Facelift Myths and Facts
The stiff, pulled result; the hospital stay; the assumption it is an operation for older women only. Five common beliefs about facelift surgery, set against what the operation actually involves.
Most of what patients believe about facelifts comes from the results they can identify as facelifts. That is a selection problem: a well-executed result is not recognisable as surgery, so it never enters the sample.
“Facelifts look tight and unnatural”
The pulled, wind-tunnel appearance is a recognisable result of a particular approach — tightening the skin alone and relying on tension to hold it.
Current technique works on the deeper tissue layer. That layer is released and repositioned, and the skin is then redraped over it rather than pulled taut. The tension sits in the tissue that is designed to carry it, not in the skin, and the individual’s own features are preserved rather than flattened.
“It requires a hospital stay”
A facelift is typically performed as a day case, and most patients go home the same day. An overnight stay is available where the extent of the surgery or the patient’s own preference makes it sensible, but it is not a requirement of the operation.
“It stops the ageing process”
It does not, and no operation does. A facelift resets the position of tissue that has descended. Ageing continues from that new starting point.
Results last in the region of ten years or more, depending on age at surgery, skin quality and lifestyle — sun exposure and smoking being the two factors most within your control.
“It is only for older women”
Candidacy is determined by what is present on examination — descent of the mid-face, jowling, loss of definition at the jawline and under the chin — not by age or sex. Men make up a growing proportion of facelift patients, and the surgical planning differs accordingly.
“Non-surgical treatments do the same thing”
They do not do the same thing, but they do complementary things, which is why they are frequently used together. Botulinum toxin addresses dynamic lines that surgery does not touch. Dermal fillers replace lost volume rather than repositioning tissue. Skin resurfacing addresses the quality and texture of the skin surface, which a facelift does not alter at all.
A facelift repositions descended tissue. Everything else on that list treats a different problem.
The range of operations
“Facelift” covers several distinct procedures: lower, mid and mini facelifts, endoscopic approaches to the brow and mid-face, and thread lifts, which are performed under local anaesthetic without hospitalisation. Which is appropriate depends on what has descended and by how much — a question for examination rather than for a website.
The procedure this relates to
Rhytidectomy — surgery that addresses the descent of the face and neck by repositioning the deeper tissues, tightening the underlying muscle and removing the skin that is left over. Results typically last up to ten years.
Before you act on this
Everything here is general. What applies to you depends on your anatomy, your history and what you are trying to achieve, and none of that can be assessed from a page. If a question here is yours, bring it to a consultation.