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

Onemanda Preisinger experiences worry about her daughter’s upcoming 13th birthday celebration. Not for the typical reasons related to a house full of clamorous preteen children, but because it’s the initial occasion she will showcase her recently altered face to friends and relatives. “Clearly I’m going to tell all guests as they arrive, ‘Just so you know, this is not how I look,’” states the 30-year-old real estate agent from Southern Florida.

How she looks is, admittedly, a somewhat surprising – her face swollen and preternaturally lifted, as though held together by industrial-grade tape. Her altered – and she’s keen to stress, temporary – appearance is the result of six cosmetic procedures, including an minimally invasive facelift, conducted by a surgeon in Turkey’s Istanbul, the previous 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 swollen I was,” she explains to me via online call from her home. “I had to tell 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 among a growing number of people choosing to undergo a facelift in their 20s and 30s – significantly before a ten years prior to typical surgeons’ typical patient age range of 40 to 60. (Though many specialists are keen to emphasise the industry edict of: “We treat heredity, not years.”) “I have 28-year-olds asking for facial lifts,” states London-based aesthetic plastic surgeon Georgios Orfaniotis, a ex-NHS doctor who focuses on the facial area. “It’s a major surgery, and I’m a somewhat worried when I see individuals choosing it as a personal preference.”

Understanding the Rhytidectomy Surgery

A facelift, alternatively called a facelift, elevates the ligaments in the face that begin to droop as we age. “Our faces are built a bit like onion layers,” explains based in Kent face specialist Marc Pacifico. “Dermis and adipose on the top, then a stratum of supportive tissue called the SMAS. Consider the facial framework as the structural foundation of the face. And that is what ages us; that is what becomes lax and pulls the dermis down with it.”

You endanger operating on people that have underlying problems. It’s not advisable for an ethical plastic surgeon to follow

Previously reserved of affluent seniors, overuse of injectables – when overuse of injectable gels expands the face and causes laxity in the skin – alongside the widespread use of slimming medications, low-cost medical tourism, and the advancement of new, celebrity-endorsed operative methods are driving a different type of patient towards this invasive surgery. Reports show an eight percent rise in facelifts over the past 12 months in the United Kingdom; while a survey revealed that the portion of younger facelift patients is growing, with one-third of procedures now performed on patients aged thirty-five to fifty-five.

“People are now requesting to look like the best version of themselves and obviously the methods are following,” comments Orfaniotis. Currently, the operation du jour is the deep plane facelift, a technique evangelised by everyone from reality TV star Kris Jenner, to style creator Marc Jacobs.

Deep Plane Technique

Where a conventional rhytidectomy involves lifting the superficial layer, the comprehensive lift loosens the underlying structures beneath it, enabling doctors to reshape the face by repositioning the deeper tissue, and avoiding the tight, stretched appearance sometimes wrought by older methods. “We avoid placing stress on the dermis because we’re targeting deeper, to the deeper tissue,” says Harley Street cosmetic doctor Rajiv Grover, who specialises in the advanced method. “It is the deeper tissue that is adjusted. The skin comes with it as a secondary element.” Elevating the entire soft tissue layer as a single unit allows for a more natural-looking and longer-lasting result. It also means that the surgery is not just being used for the primary goal of youth preservation – or revitalization, as the aesthetics industry describes it – but for “enhancement” and facial restructuring, too. “We receive many inquiries from clients aged late twenties to mid-thirties for this reason,” notes Grover.

Personal Journey

Preisinger had not intended on getting a facelift – at minimum not at the thirty years old. But long-term using hyaluronic acid dermal fillers in an effort at “symmetry correction” meant that by the time she entered her late twenties, she was “botched”. “I didn’t do this because I wanted to look youthful,” she says. “I did it because the injectable harmed my face. I regret ever done it. If I didn’t have the injectable, I don’t believe I would be where I’m at currently.”

If injectable substances completely disappear 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 drainage pathways. One of the contributors to what we call ‘puffy appearance’ is additionally the reality that in a sense, the face gets somewhat fluid-filled because its ability to remove lymphatic fluid has been diminished.” Though studies into the topic is early-stage, warnings on dermal fillers’ potential impact on the lymphatic system have been issued, and additional studies initiated. An esteemed facial plastic surgeon, commenting anonymously, mentioned he would never use injectables in a client because of the dangers they present. “A lot of doctors don’t want to discussing this, because the companies who make filler can be pretty aggressive.” He’s been told accounts, he says, of plastic surgeons facing legal actions after expressing worries.

Decision and Procedure

For Preisinger, after beginning using injectables, she felt as if she had to keep adding more – particularly when it began moving to other parts of her face. She was only twenty-eight when a nearby cosmetic doctor in the state suggested that a face and neck lift could be what she required to finally step off the cycle of treatments. After 24 months, she ended up choosing between a list of recommended hotels in the city, sent to her by the patient coordinator at her surgeon’s office.

Originally, Preisinger had planned for an eyelid surgery – better known as blepharoplasty – but her doctor advised her that a facial lift was the correct option for the laxity she was experiencing in her face. She arranged a brow lift, a cheek lift and a jawline surgery. The day before her operation, one day after she’d touched down solo in Turkey, she opted to include a mouth enhancement. “Subsequently the surgeon said, ‘We will elevate the under-eye bags.’ He added, ‘I believe if we extract some buccal fat, it will contour your face.’ So I ended up including additional surgeries,” she says. She paid $22,000 (£16,500) for the six-hour surgery, including a three-day|