Everybody knows that a surgical facelift requires an extensive, complex surgery. That’s why many people are drawn to the idea of a mini facelift. For mini facelifts, the claim has always been that you can get great rejuvenation without the need for invasive surgery. In fact, one company, named Lifestyle Lift, even promised you could get one in about an hour with minimal recovery afterward.
A company suddenly shut its doors and went bankrupt, leaving us to wonder whether it’s the business or the procedure that was a bust.
A Surgical Commodity
A Charlotte, NC plastic surgeon who used to work points out the irony of Lifestyle Lift’s sudden failure. After all, with the economy on the upswing, “Plastic surgery is booming all over the country,” he said. There doesn’t seem to be a reason why Lifestyle Lift should suddenly fail in this climate. He blames the business model, which he says commodifies the surgery. “People want to have a personal relationship with their doctor. They want to know that they’re looking out for them. Unfortunately medicine is not a commodity.”
But Lifestyle Lift was marketed like a commodity with a $1 million a week advertising campaign across the country, which was necessary to prop up interest in the procedure. When the advertising stopped (presumably for cash flow reasons) interest in the procedure dropped off.
An Ineffective Procedure
But what’s really at the core of the Lifestyle Lift failure is that the procedure itself was just not able to perform as the advertisements claim. Surgeons who have experience with Lifestyle Lift claim that the procedure is just not designed to give the kind of results its ads claimed. Instead, the procedure accomplished only superficial changes in the position of facial tissues, which wouldn’t do things like eliminating jowls or other sagging tissues because it simply didn’t go deep enough into the tissues to accomplish the lifting and reshaping of the face.
Thread Lift Today
Just because the Lifestyle Lift went out of business, that doesn’t mean there aren’t mini facelift options, including threadlift options. This type of procedure is trying to step in and fill the void left by Lifestyle Lift. Currently, there are two different threadlift options available nationally: Nova Threads and InstaLift. Both these procedures give short-term results, usually around one year. While the procedure has a generally favorable rating, it also has many reports of serious complications. You have to balance between the benefits of quite short-term results and the risk of these problems.
Deeper Changes Than a Facelift
The lesson of the Lifestyle Lift is that when you work on the surface, you can’t always achieve quality, lasting results, and sometimes that’s true even for a full surgical facelift. Although a surgical facelift works with the deeper connective tissues and can try to do things like elevating the jowls and lifting sagging tissue, it’s still on the surface. For many people, the problem is even deeper: in the foundation of the facial structure.
Along with your bones, your teeth provide a foundation for your facial structure. If your teeth are worn down, they can no longer support your facial tissues in the proper proportions that your face originally grew into. As a result, you end up with “excess” facial tissue that sags. Rather than cutting and stretching this tissue, many people benefit from restoring the foundation to achieve proper support again. This is what we call a nonsurgical facelift, and the results are amazing.
If you are looking for a facial rejuvenation procedure that works with the actual foundation of your face shape and structure, please call Beyond Exceptional Dentistry at (843) 706-2999 for an appointment with a cosmetic dentist in the Hilton Head area.
