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

Onemanda Preisinger experiences worry about her child’s upcoming 13th birthday celebration. Not for the usual causes associated with a home packed of clamorous preteen kids, but because it’s the first time she will reveal her recently altered face to friends and relatives. “Obviously I’m going to inform all guests as they come in, ‘Just so you know, this is not how I look,’” states the 30-year-old property agent from Southern Florida.

How she looks is, well, a little surprising – her face puffed up and preternaturally lifted, as though held together by industrial-grade tape. Her altered – and she’s keen to stress, short-term – look is the outcome of six cosmetic procedures, including an minimally invasive facelift, performed by a surgeon in Turkey’s Istanbul, the previous month. “My spouse teared up when he saw me for the first time because I couldn’t even unseal my eyes. That’s how swollen I was,” she tells me via video call from her house. “I needed to inform him: ‘Honey, I’m fine, I’m not in pain. I just look like someone attacked me.’”

Growing Trend of Early Facelifts

Based on cosmetic specialists, Preisinger is among a rising count of people choosing to have a rhytidectomy in their 20s and 30s – well over a ten years before typical surgeons’ usual candidate age of 40 to 60. (Though most surgeons are eager to highlight the professional guideline of: “We address genetics, not age.”) “I have individuals in their late twenties requesting facelifts,” says London-based cosmetic surgeon Georgios Orfaniotis, a ex-NHS doctor who specialises in the facial area. “It’s a major procedure, and I’m a bit concerned when I see individuals opting for it as a lifestyle choice.”

Understanding the Facelift Procedure

A rhytidectomy, alternatively called a facelift, elevates the ligaments in the face that begin to droop as we age. “Our faces are structured a little like layers of an onion,” explains Kent-based face specialist Marc Pacifico. “Skin and fat on the top, then a stratum of supportive tissue called the superficial musculoaponeurotic system. Consider the SMAS as the structural foundation of the face. And that’s what ages us; that is what loosens and sags and pulls the skin down with it.”

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

Previously reserved of moneyed older people, “filler fatigue” – when excessive use of injectable gels expands the face and causes looseness in the dermis – combined with the widespread use of weight-loss drugs, cut-price surgical travel, and the advancement of new, celebrity-endorsed operative methods are driving a different type of patient towards this major operation. Reports show an 8% increase in facelifts over the last year in the UK; while a study revealed that the portion of younger facelift patients is increasing, with 32% of facelifts now conducted for patients aged thirty-five to fifty-five.

“People are asking now to appear as the optimal form of themselves and obviously the methods are evolving,” says Orfaniotis. At present, the operation du jour 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 entails lifting the SMAS, the comprehensive lift releases the underlying structures beneath it, enabling surgeons to restructure the face by moving the deeper tissue, and preventing the taut, pulled appearance occasionally caused by older methods. “We’re not putting stress on the skin because we’re going below, to the underlying structures,” says Harley Street plastic surgeon Rajiv Grover, who specialises in the deep plane technique. “It is the underlying layers that is adjusted. The dermis comes with it as a secondary element.” Elevating the whole facial structure as a single unit results in a more natural-looking and more durable outcome. It additionally implies that the procedure is not just being used for the primary goal of anti-ageing – or revitalization, as the cosmetic field describes it – but for “beautification” and contouring, too. “We receive numerous requests from clients aged 28 to 35 for this reason,” notes Grover.

Personal Journey

Preisinger had not intended on getting a facelift – at least not at the thirty years old. But years of using hyaluronic acid dermal fillers in an effort at “symmetry correction” meant that by the time she reached her late 20s, she was “botched”. “I didn’t do this because I wanted to look youthful,” she says. “I did it because the injectable ruined my face. I wish I had never using it. If I didn’t have the filler, I don’t believe I would be in this situation currently.”

Whether dermal fillers ever fully dissolve has long been a debated topic in the aesthetics industry. “Research have shown that not only do they rarely fully dissipate,” states Grover, “but they move and can obstruct drainage pathways. A contributing factor to what we term ‘pillow face’ is additionally the fact that to some extent, the face becomes slightly waterlogged because its ability to drain bodily fluid has been reduced.” Though research into the area is preliminary, warnings on dermal fillers’ possible effects on the body’s drainage have been issued, and further research initiated. An esteemed face specialist, speaking on the condition of anonymity, mentioned he would avoid using fillers in a patient because of the dangers they pose. “Many surgeons avoid discussing this, because the companies who produce filler can be quite forceful.” He’s been told accounts, he says, of plastic surgeons facing legal actions after raising their concerns.

Choice and Surgery

For Preisinger, once she started injecting filler, she felt as if she had to keep adding more – especially as it started to migrate to different areas of her face. She was just 28 when a local plastic surgeon in the state proposed that a facial and neck surgery could be what she needed to finally step off the injectable hamster wheel. After 24 months, she ended up selecting from a selection 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 – commonly called eyelid surgery – but her surgeon recommended that a facelift 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 surgery, one day after she’d touched down alone in Turkey, she opted to include a lip lift. “Subsequently the surgeon said, ‘We will elevate the lower eyelid puffiness.’ Then he said, ‘I believe if we remove some buccal fat, it will contour your face.’ Thus I ultimately including additional surgeries,” she says. She spent $22,000 (£16,500) for the six-hour surgery, plus a three-day|