Facemakeover

Face Makeover

Gravity will cause mid-face and neck drooping, which causes jowels and a flabby neck. While gravity causes laxity of the skin, the facial skin per se may be damaged by a multitude of environmental factors including heat, cold, dryness, sunlight, smoking, high sugar diet, low hormone levels, etc. Each of these environmental factors ages the skin differently, and requires different treatments.

For example, wind will impact dirt, pollen and air pollutants into the skin-causing a leathery (weathered) skin and/or scarring. Moisturizers reduce damage from particulate matter but will not guard against photoaging. Irbium laser resurfacing will reverse the leathery, scarred face.

Meanwhile, sun damaging light (UVB) will penetrate cloud cover and cause photoaging and discoloration-even in cloudy days. Sunscreens for both UVA and UVB rays will protect photoaging, but are not good moisturizers. Intense pulse light treatment will treat discolored skin.

Acne and other skin conditions may cause scarring.

Facial drooping may be reversed by non-surgical means such as laser skin tightening, or surgery.

Surgical correction of loose skin is permanent and may be performed via a traditional face lift, or the mini face lift. When laser resurfacing, or other prorocedures, are added to the face lift, it is called a face makeover.

Case 1: The lady shown here had a face makeover-not just a face lift. In this case, the face makeover included:

• a. A mini face lift. Notice how the face lift corrects the jowling of the mid-face.

• b. Fat transfer to the cheeks and lips. This causes a fuller, more youthfull appearance around those areas.

• c. Laser and IPL treatments of her sun damaged skin. IPL reverses photoaging from solar keratosis (a pre-malignant skin condition). Laser resurfacing removes fine wrinkles and scars. Healthier skin appears brighter and smoother.

The lady shown here, recovered in two days and illustrates how a face makeover is different from a face lift. Face lifts are only designed to tighten loose facial skin. Face makeovers will correct multiple areas of the face simultaneously.

Face makeovers are face lifts with skin rejuvenation.

A face makeover is a face lift with treatment of aged skin. A face lift tightens droopy skin, but will not repair skin damage or volume loss per se.

Case 2: The lady shown here has drooping of the face which creates jowels, volume loss of the cheeks, and sun-damaged skin with age spots. In this case, a face lift was part of a face makeover and included face lift with fat transfer to the cheeks and laser resurfacing (one treatment).

Case 3: This lady is very similar to case 2 above, but unlike case 2, she opted for a mini-face lift only. The after picture shown here, was two days after her mini-face lift.

Compare Case 2 to case 3: Both patients had a mini-face lift which corrected the jowels of the face and tightened the neck. However, case 1 also had skin treatments which make her skin younger because the age spots are removed. Also, notice how fat transfer to he cheeks in case 1 enhances the youthful appearance to the cheeks.