Facelift in Beverly Hills, CA

Overview

Facelift surgery, technically known as a “rhytidectomy,” is a cosmetic procedure designed to provide a more youthful facial appearance. Over time, heredity, gravity, stress, and environmental conditions take a toll on our skin and cause us to look noticeably older. A facelift improves signs of aging in the face and neck, including fine lines, wrinkles, sagging skin, jowls, marionette lines, nasolabial folds, and hollows beneath the eyes.

Benefits of a Facelift

Restore Your Confidence

Facelift surgery provides a significantly more youthful, rested appearance, which allows patients to feel better about themselves and boosts their confidence and self-esteem.

Natural-Looking Results

Previous facelift techniques only tightened the skin, resulting in a pulled or “wind-blown” look. Current facelift techniques tighten the skin as well as the underlying structures of the face, providing very natural-looking results that can be long lasting.

Feel Younger

A facelift can take up to ten years off your appearance, and when you look younger, you often feel younger. With facelift surgery, you can look as young as you feel.

Multiple Options

Whether you desire minimal wrinkle correction or complete facial rejuvenation, there are various facelift options to meet any and all of your needs.

Back to Top

How do I know when I’m ready for a facelift?

Patients who are ideal candidates for a facelift meet the following criteria:

  • You have fine lines and wrinkles on your face or neck
  • You have sagging tissues on your face or neck
  • You always appear tired, sad, or angry because of deep-set wrinkles
  • You appear older than you feel or older than your actual age
Back to Top

Types of Facelifts

Traditional Facelift

A traditional facelift addresses fine lines, wrinkles, and sagging skin in the lower face, jowls, and neck. The surgeon tightens the facial muscles and reduces sagging skin to provide a more youthful appearance. The surgeon may also redistribute or extract fat with liposuction that can provide the most aesthetically pleasing results.

Traditional facelift benefits

  • Achieves the most significant improvement
  • Reduces signs of aging in all areas of the lower face and neck
  • Produces a very natural appearance

Limited Incision Facelift

A limited incision facelift is a less-invasive alternative to the traditional facelift. It is an ideal procedure for men and women who seek a subtle improvement to the lower face.

Limited incision facelift benefits

  • Uses fewer and shorter incisions than a traditional facelift
  • Improves fine lines and wrinkles in the lower face
  • Allows for a shorter recovery time than a traditional facelift

Neck Lift

Patients can expect our neck lift surgery to be performed along with a traditional facelift procedure. Dr. Charles Lee tightens the neck muscles and reduces sagging skin to produce smoother, more youthful-looking neck contours. The surgeon can also reduce fat deposits in the neck during this procedure.

Neck lift benefits

  • Reduces wrinkles, “neck bands,” and sagging skin in the neck area
  • Improves the appearance of a double chin
  • Produces a more youthful-looking neck
Back to Top

Facelift FAQ

Who is an ideal candidate for a facelift?

Ideal candidates for a facelift are unhappy with the appearance of wrinkles and sagging skin on their face and/or neck. The best candidates do not smoke and have realistic expectations of the procedure.

Where are the incisions for a facelift located?

The incisions for all techniques are easily hidden within the hairline. With the traditional facelift, the incision begins in the hairline at the temples, continues around the ear, and ends in the lower scalp. The limited incision facelift involves shorter incisions along the same area, sometimes along with a small incision within the lower eyelids or beneath the upper lip, depending on the needs of the patient. The neck lift incisions often wrap behind each earlobe and end in the lower scalp.

What is recovery like?

You should arrange for someone to drive you home after surgery and assist you for the first 24 to 48 hours of recovery. Your surgeon will prescribe medication to help minimize pain and keep you comfortable during this time. Swelling and bruising may last from a few days to a few weeks. Most patients can return to work within one to two weeks.

When will I see the final results of my facelift?

Most patients can see significant results from their facelift within six months, although subtle changes may continue to occur for up to a year after the procedure.

Does facelift have a good track record?

