‘I Wasn’t Able to Even Unseal My Eyes. That’s The Extent of the Swelling I Was’

Amanda Preisinger feels anxious about her child’s impending 13th birthday celebration. It’s not due to the typical causes related to a house full of loud adolescent kids, but because it’s the first time she will showcase her recently altered face to friends and extended family. “Obviously I’m going to inform all guests as they arrive, ‘For your information, this is not the way I appear,’” states the 30-year-old real estate agent from Southern Florida.

Her appearance is, well, a little surprising – her face puffed up and preternaturally lifted, as though secured by heavy-duty tape. Her altered – and she’s keen to stress, short-term – look is the outcome of half a dozen cosmetic procedures, including an minimally invasive facelift, performed by a doctor in Istanbul, Turkey, the previous month. “My spouse became emotional when he saw me for the first time because I couldn’t even open my eyes. That’s how swollen I was,” she tells me via online call from her house. “I had to tell him: ‘Honey, I’m okay, I’m not hurting. I just look like someone attacked me.’”

Growing Trend of Youthful Facial Lifts

Based on 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 forty to sixty. (Though most surgeons are keen to emphasise the professional guideline of: “We address genetics, not years.”) “I have individuals in their late twenties asking for facial lifts,” states based in London aesthetic plastic surgeon Georgios Orfaniotis, a ex-NHS doctor who focuses on the head and neck. “It’s a major procedure, and I’m a bit concerned when I observe people choosing it as a personal preference.”

Explaining the Rhytidectomy Surgery

A rhytidectomy, alternatively called a rhytidectomy, lifts the tissues in the face that begin to droop as we grow older. “Our faces are built a little like layers of an onion,” explains Kent-based facial plastic surgeon Marc Pacifico. “Dermis and adipose on the surface, then a layer of supportive tissue called the superficial musculoaponeurotic system. Consider the SMAS 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 performing surgery on individuals that have underlying problems. It’s not advisable for an ethical plastic surgeon to pursue

Once the preserve of affluent seniors, “filler fatigue” – when overuse of injectable gels expands the face and leads to laxity in the skin – alongside the widespread use of slimming medications, cut-price surgical travel, and the development of novel, celebrity-endorsed operative methods are driving a different type of customer towards this major operation. Statistics indicate an 8% increase in facelifts over the last year in the UK; while a study found that the portion of youthful candidates is increasing, with 32% of facelifts now conducted for individuals aged 35-55.

“People are asking now to appear as the optimal form of themselves and obviously the methods are evolving,” comments Orfaniotis. At present, the operation du jour is the comprehensive facial lift, a method promoted by everyone from reality TV star Kris Jenner, to fashion designer Marc Jacobs.

Deep Plane Technique

While a conventional rhytidectomy involves lifting the superficial layer, the comprehensive lift loosens the facial ligaments beneath it, enabling doctors to restructure the face by moving the underlying layers, and avoiding the taut, pulled look occasionally caused by older methods. “We avoid placing tension on the dermis 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.” Elevating the whole facial structure as a unified block allows for a more natural-looking and longer-lasting outcome. It additionally implies that the surgery is not just being used for the primary goal of anti-ageing – or rejuvenation, as the aesthetics industry describes it – but for “beautification” and facial restructuring, too. “We receive many inquiries from clients aged late twenties to mid-thirties for this reason,” notes Grover.

Individual Experience

Preisinger had not intended on undergoing a facelift – at least not at the age of 30. But years of using injectable gels in an attempt at “facial balancing” implied that by the time she reached her late 20s, she was “damaged”. “I didn’t undergo this because I desired to appear young,” she says. “I did it because the filler harmed my face. I wish I had never done it. If I had avoided the injectable, I don’t believe I would be where I’m at currently.”

If injectable substances completely disappear has long been a debated topic 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. A contributing factor to what we term ‘puffy appearance’ 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 area is preliminary, warnings on injectables’ possible effects on the body’s drainage have been issued, and additional studies announced. One highly regarded facial plastic surgeon, speaking on the condition of anonymity, mentioned he would avoid using injectables in a client because of the dangers they pose. “Many surgeons don’t want to talk about this, because the manufacturers who make injectables can be quite forceful.” He’s been told accounts, he adds, of plastic surgeons facing legal actions after expressing worries.

Choice and Surgery

For Preisinger, after beginning injecting filler, she believed she needed to continue replenishing it – particularly when it started to migrate to different areas of her face. She was only twenty-eight when a nearby cosmetic doctor in Florida suggested that a face and neck lift might be what she required to exit the cycle of treatments. Two years later, she ended up selecting from 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 eyelid surgery – but her doctor advised her that a facelift was the right solution for the laxity she was experiencing in her face. She booked a forehead lift, a cheek lift and a neck lift. The eve of her operation, one day after she’d touched down solo in Turkey, she decided to add a mouth enhancement. “Then he said, ‘We will elevate the under-eye bags.’ Then he said, ‘I think if we remove some buccal fat, it will contour your face.’ So I ended up adding two more surgeries,” she recalls. She paid $22,000 (£16,500) for the half-day operation, including a three-day|