How to Know When the Time is Right for a Facelift

Facelift surgery has been performed for many years. For a short while, there, the procedure hit a bit of a slump. Outdated techniques had focused more on the skin than on the restructuring of subcutaneous tissue, sometimes leading to an altered appearance. Images of bad plastic surgery on celebrity faces coincided with the boom in nonsurgical treatments like Botox and dermal fillers, resulting in a strong lean towards injectable options and away from surgery. With significantly improved outcomes for facelift patients, we are once again seeing an increase in interest for surgical facial rejuvenation. The question most patients ask is “am I ready for a facelift?” We’ll discuss a few ways to find out here.

You May be Ready for a Facelift If

Your nonsurgical treatments aren’t achieving the results they used to. Because aging occurs on a spectrum, we must periodically change our approach. While it is always a good idea to use medical-grade skin care products, which products you use will change. Your cleanser and moisturizer (and sunscreen!) may eventually be joined by a retinol cream or hyaluronic acid serum. Still, the face will age. Injectable treatments may not continue to perform as well as you’d like. This isn’t because you’ve grown resistant to their powers. It’s because your face has changed enough that it needs more assistance to restore a youthful look. A facelift repositions facial tissue to restore volume in the mid-face and lift what has become saggy at the jawline.

You Don’t Look Like “You” Anymore

This may be the biggest indicator that you’re ready for a facelift: you don’t feel like you see yourself in the mirror. Aging doesn’t just cause us to see worry lines, frown lines, and creases around the nose and mouth. As we get older, the bone, muscle, and soft tissue that creates the structural foundation for the face all degrade. What this does is invert the general shape of the face. The top area becomes deflated and the lower area becomes wider. The face may look longer or generally deflated, too. Facelift surgery repositions the fat and muscle so the mid-face regains better contouring and the jawline is once again angled. For enhanced results that still look beautifully natural, some patients follow their facelift up with dermal fillers to certain areas, like the lips or cheeks.

You can look like your best self at any age. To learn more about a facelift or the minimally-invasive InstaLift, call our NYC office at (212) 508-0000.