Considering a Facelift?

A facelift restores smoother, more pleasing contours to your face and neck. It can help you look as good as you feel, and perhaps feel younger than you are.

Am I a good candidate for a facelift?

Any one or combination of the following conditions may indicate that you are a good candidate for a forehead lift:

• a deep line, or fold, running from the corner of your nose to the corner of your mouth.
• jowls, or loss of a well-defined jawline associated with youthfulness.
• deep wrinkles in the cheeks and sagging of the "highlight" areas of the cheekbones.
• loose skin, wrinkles, vertical "cords" or excess fatty tissue in the neck.

A facelift can improve all of these problems. It cannot, however, correct conditions such as sagging eyebrows, excess skin and fatty deposits in the upper and lower eyelids, or wrinkles around the mouth. Your plastic surgeon can provide further information if you have an interest in other procedures to treat these areas.

How a Face Lift is Performed

Because of individual factors, not everyone will achieve the same results from a facelift. Your plastic surgeon will select the surgical technique that he or she feels will obtain the best outcome for you.

Where are the facelift incisions placed?

Although there are many variations to the facelift procedure, generally an incision is hidden in the natural contour of your ear, then extends around the earlobe and back into the hairline. Following surgery, incisions can be easily concealed by your hair or with makeup. There may also be a small incision hidden underneath your chin.

Most facelift incisions are placed within the hairline and within natural contours in front of and behind (shown in lighter black) the ear.

Sometimes the deeper tissues (grey shaded area) may also need to be repositioned in order to restore a more youthful contour to the face.

After the skin has been pulled up and back, the excess (grey shaded area) is removed.