious about her daughter’s impending 13th birthday party. It’s not due to the usual reasons related to a home packed of loud adolescent children, but since it’s the first time she will debut her recently altered face to acquaintances and extended family. “Clearly I’m going to inform all guests as they come in, ‘Just so you know, this is not the way I look,’” states the 30-year-old property agent from south Florida.

How she looks is, admittedly, a somewhat startling – her face puffed up and unnaturally tightened, as though held together by heavy-duty tape. Her altered – and she’s eager to emphasize, temporary – look is the result of half a dozen cosmetic procedures, including an endoscopic mid-facelift, conducted by a surgeon in Turkey’s Istanbul, last month. “My poor husband became emotional when he viewed me for the first time because I couldn’t even unseal my eyes. That indicates puffy I was,” she tells me via online call from her house. “I had to tell him: ‘Honey, I’m fine, I’m not in pain. I just look like someone jumped me.’”

Increasing Popularity of Early Facelifts

Based on cosmetic specialists, Preisinger is one of a rising count of individuals choosing to have a facelift in their 20s and 30s – well over a decade before typical surgeons’ usual candidate age of forty to sixty. (Though many specialists are eager to highlight the professional guideline of: “We treat heredity, not age.”) “I have 28-year-olds asking for facelifts,” says London-based cosmetic surgeon Georgios Orfaniotis, a ex-NHS doctor who focuses on the facial area. “It’s a major procedure, and I’m a somewhat worried when I see people opting for it as a lifestyle choice.”

Explaining the Facelift Procedure

A rhytidectomy, alternatively called a facelift, lifts the ligaments in the face that begin to droop as we age. “Our faces are built a bit like layers of an onion,” says Kent-based face specialist Marc Pacifico. “Skin and fat on the top, then a layer of connective tissue called the SMAS. Think of the facial framework as the structural foundation of the face. And that’s what ages us; that’s what loosens and sags and drags the dermis downward with it.”

You risk operating on people that have underlying problems. It’s not a practice for an ethical plastic surgeon to pursue

Once the preserve of moneyed older people, overuse of injectables – when overuse of injectable gels stretches the face and causes looseness in the dermis – alongside the common adoption of weight-loss drugs, low-cost medical tourism, and the advancement of novel, celebrity-endorsed surgical techniques are driving a different type of customer towards this major operation. Statistics indicate an eight percent rise in facelifts over the last year in the United Kingdom; while a study revealed that the percentage of younger facelift patients is growing, with 32% of facelifts now conducted for individuals aged thirty-five to fifty-five.

“Patients are now requesting to look like the best version of themselves and naturally the methods are evolving,” says Orfaniotis. At present, the trending procedure is the comprehensive facial lift, a method promoted by figures including reality TV star Kris Jenner, to fashion designer Marc Jacobs.

Advanced Lifting Method

While a more traditional facelift involves elevating the SMAS, the comprehensive lift releases the facial ligaments beneath it, enabling doctors to restructure the face by repositioning the deeper tissue, and avoiding the taut, pulled look sometimes wrought by more traditional techniques. “We’re not putting tension on the skin because we’re targeting deeper, to the underlying structures,” explains prestigious London cosmetic doctor Rajiv Grover, who specialises in the advanced method. “It is the underlying layers that is adjusted. The skin follows along as a passenger.” Elevating the whole facial structure as a unified block allows for a authentic-appearing and longer-lasting outcome. It additionally implies that the procedure is no longer being used for the primary goal of anti-ageing – or revitalization, as the cosmetic field describes it – but for “beautification” and facial restructuring, too. “We receive many inquiries from clients aged 28 to 35 for this purpose,” notes Grover.

Personal Journey

Preisinger had never planned on getting a facial lift – at least not at the thirty years old. But long-term using hyaluronic acid dermal fillers in an effort at “facial balancing” meant that by the time she entered her late 20s, she was “botched”. “I didn’t undergo this because I wanted to look young,” she clarifies. “I underwent it because the injectable harmed my face. I regret ever using it. If I didn’t have the injectable, I don’t think I would be where I’m at right now.”

Whether dermal fillers ever fully dissolve has historically been a point of contention in the cosmetic field. “Studies have indicated that not only do they rarely completely dissolve,” says Grover, “but they move and can block lymphatic channels. One of the contributors to what we term ‘pillow face’ is additionally the reality that in a sense, the face gets somewhat fluid-filled because its ability to drain bodily fluid has been reduced.” Though research into the topic is early-stage, cautionary statements on injectables’ possible effects on the body’s drainage have been issued, and further research announced. An esteemed face specialist, speaking anonymously, says he would avoid using fillers in a client because of the risks they present. “Many doctors avoid discussing this, because the companies who produce filler can be quite forceful.” He’s been told accounts, he adds, of cosmetic doctors facing court orders after expressing worries.

Decision and Procedure

For Preisinger, after beginning injecting filler, she felt as if she had to keep adding more – especially as it started to migrate to other parts of her face. She was only twenty-eight when a nearby cosmetic doctor in Florida proposed that a facial and neck surgery could be what she needed to exit the injectable hamster wheel. Two years later, she ended up choosing between a list of suggested accommodations in Istanbul, texted to her by the patient coordinator at her surgeon’s office.

Originally, Preisinger had scheduled an eyelid surgery – better known as eyelid surgery – but her doctor recommended that a facial lift was the correct option for the looseness she was finding in her face. She arranged a forehead lift, a cheek lift and a jawline surgery. The day before her surgery, one day after she’d touched down solo in the country, she opted to include a lip lift. “Subsequently the surgeon stated, ‘We will lift the under-eye bags.’ He added, ‘I think if we extract some cheek fat, it will contour your face.’ Thus I ultimately adding two more procedures,” she recalls. She spent $22,000 (sixteen thousand five hundred pounds) for the half-day operation, including a three-day|