Facelift is one of the oldest and most widely performed procedures in plastic surgery. More than a century ago, medical innovators began experimenting with facial procedures that would erase wrinkles and restore a smooth-looking complexion by tightening skin. And for at least five decades plastic surgeons have used techniques that go far deeper than surface tightening, addressing facial muscles and subdermal layers that are so important to your overall facial profile. Along the way, the technology has been dramatically refined, raising the level of comfort, convenience and satisfaction for facelift patients. These advances are reflected in statistics that show more than 100,000 Americans choose facelift each year, according to data compiled by the American Society of Plastic Surgeons.

How can I maximize the results of facelift?

How long facelift lasts is partly dependent on your own lifestyle choices. When you follow the suggestions listed below, you will enjoy the benefits of your new look for many years.

Kick the smoking habit: If you smoke, quit; and if you don’t smoke, don’t start. This lifestyle choice is notorious for drying out the skin and creating deep facial wrinkles. Of course, smoking is hazardous to your overall health as well. It saps your energy, gives you an older appearance and puts you at risk for many serious conditions.

Protect your skin from the sun: Your skin reacts quickly to excess sunlight. Powerful ultraviolet rays damage your delicate skin, and can permanently change it over time. Too much sun leaves behind sun spots and other imperfections, while raising your risk for skin cancer.

Customize your own skin care routine: Be sure to include a moisturizer to preserve the youthful look that facelift restored. Other facelift-friendly products include topical retinoids that smooth imperfections and rejuvenate the skin.

Plan for a healthy diet and exercise: These lifestyle choices are good for your overall health, and by quickening circulation also give your skin a healthy glow. Like other parts of your body, your skin needs vitamins and minerals to look its best. Eating wisely can give you the smooth, supple skin that will improve your new look.

What are the best ways to avoid an unnatural-looking result?

When facelifts look unnatural, the reason is usually that the surgeon neglected one of the fundamentals of the procedure: Either the precision of the surgical technique fell short, or the surgeon neglected the artistic component of the surgery.

The truth is that facelift is not simply surgery, it is a surgical composition that can end up resembling either a masterpiece or obvious imitation. That is why it is important to look for a premier surgeon who also has an eye for balance, beauty and proportion. It is also vital that your surgeon understand that moderation is key. When a patient or surgeon aims for overcorrection, the results are invariably disappointing — as well as permanent.

Precision in technique requires that a surgeon tighten subdermal structures, especially muscles, as the surface skin is drawn taut. When only facial skin is excised and stretched, the result is tension with deeper facial layers, creating the unnatural, “frozen” look that is typical of high-profile celebrity facelifts that have gone wrong.

In addition, adding volume to certain areas of the face helps ensure a natural look. Most of the aging that occurs with the face over time is the result of loss of volume, including collagen and elastin. Restoring volume and reshaping facial tissue in targeted areas can bring back this youthful glow.

Dr. Charles S. Lee achieves harmony and magnifies your inner beauty with skills honed by performing myriad facelift procedures. His precision, passion and unmatched depth of experience have been the keys to successful outcomes for thousands of patients. His extraordinary artistic talent ensures that your facelift will not only look natural, but also graceful and elegant.

If I notice droopiness later, will I need another facelift?

With so many innovative new procedures and products available, consumers enjoy a wide range of rejuvenating choices that are less invasive than facelift. Some of these options may be appropriate within a decade of your facelift to preserve and maintain your surgical results.

One option is laser resurfacing, a procedure that uses an advanced fraxel laser to harmlessly “injure” your facial skin, which has the effect of making your body believe it needs to release powerful healing proteins and defenses. Dermal fillers similarly trigger this healing response, while also adding volume, filling lines and depressions, and smoothing out wrinkles.

Microneedling or radiofrequency (RF) energy options may also be appropriate. Vivace uses controlled microneedling and radiofrequency energy to build collagen, decrease pore size, and improve texture with minimal downtime. Ultherapy is a treatment performed once a year to lift and tighten the face, neck, or decollete using ultrasound technology.

Back to Top