‘I Couldn’t Even Unseal My Eyes. That’s How Swollen I Was’

Onemanda Preisinger feels anxious about her daughter’s upcoming 13th birthday celebration. It’s not due to the usual reasons related to a house full of clamorous adolescent children, but because it’s the initial occasion she will debut her new face to acquaintances and extended family. “Obviously I’m going to inform everyone as they come in, ‘For your information, this is not how I look,’” states the 30-year-old real estate agent from Southern Florida.

Her appearance is, admittedly, a little surprising – her face puffed up and unnaturally tightened, as though held together by industrial-grade tape. Her altered – and she’s eager to emphasize, short-term – look is the result of half a dozen cosmetic procedures, including an minimally invasive facelift, performed by a surgeon in Istanbul, Turkey, the previous month. “My poor husband teared up when he viewed me for the initial time because I couldn’t even unseal my eyes. That indicates swollen I was,” she explains to me via online call from her house. “I needed to inform him: ‘Honey, I’m fine, I’m not hurting. I just look like someone attacked me.’”

Increasing Popularity of Youthful Facial Lifts

According to plastic surgeons, Preisinger is one of a growing number of individuals electing to undergo a facelift in their 20s and 30s – well over a ten years before typical surgeons’ typical patient age range of 40 to 60. (Although most surgeons are keen to emphasise the industry edict of: “We treat heredity, not age.”) “I have individuals in their late twenties requesting facelifts,” says based in London cosmetic surgeon Georgios Orfaniotis, a ex-NHS doctor who specialises in the facial area. “It’s a very significant procedure, and I’m a bit concerned when I see individuals choosing it as a personal preference.”

Explaining the Rhytidectomy Surgery

A facelift, alternatively called a rhytidectomy, lifts the ligaments in the face that start to sag as we grow older. “Human faces are structured a bit like layers of an onion,” says based in Kent face specialist Marc Pacifico. “Dermis and adipose on the surface, then a stratum of supportive tissue known as the superficial musculoaponeurotic system. Consider the facial framework as the soft tissue skeleton of the face. And that is what causes aging; that’s what becomes lax and drags the skin down with it.”

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

Previously reserved of affluent seniors, overuse of injectables – when excessive use of injectable gels expands the face and leads to laxity in the skin – combined with the common adoption of slimming medications, cut-price surgical travel, and the advancement of novel, celebrity-endorsed surgical techniques are driving a new kind of patient towards this major operation. Reports show an eight percent rise in facelifts over the last year in the United Kingdom; while a survey found that the portion of younger facelift patients is growing, with 32% of facelifts now performed on patients aged 35-55.

“Patients are now requesting to look like the best version of themselves and naturally the methods are following,” comments Orfaniotis. Currently, the trending procedure is the comprehensive facial lift, a method promoted by everyone from Kardashian matriarch Kris Jenner, to fashion designer Marc Jacobs.

Advanced Lifting Method

Where a conventional facelift involves lifting the SMAS, the deep plane facelift loosens the underlying structures beneath it, allowing doctors to reshape the face by repositioning the underlying layers, and avoiding the taut, pulled look sometimes wrought by more traditional techniques. “We avoid placing stress on the dermis because we’re going below, to the underlying structures,” says prestigious London 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 passenger.” Lifting the entire soft tissue layer as a single unit results in a authentic-appearing and longer-lasting result. It also means that the surgery is no longer being used for the express purpose of youth preservation – or revitalization, as the cosmetic field terms it – but for “beautification” and facial restructuring, too. “We’re getting many inquiries from clients aged late twenties to mid-thirties for this reason,” notes Grover.

Individual Experience

Preisinger had never planned on getting a facial lift – at least not at the age of 30. But years of using injectable gels in an effort at “symmetry correction” implied that by the time she entered her late 20s, she was “damaged”. “I didn’t do this because I desired to appear youthful,” she clarifies. “I did it because the injectable harmed my face. I regret ever using it. If I had avoided the filler, I don’t think I would be where I’m at currently.”

If injectable substances ever fully dissolve has historically been a debated topic in the aesthetics industry. “Studies have indicated that they seldom fully dissipate,” states Grover, “but they migrate and can obstruct drainage pathways. One of the contributors to what we term ‘pillow face’ is also the fact that in a sense, the face gets slightly fluid-filled because its ability to remove bodily fluid has been reduced.” Although research into the topic is early-stage, cautionary statements on injectables’ possible effects on the lymphatic system have been released, and additional studies initiated. An esteemed face specialist, speaking on the condition of anonymity, says he would never use injectables in a client because of the dangers they present. “A lot of doctors avoid talk about this, because the manufacturers who make injectables can be quite forceful.” He’s heard stories, he adds, of plastic surgeons facing court orders after expressing worries.

Choice and Surgery

For Preisinger, after beginning injecting filler, she believed 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 Florida proposed that a facial and neck surgery might be what she needed to exit the cycle of treatments. Two years later, she ended up choosing between a selection of recommended hotels in Istanbul, 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 recommended that a facelift was the correct option for the laxity she was experiencing in her face. She booked a forehead lift, a mid-facelift and a jawline surgery. The eve of her surgery, 24 hours post she’d touched down alone in Turkey, she decided to add a mouth enhancement. “Then he said, ‘We’re going to lift the under-eye bags.’ Then he said, ‘I believe if we extract some cheek fat, it will sculpt your face.’ So I ended up including additional surgeries,” she recalls. She spent $22,000 (sixteen thousand five hundred pounds) for the half-day surgery, plus a three-day|