A facelift is technically known as a rhytidectomy which means literally “surgical removal of wrinkles”. This removal of wrinkles, which is in effect removal of excess skin is accomplished by redraping the face and neck skin of the patient seeking a more youthful appearance. There are two methods of redraping, one involving only the outer skin, and the other also taking into account the underlying tissues.
Facelifts are more than a hundred years old, with the first such surgery performed by Eugene Hollander in Berlin, Germany right after the turn of the last century. With the importance of a youthful appearance in our society, the facelift has gained tremendously in popularity, and today it takes place number five of the most popular cosmetic procedures.
Facelifts work better in women than in men and a woman with a thin skin and good bone structure is a very good candidate for the procedure. Facelifts are best for eliminating wrinkles in the cheeks and loose skin folds in the neck. A facelift is not very well suited to treat the deep lines running down from the corner of the mouth to the chin (marionette lines) and deep lines down from the nose to the lips ( nasolabial lines.) If these lines are present the injection of a filler would be the most appropriate remedy. Both the facelift and the injection of a filler together can produce the desired results.
In these before and after pictures is is clearly visible how the wrinkles on the cheek and the deep folds on the neck were significantly reduced.