‘My Eyes Were So Swollen I Couldn’t Even Open Them’

Amanda Preisinger is nervous about her daughter’s upcoming 13th birthday celebration. It’s not due to the usual causes associated with a house full of clamorous adolescent children, but since it’s the initial occasion she will debut her recently altered face to friends and relatives. “Clearly I’m going to inform all guests as they arrive, ‘For your information, this is not how I look,’” states the 30-year-old property agent from Southern Florida.

Her appearance is, admittedly, a somewhat startling – her face swollen and preternaturally lifted, as though secured by industrial-grade tape. Her altered – and she’s eager to emphasize, temporary – appearance is the outcome of half a dozen aesthetic surgeries, such as an minimally invasive facelift, performed by a surgeon in Turkey’s Istanbul, the previous month. “My poor husband teared up when he viewed me for the first time because I wasn’t able to even unseal my eyes. That indicates puffy I was,” she explains to me via video call from her house. “I had to tell him: ‘Honey, I’m okay, I’m not in pain. I just appear as if someone jumped me.’”

Growing Trend of Early Facelifts

According to cosmetic specialists, Preisinger is one of a growing number of people electing to have a facelift in their 20s and 30s – well over a decade before typical surgeons’ typical patient age range of 40 to 60. (Although many specialists are eager to highlight the professional guideline of: “We address heredity, not age.”) “I have individuals in their late twenties requesting facial lifts,” states London-based aesthetic plastic surgeon Georgios Orfaniotis, a ex-NHS doctor who focuses on the facial area. “It’s a very significant procedure, and I’m a bit concerned when I observe individuals choosing it as a personal preference.”

Understanding the Facelift Procedure

A rhytidectomy, also known as a facelift, elevates the ligaments in the face that begin to droop as we age. “Our faces are structured a bit like layers of an onion,” explains based in Kent facial plastic surgeon Marc Pacifico. “Dermis and adipose on the top, then a stratum of connective tissue known as the superficial musculoaponeurotic system. Think of the facial framework as the soft tissue skeleton of the face. And that’s what ages us; that is what becomes lax and drags the dermis down with it.”

You risk operating on individuals that have underlying problems. It’s not advisable for an conscientious surgeon to pursue

Previously reserved of moneyed older people, overuse of injectables – when excessive use of injectable gels stretches the face and leads to looseness in the skin – combined with the widespread use of weight-loss drugs, cut-price surgical travel, and the advancement of new, celebrity-endorsed surgical techniques are driving a different type of customer towards this major operation. Statistics show an 8% increase in facial lifts over the last year in the United Kingdom; while a study revealed that the portion of younger facelift patients is growing, with 32% of facelifts now conducted for patients aged 35-55.

“Patients are asking now to look like the optimal form of themselves and naturally the methods are following,” comments Orfaniotis. At present, the operation du jour is the comprehensive facial lift, a technique evangelised by everyone from reality TV star Kris Jenner, to fashion designer Marc Jacobs.

Advanced Lifting Method

While a more traditional facelift involves lifting the SMAS, the deep plane facelift loosens the underlying structures underneath, enabling surgeons to restructure the face by moving the underlying layers, and preventing the tight, stretched appearance sometimes wrought by older methods. “We avoid placing tension on the dermis because we’re targeting deeper, to the underlying structures,” explains prestigious London cosmetic doctor Rajiv Grover, who focuses on the advanced method. “It is the underlying layers that is adjusted. The dermis follows along as a secondary element.” Lifting the whole facial structure as a single unit results in a more natural-looking and longer-lasting result. It also means that the surgery is no longer being used for the express purpose of anti-ageing – or revitalization, as the aesthetics industry describes it – but for “beautification” and facial restructuring, too. “We’re getting numerous requests from clients aged 28 to 35 for this purpose,” says Grover.

Individual Experience

Preisinger had never planned on undergoing a facelift – at minimum not at the age of 30. But years of using hyaluronic acid dermal fillers in an effort at “symmetry correction” implied that by the time she reached her late twenties, she was “damaged”. “I didn’t do this because I desired to appear youthful,” she says. “I underwent it because the filler harmed my face. I wish I had never using it. If I had avoided the filler, I don’t believe I would be in this situation currently.”

If injectable substances ever fully dissolve has long been a debated topic in the cosmetic field. “Studies have indicated that they seldom completely dissolve,” states Grover, “but they move and can obstruct lymphatic channels. A contributing factor to what we call ‘pillow face’ is also the fact that in a sense, the face gets somewhat waterlogged because its capacity to drain bodily fluid has been reduced.” Though studies into the topic is early-stage, cautionary statements on injectables’ potential impact on the body’s drainage have been issued, and additional studies announced. One highly regarded face specialist, commenting anonymously, mentioned he would avoid using fillers in a patient because of the risks they present. “Many surgeons avoid talk about this, because the companies who make filler can be pretty aggressive.” He’s been told accounts, he adds, of plastic surgeons facing legal actions after expressing worries.

Choice and Surgery

For Preisinger, once she started using injectables, she felt as if she needed to continue adding more – particularly when it began moving 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 could be what she required to finally step off the cycle of treatments. After 24 months, she found herself selecting from a selection of recommended hotels in Istanbul, sent to her by the clinic assistant at her doctor’s clinic.

Originally, Preisinger had planned for an eyelid surgery – better known as blepharoplasty – but her doctor recommended that a facial lift was the correct option for the looseness she was finding in her face. She booked a forehead lift, a cheek lift and a neck lift. The day before her surgery, 24 hours post she’d arrived solo in Turkey, she opted to include a mouth enhancement. “Subsequently the surgeon stated, ‘We’re going to lift the under-eye bags.’ Then he said, ‘I believe if we extract some buccal fat, it will sculpt your face.’ So I ended up including additional surgeries,” she says. She spent $22,000 (£16,500) for the half-day surgery, including a three-day|