Facelift Beverly Hills
Dr. Jonathan Sykes is proud to offer personalized cosmetic procedures that deliver lasting, transformative results. As a specialist in facial cosmetic surgery, Dr. Sykes has helped thousands of patients reach their goals, bringing out the best in every patient. Get started on planning your facelift in Beverly Hills today!
What Is a Facelift?
Benefits of a Facelift
- Tighten sagging facial skin
- Reduce fold lines around the nose and mouth
- Reduce jowls
- Remove excess skin and stubborn fat around the jaw & neck
- Achieve a more youthful appearance
- Rejuvenating results that look natural
- A boost to your quality of life and overall confidence
- Results that last for years
Am I a Candidate for a Facelift?
What Is the Procedure Like?
What Is an Endoscopic Facelift?
An endoscopic facelift is a relatively closed procedure done through small incisions where we dissect under the skin with a magnifying scope. Here’s a quick guide.
During a facelift our goal is to lift the cheeks, jowls and neck soft tissues to reposition them to where they were earlier in life. This makes the face look rejuvenated and more youthful. The concept of an endoscopic facelift is a good one in theory, but in reality we really need to make larger incisions to lift all the tissue required for the facelift to be a success. For that reason it’s not practical to perform the surgery endoscopically.
Endoscopic surgery does however work great for a brow lift. In an endoscopic brow lift our dissection plane is on the bone. This type of brow lift works best for those with low to average hairlines because when we lift the brow this way we move the hairline back. If a person already has a high hairline, an endoscopic brow lift is not a good idea. For these patients I perform a brow lift a different way without the use of an endoscope
Do you recommend an endoscopic facelift?
I base my recommendation for an endoscopic facelift on each individual patient’s anatomy and the aging of their skin. I would not recommend it for a person who has lots of excess tissue. For them an endoscopic facelift is not likely to work very well. Don’t be fooled by surgeons who say, “I do endoscopic lifts and get good results,” because they’re likely making other incisions to get the job done and the endoscopic part is thrown in for marketing purposes. Unless you have very little sagging skin, an endoscopic facelift will not likely give you the results you desire.
When it comes to brow lifts and facelifts, I’ve been doing them for 36 years. I consider myself an expert. Call me or email me. I’d love to talk to you about your questions. I help patients like you everyday, and I’d love to see you in my office.
The Recovery Process
When Can I See Results?
What is a deep plane facelift?
When we do a deep plane facelift or any facelift, our goal is to lift the tissues of the face. We do this by going under the superficial muscular aponeurotic system, the SMAS, which is the investing layer of the face. This gives the sturdiest lift, and in my opinion the most natural lift. We lift the skin on the neck and tighten it to create a better angle to the chin neckline. We also lift the jowls so that they disappear, and the mandible — the jawline — is seen in a very short border.
We also lift the cheeks because we want the face to appear top heavy rather than bottom heavy. A youthful face is shaped like an upside triangle, but as we age, the triangle becomes upright with more volume at the bottom because over time, our cheek fat and jowls often descend. When we lift those areas into a better position, it improves and increases the volume to the face in the right places. For me, I believe a deep plane facelift does the best job of lifting cheeks. I call it an underwire bra for cheek fat.
What is a Mini facelift?
A mini facelift is performed with slightly shorter incisions, slightly less dissection and slightly less structural work. Because everything that’s done is less than a standard facelift, it lasts less time as well. A great example is if we inflate two balloons, but one balloon is inflated a little more. That balloon is going to take longer to deflate. In the balloon comparison, the mini facelift is the balloon that is inflated less.
Patients always like the sexiness of the word “mini,” but they never like mini results. Instead, they want big results that don’t look overdone. In the case of a facelift, patients are afraid of being over-lifted and looking unnatural, causing them to think that the mini facelift is a better choice. Irrespective of how old they are, they request a mini facelift because that’s the thing that they hear about and that’s what they think will result in a more natural look.
What’s the Difference Between a Facelift and a Mini Facelift?
To understand the difference between a facelift and a mini facelift, we must first define the term facelift. The procedure involves making incisions around the ear and sometimes under the chin to remove fat, tighten the muscles and lift the fascia so the rear face looks rejuvenated. When we age, the face becomes bottom heavy instead of the youthful look of a top heavy face. The facelift restores this symmetry.
There is not much difference between a facelift and a mini facelift. In a mini facelift, our incision is a little bit shorter and the dissection, how far we go under the skin, is a bit shallower. It only enables us to tighten the fascia, but we can’t lift under it to provide as deep and as thorough a lift as the full facelift. For that reason, I’m a bit more of a fan of a deep plane facelift. However, patients like the idea of mini anything. So if I give them the choice between a mini facelift and a facelift, they’re going to tend to say, “I want the mini facelift.”
Here’s the caveat. When a patient goes through the healing and pays the fees involved in the surgery, I want them to have a procedure that is going to last several years. Every patient is different and that is what really determines the results they get from a facelift versus a mini facelift. Some patients have only a little bit of aging. They don’t have too much extra skin, too much sagging of their fascia, and/or too much looseness of their muscles. This makes them the perfect candidate for a mini facelift, but a deep plane facelift would last longer. So for them, they’ll get great results but it’s a matter of how quickly they want to come back.
On the flip side, a patient with more aging would do better with a deep plane facelift that gives a bigger lift and that lasts for more years. I’ll often see a patient from another office who is three years post facelift surgery, but they’re not happy because it’s fallen a little bit. For them, I like to perform a deep plane facelift to give them something that not only looks good but that looks good for a long time.
Patients always ask me how long it takes to heal. Many patients look at healing as happening all at once, as if they were unhealed after surgery, and then one day they were healed. That’s not how it happens. Patients improve day by day. Healing is a process. Pain usually subsides within 48 hours and I tell most of my patients that they could go back out to work in about 10 days to a week. They won’t look great, but they’ll look okay.
In three to four weeks, they look really good, but they’re still not finished. In six weeks, they look very, very good, but again, they’re not finished. I generally tell patients to wait six weeks to go to an important event that requires pictures, such as a wedding. Patients might still experience some numbness at six weeks but will continue to heal and look even better.
Schedule Your Consultation Today
With modern cosmetic surgery, signs of aging only exist as long as we allow them. Call our office or use our online form to schedule your consultation for a facelift in Beverly Hills with Dr. Jonathan Sykes. Dr. Sykes, a facial plastic surgery Beverly Hills, works closely with you to discover your aesthetic desires and then builds your individual plan to help you achieve them. With careful, compassionate communication, he is by your side to provide a personalized experience with your goals always at the center. Contact us today to learn more about our procedures and get started on stepping into a rejuvenated you.