Face Lift & Brow Lift Tips

Cosmetics and Tanning After a Face Lift

Now that your face puts the best face forward, you want to show it off with a brilliant makeup job and tan. While you can apply makeup one to two weeks post-facelift surgery, sun exposure isn't recommended. The scarring may be discolored anyway, so you might actually want to apply creams that lighten your scars.

If you're African-American and have beautiful golden color anyway, your scarring may be darker than your normal skin, and topical creams or skin resurfacing after a facelift or mini face lift can help. As with most swelling from surgery, ice and elevation are recommended over cosmetics. Spray tanning isn't. Wait a month, or six just to be safe. Yes, you're beautiful, yes, you're fabulous, and you want to keep it that way. Don't try to improve yourself all at once--savor the changes as they happen.

Comments

   

Threadlift Barbs

You just need your neck and brow lifted, but now you're hearing about thread face lift "barbs." What are these? They sound like hooks. You're not letting anyone go fishing in your face! Relax--there's a type of thread lift called a "feather lift," and barbs are part of a bird's feathers. Barbed sutures simply allow the mini threads in your mini face lift or thread lift to "take," that is, make the "lift" last, much as flight feathers lift birds. The surgeon tugs the skin into place to achieve the desired contours on your neck and brow. Besides, you prefer birds to fish anyway. Don't be aftraid of barbs--let your facelift dreams take flight.

Comments

   

The Male Face Lift

Note to grandchildren: Your grandpop might look younger than you are. Or while you're having a weekend facelift, you might find yourself in the waiting room with your granddad. A Sunday Times article in the UK revealed that men of the grey or Greatest Generation have discovered that sixty is the new thirty, and middle age can extend to people in their eighties.

Male execs hitting sixty finally feel what women have experienced in the workplace for decades. That includes top Hollywood moguls--though they can still get away with being old and crotchety, while all women have to do is sport a wrinkle to be passed over. But men aren't taking any chances, and facelift surgery is among the most popular plastic surgery procedures for men. A few pointers before your granddad goes under the knife or laser:

• Anesthetic may still be a problem, even if your granddad can bench 220 easily.
• Your granddad needs to be healthy, not hanging around the house watching TV.
• Men are more prone to jowls and double chins than women. A neck lift may also be necessary.
• If Grandpa has deep wrinkles, a facelift may not eliminate them all--they're from his kids and the war, all those life experiences!
• Fine to moderate wrinkles can be eliminated with laser resurfacing.
• Glycolic peels and other skin procedures can improve the skin condition.
• If grandpa has age and sun spots (and if you do too), check to see if the surgeon can eliminate them after facelift surgery so that you get the total youthful effect. It's disturbing to have a grandpa who looks as young as you do, but hey, it runs in the family!

Comments

   

Non-Surgical Facelifts

Everywhere you go, ads tout a "non-surgical face lift." True? No facelift surgery, just treatments of:

• Thermage
• Restylane
• Radiance

But some patients are wary of new methods, so if you want to experience a non-surgical facelift, you can try a thread lift. A surgeon inserts tiny threads under the skin while you chill thanks to local anesthetics. A thread face lift is ideal if gravity weighs on your brows, cheeks, jowls and/or neck. Surgeons tout the advantages of this mini face lift: immediate results with minimal results and swelling, little recovery time.

If you need more intense facelift surgery, a thread face lift isn't for you. Consult your doctor, and ask about the other facelift surgery alternatives available. But if your doctor says, "You can be a model or just look like one," change specialists. Some disbelief is healthy.

Comments

   

Eye-Opening Face Lifts

Your eyes bug out, they pop, and you notice that other people are doing the Jim Carrey/Tex Avery (animation) eye-popping effect too. Could it be because you just had a face lift and eye lift too? Surgeons like Dr. Craig Ball in Palm Desert, California and Dr. David Broadway in Denver-Boulder, Colorado, frequently perform eye lifts, or belpharoplasty, and facelift surgery together. An eye lift can restore that wide-eyed youthful look or simply redistribute the fat so that your eyelid isn't droopy and your eyes aren't hollow.

Note that this can extend your surgery time if you're having a facelift, but it's no use investing money in a thread lift or mini face lift if your eyes don't look right (pun intended.) Eye lift surgery is usually done during facelift surgery to reduce droopy skin on the lids or under the eyes. At the same time, your surgeon will reduce droopy cheeks and eliminate jowls.

Consult with your surgeon about the recovery time. It's usually minimal for a facelift with bandages and sutures removed after 5-7 days, but you may want to take extra care following a combined procedure. Eye lift surgery recovery takes weeks or months, except for laser blepharoplasty. You won't be able to get your face wet or in the sun after your procedures, so take care. However, when you're at the beach after the bandages are off and you're healed, beware of eyes popping and jaws dropping.

Comments

   

Thread Lift Risks

If you thrive on risk and were disappointed that your thread lift is a bit too tame, read this while you're waiting to sky dive. Just because you're not going under the knife doesn't mean your thread face lift is without risk. All surgical procedures, from a breast reduction to a facelift, involve risk. Some risks specific to the thread face lift include:

• Threads popping out of the skin as you're parachuting (not recommended post-surgery, by the way)
• Thread lift not working because you're smiling too much or talking too much, or screaming on roller coasters
• Cheeks dislodged because you just had to go on WWE Nitro
• Sleeping on your side in base camp on Everest
• Infection, which all needles involve (your adventurous nature doesn't involve heroin, we hope)
• Rejection--it happens, you might change your mind last-minute about bungee-jumping

Comments