A New Face

 Amanda Preisinger is anxious about her daughter's 13th birthday party. Not for the usual reasons related to a house full of clamorous preteen children, but because it's the first time she will debut her new face to friends and extended family...

How she looks is, well, a little startling - her face swollen and preternaturally lifted, as though held together by industrial-grade tape. Her new - and she's keen to stress, temporary-look - is the result of six cosmetic procedures, including an endoscopic mid-facelift, performed by a doctor in Istanbul, Turkey, last month...

A Woman's Face
Madge Gill (1882-1961)
Photo Credit: The London Borough of Newham Heritage Service [CC BY] 

 

According to plastic surgeons, Preisinger is one of a growing number of people electing to undergo a facelift in their 20s and 30s - well over a decade before most doctors' typical patient age range of 40 to 60. (Though most surgeons are keen to emphasise the industry edict of "We treat genetics, not age.") "I have 28-year olds asking for facelifts," says London based aesthetic plastic surgeon Georgios Orfaniotis, a former NHS consultant who specialises in the head and neck. "Ii's a very significant procedure, and I'm a bit concerned when I see people choosing it as a lifestyle choice."...

The British Association of Aesthetic Plastic Surgeons (BAAPS) has reported an 8% increase in facelifts over the past 12 months in the UK; while a survey by the American Academy of Facial Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery found that the portion of younger facelift patients is growing, with 32% of facelifts now performed on patients aged 35-55. 

"People are asking now to look like the best version of themselves and the techniques are following," says Orfaniotis. Currently the operation du jour is the deep plane facelift, a technique evangelised by everyone from Kardashian matriarch Kris Jenner to fashion designer Marc Jacobs...

Preisinger had never planned on getting a facelift - at least not at the age of 30. But years of using hyaluronic acid dermal fillers in an attempt at "facial balancing" meant that by the time she reached her late 20s, she was "botched". "I didn't do this because I wanted to look young," she says. "I did it because the filler ruined my face. I wish I had never done it. If I didn't have the filler, i don't think I would  be where I'm at right now...

One highly regarded facial plastic surgeon, speaking to me on the condition of anonymity, said he would never use fillers in a patient because of the risks they pose. "A lot of surgeons don't want to talk about this, because the companies who manufacture filler can be pretty aggressive." He has heard stories, he says, of plastic surgeons in the US being landed with court orders after raising their concerns...

All of the surgeons I spoke to said... they were unlikely to operate on patients in their 20s and 30s for purely cosmetic reasons... Said Orfaniotis, "You can make them look like the best version of themselves, but where will it end? When you're looking at beautification on people in their 20s or early 30s that otherwise look absolutely fine, you risk operating on people that have deeper issues. It's not a practice for an ethical plastic surgeon to follow." 

And yet when I put in a few inquiries with surgeons in Turkey, none of them flag that at 28, I might be too young for a deep plane facelift.

(Kate McCusker, The Guardian, 2025)

Why was this woman using fillers in the first place? She wanted "facial balancing" What is that supposed to mean? Did she not do any research before she had them? Did not the surgeon in this article say he would never use fillers in a patient because of the risks they pose? And then, of course, we have the manufacturers of fillers. Presumably they know of the danger that they can cause. As another surgeon puts it. Beautification by young adults could be a sign of mental illness - or have I misrepresented his thoughts?