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

Amanda Preisinger is nervous about her child’s upcoming 13th birthday celebration. It’s not due to the usual reasons associated with a home packed of clamorous preteen kids, but because it’s the first time she will debut her recently altered face to acquaintances and extended family. “Obviously I’m going to inform everyone as they come in, ‘Just so you know, this is not how I look,’” states the thirty-year-old property agent from Southern Florida.

How she looks is, admittedly, a somewhat surprising – her face puffed up and preternaturally lifted, as though secured by industrial-grade tape. Her new – and she’s eager to emphasize, temporary – look is the outcome of six aesthetic surgeries, such as an endoscopic mid-facelift, conducted by a doctor in Istanbul, Turkey, the previous month. “My spouse became emotional when he viewed me for the initial time because I wasn’t able to even unseal my eyes. That indicates swollen I was,” she tells me via video call from her house. “I had to tell him: ‘Babe, I’m okay, I’m not in pain. I just appear as if someone jumped me.’”

Increasing Popularity of Early Facelifts

Based on plastic surgeons, Preisinger is one of a rising count of people choosing to undergo a facelift in their twenties and thirties – well over a decade prior to most doctors’ usual candidate age of 40 to 60. (Although many specialists are eager to highlight the industry edict of: “We address genetics, not age.”) “I have individuals in their late twenties requesting facial lifts,” states London-based aesthetic plastic surgeon Georgios Orfaniotis, a ex-NHS doctor who specialises in the facial area. “It’s a very significant surgery, and I’m a bit concerned when I observe individuals opting for it as a lifestyle choice.”

Understanding the Facelift Procedure

A facelift, alternatively called a rhytidectomy, lifts the ligaments in the face that start to sag 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 surface, then a stratum of connective tissue known as the SMAS. Think of the SMAS as the structural foundation of the face. And that’s what causes aging; that is what becomes lax and drags the skin down with it.”

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

Previously reserved of moneyed older people, overuse of injectables – when overuse of injectable gels expands the face and causes looseness in the skin – alongside the widespread use of weight-loss drugs, low-cost medical tourism, and the development of new, celebrity-endorsed operative methods are attracting a new kind of customer towards this invasive surgery. Reports show an eight percent rise in facial lifts over the last year in the UK; while a study found that the percentage of youthful candidates is growing, with one-third of procedures now performed on patients aged thirty-five to fifty-five.

“People are now requesting to look like the best version of themselves and naturally the methods are evolving,” says Orfaniotis. Currently, the operation du jour is the deep plane facelift, a method evangelised by figures including reality TV star Kris Jenner, to style creator Marc Jacobs.

Advanced Lifting Method

While a conventional rhytidectomy involves elevating the superficial layer, the deep plane facelift loosens the underlying structures beneath it, enabling surgeons to restructure the face by repositioning the deeper tissue, and avoiding the taut, pulled look sometimes wrought by older methods. “We’re not putting tension on the skin because we’re targeting deeper, to the underlying structures,” says Harley Street plastic surgeon Rajiv Grover, who specialises in the deep plane technique. “It is the deeper tissue that is adjusted. The skin comes with it as a secondary element.” Lifting the whole facial structure as a unified block results in a authentic-appearing and longer-lasting outcome. It also means that the procedure is no longer being used for the express purpose of youth preservation – or rejuvenation, as the cosmetic field describes it – but for “enhancement” and facial restructuring, too. “We’re getting many inquiries from clients aged late twenties to mid-thirties for this reason,” notes Grover.

Personal Journey

Preisinger had not intended on getting a facial lift – at least not at the thirty years old. But long-term using hyaluronic acid dermal fillers in an attempt at “facial balancing” meant that by the time she entered her late twenties, she was “botched”. “I didn’t undergo this because I desired to appear young,” she clarifies. “I did it because the filler ruined my face. I wish I had never using it. If I didn’t have the injectable, I don’t think I would be in this situation currently.”

If injectable substances completely disappear has historically been a point of contention in the aesthetics industry. “Research have shown that they seldom fully dissipate,” says Grover, “but they move and can obstruct drainage pathways. A contributing factor to what we term ‘pillow face’ is also the fact that to some extent, the face gets slightly fluid-filled because its ability to remove bodily fluid has been diminished.” Although research into the topic is preliminary, warnings on dermal fillers’ potential impact on the lymphatic system have been released, and further research initiated. One highly regarded facial plastic surgeon, commenting anonymously, mentioned he would avoid using injectables in a patient because of the dangers they pose. “A lot of surgeons avoid talk about this, because the manufacturers who make filler can be quite forceful.” He’s heard stories, he says, of plastic surgeons being landed with court orders after expressing worries.

Decision and Procedure

For Preisinger, once she started using injectables, she believed she had to keep replenishing it – particularly when it began moving to different areas of her face. She was just 28 when a local plastic surgeon in Florida proposed that a facial and neck surgery could be what she needed to exit the cycle of treatments. After 24 months, she ended up choosing between a list of recommended hotels in the city, texted to her by the clinic assistant at her doctor’s clinic.

Initially, Preisinger had planned for an upper and lower blepharoplasty – commonly called blepharoplasty – but her doctor recommended that a facelift 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 surgery, one day after she’d arrived solo in the country, she opted to include a lip lift. “Then he stated, ‘We’re going to lift the under-eye bags.’ He added, ‘I believe if we remove some cheek fat, it will sculpt your face.’ So I ended up including additional surgeries,” she recalls. She spent $22,000 (sixteen thousand five hundred pounds) for the six-hour surgery, including a three-day|