The first face lift was performed over a hundred years ago. Because of the success of the procedure in recent years, the word ‘facelift’ has entered into the English language meaning ‘any superficial improvement in appearance’. The first operation involved making a small crescent incision of the temporal scalp and stitching the skin edges under tension.

The purpose of a facelift operation is to raise and tighten the facial skin thereby eliminating or decreasing overhanging folds or lines and to correct the effects of aging on the deeper structures of tightening and relocating muscles, which have stretched and drooped. Redundant deposits of fat are also removed.

The standard facelift operation is effective in the neck, chin, cheeks and temporal regions i.e. the lower two thirds of the face and neck. The forehead and eyelid regions are not included in the standard operation and require separate procedures that may be required with it.

It is not possible to eliminate every line, wrinkle or furrow in the facelift procedure. Prominent lines and wrinkles that remain will require additional treatment e.g. skin abrasions, filler injections, fat implants and synthetic filling agents etc. Perhaps the most important single factor prior to facelift surgery concerns the patients smoking habits. All patients should cease smoking at least six weeks prior to surgery and for a least a month afterwards.

The reason for this is that smoking reduces the blood supply to the skin flap, which can lead to flap necrosis (death of skin) ultimately resulting in an unseemly scar or impair and delay healing, leading to infection particularly behind the ear.