A harmonious contour, from the front and side, can make you look ten years younger. But just tightening the skin is no longer enough! Restoring balance to facial volumes and a beautiful shape are essential, and for that, combining techniques is ideal.
Combining a lift with a filling technique helps defy the laws of gravity while masking the shadows and illuminating the face.
There are two solutions, one with surgery, the other less invasive: a lift, either face and neck or more targeted (temples, face alone) combined with injections of fat (lipomodeling), or its alternative without surgery, which is the insertion of dissolvable tensor threads and the targeted use of hyaluronic acid.
Sagging skin on the face and neck
Our face and its contour change over time.
Due to the increasingly slower production of collagen fibers and elastin, as well as hyaluronic acid, our skin is drier, loses elasticity, wrinkles appear on the surface, and the neck sags.
At the same time, the fat melts in the deeper layers modifying the volume and shape of the face, and some muscles naturally tend to pull the tissues downwards, which is not helped by gravity. As the fat melts, the face thins and hollows form in places: dark circles, temples, tear troughs, cheeks… And due to hypertonia of some muscles pulling the structures downwards, the eyebrows and eyelids are weighed down, the lips sag, jowls can appear, and furrows deepen (nasolabial folds, bitterness folds around the mouth).
Once like an inverted triangle, our face becomes heavier, the lower part of the oval contour squarer, thus disrupting the entire harmony of the face resulting in a sad, tired, and aging appearance.
The aging process is multifactorial, and if you wish to effectively rejuvenate the face while remaining subtle and natural, you need to address both phenomena.
The slumping of the tissues is more often observed in the lower half of the face whereas the loss of volume generally predominates in the upper half (frontotemporal and periorbital area). Lifting alone is therefore rarely enough and often, correcting sagging skin – with or without surgery – must be combined with a filling technique to restore the deep support tissue and volume where it has been lost to achieve an excellent, natural result.
With surgery: face and neck lift + lipofilling
A facelift is the benchmark technique in face surgery to lift and return the tissues to the correct position thus restoring the initial harmony of the face. It is a facial rejuvenation technique allowing the skin of the face and neck to be redraped while also lifting the position of the muscles. A face and neck lift treats the contour of the face and neck to resculpt an attractive cervical angle. The areas comprising the nasolabial folds, bitterness folds, jowls, facial contour – including the submental area – and the neck are repositioned
In some cases, a more targeted lift is more suitable to treat different areas of the face:
- A frontotemporal lift beautifies the forehead, temples, and eye area and lifts the tail of the eyebrows
- A neck lift alone, which is often performed on men
- A mini lift or a facelift that beautifies the contour but is also for patients with only minor sagging
In any case, a lift will redrape and tighten the skin and reposition the fat structures that have begun to sag (jowls), but it does not act on fat tissue loss (melting fat). Combining targeted injections of autologous fat and stem cells with a lift will restore the balance of the volumes, fill grey areas, and restore the natural plumpness and elegant shape of the face.
The fat is taken from another part of the body where the fat is stable whatever the weight (saddlebags, inner knees), it is then filtered, purified, and reinjected in the areas of the face where the fat has melted using a very fine cannula that leaves no marks. This definitive and entirely biocompatible technique plumps the skin and visibly improves its texture and quality.
The lift and lipofilling are performed at the same time during the procedure. The contour of the face and neck as well as the temples and the forehead are refreshed and a harmonious aesthetic balance is restored from the front and side.
Sometimes, mild cervical liposuction at the start of the procedure can be combined with a lift as the neck area, particularly under the chin, can be the seat of stubborn fat clusters that thicken the face and the contour is no longer well-defined.
Without surgery: tensor threads and hyaluronic acid
Dissolvable tensor threads (or tissue inducers) are an alternative for patients who wish to improve the contour of their face without going through a surgical facelift. Eyebrow and temple lifts using these threads to obtain « Fox Eyes » have been much talked about recently. Why? Instagram of course! And the stars flaunt their cat eyes, particularly almond-shaped but not very natural.
As far as I’m concerned, I do not follow the trends. As a female surgeon, harmonizing the face is central to me and, of course, restoring its youthful appearance without altering its charm and uniqueness.
Thanks to the technological progress made with threads (which have been around for a long time), placing tissue inducers is therefore a simple, safe, and less invasive alternative to lift the face.
This technique using tensor threads consists in inserting tiny dissolvable threads with one-way barbs to lift and tighten the skin. The threads are inserted under local anesthetic, at the office, and are ideal for mild sagging when hyaluronic acid injections alone are not enough to control ptosis. Fillers (hyaluronic acid) are to tensor threads what lipofilling is to a facelift: a perfect supplement. I start by inserting the threads, of which the number varies depending on the necessary and desired correction, as well as the area treated. Then, I recommend waiting about ten days, the time necessary for a full recovery, before proceeding with hyaluronic acid injections to improve the result and fill the hollows or shadows.
Result? The face is plumper, more rested, serene, and radiant, and the contour is more well-defined. Furthermore, tensor threads stimulate the production of new collagen in the area thus helping to maintain the effect of the lift over time and improve the quality of the skin.
The main negative point of tensor threads (other than the fact that any excess skin stretched over time is not removed) is their lack of efficacy over time. Indeed, the result of tensor threads lasts from 3 months to 2 years and the threads slowly dissolve. Unfortunately, it is impossible to predict how long the result will last before the treatment.
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