‘My Eyes Were So Swollen I Was Unable to Even Unseal Them’

Onemanda Preisinger experiences worry about her child’s upcoming 13th birthday party. It’s not due to the usual reasons related to a house full of loud preteen kids, but because it’s the initial occasion she will debut her recently altered face to friends and relatives. “Obviously I’m going to tell everyone as they arrive, ‘For your information, this is not the way I appear,’” says the 30-year-old real estate agent from south Florida.

Her appearance is, admittedly, a little surprising – her face swollen and unnaturally tightened, as though held together by industrial-grade tape. Her new – and she’s keen to stress, temporary – look is the outcome of six aesthetic surgeries, including an endoscopic mid-facelift, performed by a doctor in Istanbul, Turkey, the previous month. “My spouse teared up when he viewed me for the first time because I couldn’t even open my eyes. That indicates swollen I was,” she tells me via online call from her house. “I needed to inform him: ‘Babe, I’m okay, I’m not in pain. I just look like someone attacked me.’”

Increasing Popularity of Early Facelifts

Based on cosmetic specialists, Preisinger is one of a growing number of people choosing 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 professional guideline of: “We treat heredity, not age.”) “I have 28-year-olds requesting facial lifts,” says based in London aesthetic plastic surgeon Georgios Orfaniotis, a ex-NHS doctor who specialises in the head and neck. “It’s a major procedure, and I’m a somewhat worried when I observe people opting for it as a personal preference.”

Understanding the Facelift Procedure

A facelift, alternatively called a rhytidectomy, lifts the tissues in the face that begin to droop as we grow older. “Human faces are structured a bit like layers of an onion,” says Kent-based facial plastic surgeon Marc Pacifico. “Skin and fat on the top, 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 ages us; that’s what loosens and sags and drags the dermis down with it.”

You endanger operating on people that have deeper issues. It’s not advisable for an conscientious surgeon to follow

Once the preserve of moneyed older people, overuse of injectables – when overuse of injectable gels stretches the face and leads to laxity in the skin – combined with the widespread use of weight-loss drugs, cut-price surgical travel, and the development of novel, famous-figure-promoted operative methods are driving a different type of patient towards this major operation. Reports indicate an 8% increase in facial lifts over the past 12 months in the UK; while a study revealed that the percentage of youthful candidates is increasing, with one-third of procedures now conducted for patients aged 35-55.

“Patients are now requesting to appear as the best version of themselves and obviously the techniques are evolving,” says Orfaniotis. At present, the operation du jour is the comprehensive facial lift, a method evangelised by figures including Kardashian matriarch Kris Jenner, to style creator Marc Jacobs.

Deep Plane Technique

Where a more traditional rhytidectomy entails lifting the superficial layer, the deep plane facelift releases the facial ligaments beneath it, enabling surgeons to restructure the face by moving the deeper tissue, and avoiding the taut, pulled appearance sometimes wrought by more traditional techniques. “We’re not putting tension on the dermis because we’re going below, to the deeper tissue,” says Harley Street cosmetic doctor Rajiv Grover, who specialises in the deep plane technique. “It is the deeper tissue that is adjusted. The skin follows along as a secondary element.” Elevating the whole facial structure as a unified block allows for a authentic-appearing and more durable outcome. It also means that the procedure is no longer being used for the primary goal of youth preservation – or rejuvenation, as the aesthetics industry describes it – but for “beautification” and facial restructuring, too. “We receive many inquiries from clients aged 28 to 35 for this purpose,” notes Grover.

Personal Journey

Preisinger had never planned on getting a facial lift – at minimum not at the thirty years old. But years of using injectable gels in an attempt at “facial balancing” implied that by the time she entered her late 20s, she was “botched”. “I didn’t undergo this because I desired to appear youthful,” she says. “I did it because the filler ruined my face. I regret ever done it. If I had avoided the filler, I don’t believe I would be where I’m at currently.”

If injectable substances ever fully dissolve has long been a debated topic in the aesthetics industry. “Studies have shown that they seldom fully dissipate,” says Grover, “but they move and can obstruct drainage pathways. One of the contributors to what we call ‘pillow face’ is also the fact that to some extent, the face becomes somewhat fluid-filled because its capacity to drain bodily fluid has been diminished.” Though studies into the topic is preliminary, warnings on injectables’ potential impact on the lymphatic system have been released, and further research announced. An esteemed face specialist, speaking on the condition of anonymity, says he would never use fillers in a client because of the dangers they present. “Many doctors don’t want to discussing this, because the manufacturers who produce injectables can be pretty aggressive.” He’s heard stories, he says, of plastic surgeons being landed with court orders after raising their concerns.

Decision and Procedure

For Preisinger, once she started injecting filler, she felt as if she had to keep replenishing it – especially as it started to migrate to different areas of her face. She was only twenty-eight when a local plastic surgeon in the state suggested that a facial and neck surgery might be what she required to exit the cycle of treatments. After 24 months, she found herself selecting from a list of recommended hotels in Istanbul, sent to her by the clinic assistant at her surgeon’s office.

Initially, Preisinger had scheduled an upper and lower blepharoplasty – better known as blepharoplasty – but her surgeon advised her that a facelift was the correct option for the looseness she was finding in her face. She arranged a brow lift, a mid-facelift and a jawline surgery. The eve of her operation, one day after she’d touched down solo in Turkey, she opted to include a mouth enhancement. “Subsequently the surgeon said, ‘We’re going to lift the lower eyelid puffiness.’ He added, ‘I think if we remove some buccal fat, it will sculpt your face.’ So I ended up including additional surgeries,” she says. She paid $22,000 (£16,500) for the half-day operation, plus a three-day|