‘My Eyes Were So Puffy I Couldn’t Even Unseal Them’

Onemanda Preisinger experiences worry about her child’s impending 13th birthday party. It’s not due to the usual reasons associated with a house full of loud adolescent children, but since it’s the initial occasion she will reveal her new face to acquaintances and relatives. “Obviously I’m going to tell everyone as they arrive, ‘Just so you know, this is not how I appear,’” says the 30-year-old property agent from Southern Florida.

How she looks is, admittedly, a little surprising – her face swollen and unnaturally tightened, as though held together by industrial-grade tape. Her new – and she’s eager to emphasize, short-term – appearance is the result of half a dozen cosmetic procedures, including an endoscopic mid-facelift, conducted by a surgeon in Istanbul, Turkey, the previous month. “My spouse teared up when he saw me for the first time because I wasn’t able to even unseal my eyes. That’s how puffy I was,” she tells me via video call from her house. “I needed to inform him: ‘Honey, I’m okay, I’m not hurting. I just look like someone attacked me.’”

Growing Trend of Early Facelifts

According to cosmetic specialists, Preisinger is among a rising count of people electing to have a facelift in their 20s and 30s – well over a decade before most doctors’ typical patient age range of 40 to 60. (Although most surgeons are eager to highlight the industry edict of: “We address genetics, not age.”) “I have 28-year-olds requesting facelifts,” says based in London cosmetic surgeon Georgios Orfaniotis, a former NHS consultant who focuses on the head and neck. “It’s a major procedure, and I’m a somewhat worried when I observe individuals choosing it as a personal preference.”

Explaining the Rhytidectomy Surgery

A rhytidectomy, also known as a facelift, elevates the tissues in the face that start to sag as we age. “Human faces are built a bit like layers of an onion,” explains Kent-based facial plastic surgeon Marc Pacifico. “Dermis and adipose on the surface, then a layer of connective tissue known as the SMAS. Think of the SMAS as the structural foundation of the face. And that is what causes aging; that’s what becomes lax and drags the skin downward with it.”

You risk performing surgery on people that have deeper issues. It’s not advisable for an conscientious surgeon to pursue

Once the preserve of moneyed older people, “filler fatigue” – when overuse of dermal fillers stretches the face and causes laxity in the dermis – combined with the common adoption of weight-loss drugs, low-cost surgical travel, and the development of new, famous-figure-promoted operative methods are driving a new kind of customer towards this major operation. Statistics indicate an eight percent rise in facial lifts over the past 12 months in the UK; while a study found that the portion of younger facelift patients is increasing, with 32% of facelifts now performed on patients aged 35-55.

“Patients are asking now to appear as the best version of themselves and naturally the methods are evolving,” says Orfaniotis. At present, the trending procedure is the deep plane facelift, a technique promoted by everyone from reality TV star Kris Jenner, to style creator Marc Jacobs.

Advanced Lifting Method

Where a more traditional rhytidectomy entails lifting the superficial layer, the comprehensive lift loosens the underlying structures underneath, allowing doctors to reshape the face by moving the underlying layers, and preventing the taut, pulled appearance occasionally caused by more traditional techniques. “We avoid placing tension on the skin because we’re going below, to the underlying structures,” says Harley Street plastic surgeon Rajiv Grover, who specialises in the advanced method. “It is the deeper tissue that is adjusted. The dermis comes with it as a secondary element.” Lifting the entire soft tissue layer as a unified block results in a authentic-appearing and longer-lasting result. It also means that the procedure is not just being used for the express purpose of anti-ageing – or rejuvenation, as the aesthetics industry terms it – but for “enhancement” and contouring, too. “We’re getting numerous requests from clients aged 28 to 35 for this reason,” notes Grover.

Individual Experience

Preisinger had never planned on undergoing a facelift – at least not at the thirty years old. But years of using hyaluronic acid dermal fillers in an effort at “symmetry correction” implied that by the time she entered her late 20s, she was “damaged”. “I didn’t undergo this because I wanted to look youthful,” she clarifies. “I did it because the filler harmed my face. I wish I had never done 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 aesthetics industry. “Studies have shown that not only do they rarely fully dissipate,” says Grover, “but they move and can obstruct lymphatic channels. One of the contributors to what we call ‘pillow face’ is also the fact that to some extent, the face gets somewhat fluid-filled because its ability to remove lymphatic fluid has been diminished.” Though research into the topic is early-stage, warnings on dermal fillers’ possible effects on the body’s drainage have been issued, and further research announced. One highly regarded facial plastic surgeon, commenting anonymously, says he would avoid using injectables in a patient because of the dangers they pose. “Many surgeons don’t want to talk about this, because the manufacturers who produce injectables can be quite forceful.” He’s heard stories, he says, of plastic surgeons facing legal actions after raising their concerns.

Decision and Procedure

For Preisinger, after beginning using injectables, she felt as if she needed to continue replenishing it – especially as it began moving to different areas of her face. She was just 28 when a nearby cosmetic doctor in the state proposed that a face and neck lift might be what she required to finally step off the cycle of treatments. After 24 months, she found herself selecting from a list of suggested accommodations in Istanbul, texted to her by the clinic assistant at her doctor’s clinic.

Initially, Preisinger had planned for an eyelid surgery – commonly called eyelid surgery – but her doctor recommended that a facelift was the correct option for the looseness she was finding in her face. She booked a brow lift, a mid-facelift and a jawline surgery. The day before her operation, 24 hours post she’d arrived alone in Turkey, she decided to add a mouth enhancement. “Then he said, ‘We’re going to lift the lower eyelid puffiness.’ Then he said, ‘I believe if we extract some buccal fat, it will sculpt your face.’ So I ended up adding two more surgeries,” she says. She paid $22,000 (£16,500) for the half-day operation, including a three-day|