Everyone has concerns about their appearance, and it is becoming increasingly common for people to address those concerns with cosmetic facial plastic surgery. In fact, according to the American Society of Plastic Surgeons, nearly half of the approximately 1.8 million cosmetic surgery procedures performed in 2016 were exclusively geared towards the face and neck. Cosmetic plastic surgery procedures are among the most effective ways to minimize the traditional signs of facial aging, and here are the five facial procedures most frequently performed in the United States:
#5: Brow Lift
Often performed using advanced endoscopic techniques to minimize scarring, a forehead or brow lift procedure can effectively address forehead wrinkles, frown lines, brow furrows, and sagging eyebrows by tightening the skin and muscles on the upper third of the face.
#4: Neck Lift
Sagging skin and loosening muscles can create the appearance of a double chin or “turkey neck.” A surgical neck lift works by removing excess sagging skin, removing accumulated fat, and smoothing the underlying muscles to give the neck and entire face a more youthful appearance and contour.
#3: Facelift
A facelift can minimize wrinkles and folds across the entire face. More than a quarter of the facelifts performed in 2016 were actually mini-facelift procedures, which achieve similar results across in the mid-face region with smaller surgical incisions and a faster post-procedure recovery.
#2: Eyelid Surgery
By removing tiny amounts of excess fat and skin and tightening muscles around the eyes, eyelid surgery (called a blepharoplasty) can improve the look of sagging eyebrows, under eye bags, and drooping eyelids, giving both men and women a more youthful and healthy appearance.
#1: Nose Surgery
Popular with both men and women because it can improve functionality as well as appearance, nose surgery, or rhinoplasty, subtly changes the shape of the nose by lifting and defining the tip, lengthening or shortening the bridge, reducing a hump or knot on the bridge, or narrowing the nostrils.
Additionally, in the nearly thirty years that I have been a board-certified plastic surgeon, I have had the opportunity to perform just about every cosmetic facial plastic surgery procedure imaginable on men and women of virtually every age. In that time I have noticed that three other cosmetic procedures have proven to be particularly popular:
TCA Chemical Peels
One of the best ways that I have found to address both surgical scarring and environmental damage is with a TCA chemical peel, which uses trichloroacetic acid, or TCA, to gently exfoliate the skin by washing away layers of dead skin cells that have accumulated on the skin’s surface.
Liposuction
Traditional liposuction techniques can be specifically targeted to remove tiny amounts of fat from the face and neck. This can prove a very effective way to sculpt and contour the jawline and lower face, restoring a youthful fullness to areas that have started to sag and droop.
Fat Transfer
As we get older, fat deposits in the face tend to break down, leaving the features to sag and droop. Fat transfer techniques use the fat that has been removed, via liposuction, from other areas of the body to restore volume to those areas, giving the face a more rounded and youthful appearance.
The technology and techniques of plastic surgery are constantly evolving, and these procedures, while undoubtedly popular, represent only a small portion of everything that facial plastic surgery can do. It is important to remember that every face is unique, and so a personalized facial rejuvenation consultation is always necessary in order to determine the techniques that would be best suited to an individual patient’s specific needs. If you are interested in learning more about what facial plastic surgery can do for you, please contact my Atlanta Plastic Surgery office and schedule an appointment. Don’t forget to connect with me, Dr. Fernando Burstein, on Facebook, Twitter, and Google+ for the latest facial plastic surgery news.
