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

Amanda Preisinger is nervous about her child’s impending 13th birthday party. Not for the typical reasons related to a home packed of loud preteen children, but because it’s the first time she will showcase her recently altered face to acquaintances and extended family. “Clearly I’m going to inform everyone as they come in, ‘For your information, this is not the way I look,’” states the 30-year-old real estate agent from south Florida.

How she looks is, admittedly, a little surprising – her face puffed up and preternaturally lifted, as though held together by heavy-duty tape. Her altered – and she’s eager to emphasize, temporary – look is the outcome of six aesthetic surgeries, including an minimally invasive facelift, conducted by a surgeon in Istanbul, Turkey, last month. “My poor husband became emotional when he viewed me for the first time because I wasn’t able to even unseal my eyes. That’s how swollen I was,” she explains to me via online call from her home. “I needed to inform him: ‘Babe, I’m fine, I’m not in pain. I just look like someone jumped me.’”

Growing Trend of Early Facelifts

Based on plastic surgeons, Preisinger is among a growing number of people choosing to have a facelift in their 20s and 30s – well over a decade prior to typical surgeons’ usual candidate age of 40 to 60. (Although many specialists are eager to highlight the professional guideline of: “We address heredity, not age.”) “I have 28-year-olds requesting facelifts,” says based in London aesthetic plastic surgeon Georgios Orfaniotis, a former NHS consultant who focuses on the facial area. “It’s a very significant procedure, and I’m a somewhat worried when I observe people opting for it as a personal preference.”

Explaining the Facelift Procedure

A rhytidectomy, alternatively called a facelift, elevates the ligaments in the face that start to sag as we age. “Our faces are built a little like layers of an onion,” says based in Kent facial plastic surgeon Marc Pacifico. “Dermis and adipose on the surface, then a stratum of connective tissue known as the SMAS. Think of the SMAS as the soft tissue skeleton of the face. And that is what causes aging; that is what becomes lax and drags the dermis down with it.”

You risk operating on individuals that have deeper issues. It’s not advisable for an ethical plastic surgeon to follow

Previously reserved of moneyed older people, overuse of injectables – when overuse of dermal fillers stretches the face and leads to laxity in the skin – alongside the common adoption of slimming medications, low-cost medical tourism, and the development of new, famous-figure-promoted surgical techniques are attracting a new kind of patient towards this invasive surgery. Statistics show an eight percent rise in facial lifts over the last year in the United Kingdom; while a study revealed that the percentage of younger facelift patients is increasing, with 32% of facelifts now conducted for patients aged thirty-five to fifty-five.

“Patients are now requesting to look like the optimal form of themselves and naturally the methods are evolving,” comments Orfaniotis. Currently, the operation du jour is the deep plane facelift, a method evangelised by figures including Kardashian matriarch Kris Jenner, to fashion designer Marc Jacobs.

Deep Plane Technique

While a conventional rhytidectomy involves lifting the superficial layer, the deep plane facelift loosens the underlying structures underneath, enabling surgeons to reshape the face by moving the deeper tissue, and preventing the taut, pulled look occasionally caused by older methods. “We avoid placing tension on the skin because we’re targeting deeper, to the deeper tissue,” explains Harley Street plastic surgeon Rajiv Grover, who specialises in the advanced method. “It is the deeper tissue that is repositioned. The skin follows along as a passenger.” Elevating the entire soft tissue layer as a unified block allows for a more natural-looking and more durable result. It also means that the procedure is not just being used for the primary goal of anti-ageing – or revitalization, as the aesthetics industry terms it – but for “beautification” and contouring, too. “We’re getting many inquiries from clients aged 28 to 35 for this reason,” says 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 “symmetry correction” implied that by the time she entered her late 20s, she was “botched”. “I didn’t do this because I wanted to look young,” she clarifies. “I did it because the injectable 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 right now.”

Whether dermal fillers ever fully dissolve has historically been a debated topic in the cosmetic field. “Research have indicated that not only do they rarely completely dissolve,” states Grover, “but they move and can block lymphatic channels. One of the contributors to what we term ‘pillow face’ is also the fact that to some extent, the face becomes somewhat fluid-filled because its ability to remove bodily fluid has been reduced.” Although studies into the area is preliminary, cautionary statements on injectables’ possible effects on the body’s drainage have been released, and further research announced. One highly regarded face specialist, commenting anonymously, says he would never use injectables in a client because of the dangers they pose. “A lot of surgeons avoid discussing this, because the manufacturers who produce injectables can be quite forceful.” He’s heard stories, he adds, of cosmetic doctors facing court orders after raising their concerns.

Choice and Surgery

For Preisinger, after beginning injecting filler, she believed she needed to continue adding more – especially as it started to migrate to different areas of her face. She was only twenty-eight when a local plastic surgeon in Florida proposed that a facial and neck surgery could be what she required to finally step off the injectable hamster wheel. After 24 months, she found herself selecting from a selection of recommended hotels in the city, texted to her by the patient coordinator at her doctor’s clinic.

Initially, Preisinger had planned for an upper and lower blepharoplasty – better known as blepharoplasty – but her doctor recommended that a facial lift was the correct option for the looseness she was experiencing in her face. She booked a forehead lift, a mid-facelift and a jawline surgery. The day before her operation, 24 hours post she’d touched down alone in the country, she decided to add a mouth enhancement. “Subsequently the surgeon said, ‘We’re going to elevate the lower eyelid puffiness.’ Then he said, ‘I believe if we extract some cheek fat, it will contour your face.’ So I ended up including additional procedures,” she recalls. She paid $22,000 (£16,500) for the half-day surgery, plus a three-day|