Benefits of Face Lift Surgery

Face lift surgery’s benefits continue to grow as the procedure becomes more comprehensive and complex. Today, the procedure’s ability to restore a youthful look is unparalleled, as surgeons tighten the underlying structures of the face that, along with skin, slacken with age.

Face Lift Benefits — Turning Back the Clock

When properly performed, face lift surgery turns back the clock, firming up muscle tone, smoothing the skin, and restoring an attractive facial contour. Face lift surgery is not designed to make a person look like someone else, but to make that person look and feel years younger.

Repairing Loose, Sagging Skin

Face lift surgery is best-known for tightening loose, sagging skin — sometimes too ambitiously (leading to a pulled or wind-tunnel appearance). Though tightening lax, aging skin and carefully trimming away the excess skin remains an important component of face lift surgery, surgeons have realized that this tightening works best (and looks more natural) when the face’s underlying structures are also restored to a youthful configuration.

Tightening Facial Muscles

Unlike older, less sophisticated face lift techniques, which only tightened facial skin, today’s techniques address the underlying structures of the face — the Sub-Muscular Aponeurotic System (SMAS) — as well. Cheek fat and other structures of the face sag downward with age, as skin loses elasticity and becomes lax. Today’s surgeons first rearrange these underlying structures into a more youthful configuration before addressing the superficial layer of the face. Doing so puts less tension on the skin and helps the face lift last longer. Therefore, one of the benefits of contemporary face lift procedures is the restoration of a youthful configuration to your face’s muscles, fat, and connective tissue as well as skin.

Improving Facial Contour

One of face lift surgery’s most marked benefits is restored facial contour. A mid face lift restores a smooth, youthful look to the lower eyelids and cheeks; a lower face lift restores an attractive jawline contour, eliminates jowls, and smoothes the neck. In addition, face lift can be combined with facial liposuction to further address jowls, a fleshy neck, and other areas that can sag with age.

Today’s surgeons precisely rearrange the underlying structures of the face to restore a lasting and attractive facial contour. Gone are the days of an unnatural, pulled facial contour after face lift surgery; today’s surgeons accomplish a natural look through careful tightening of the structures that tend to weaken as the face ages.

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