How Effective is a Mini Facelift?

It is my opinion that the recent trend in advertising minilifts is predatory. Of course nobody wants to have a surgery that causes a long recovery time, or is expensive. And who need lab tests preoperatively when your minilift "surgeon" doesn't require any tests at all ( except the credit card clearance).

Enter the minilift. Quick recovery, perhaps even over lunchtime, no dangerous general anesthesia, low cost.

Right?

The real truth is in the results. Most patients having minilifts are expecting facelift results. If they don't get them, or if they have bad scarring from tightly closed incisions, they are disappointed in the results. You can see what the patient satisfaction was on the minilift boards, even on this website.

What patients are not adequately explained, in my opinion, is that the before and after pictures they are seeing on minilift sites look nothing like the actual results. They are not shown pictures of patients with horrific scarring; only clever patients who parse internet blog sites will find the truth and avoid mass market minilifts.

They are also not told that they have all the incisions of a facelift, but half the result. In saving an average of 1 1/2 hours of the doctors time and $5000 of their money, they get half the result.

They are not told about the pain of having surgery when you are awake, feeling needles, pulling and pain. Light general anesthetic with a board certified anesthesiologist suddenly sounds more appealing.

The recovery from a minilift is not much shorter than that for a real facelift performed by a skilled facelift surgeon. If the scars from the minilift are wide, the recovery and eventual revisional surgery will even be much longer.

Minilifts do have their place, in younger women who do not need a lot of deep tissue restructuring, perhaps, and in revision facelifts where the areas of concentration are more limited. However, to do a minilift in every patient for the reasons above is not the best medicine.

FaceTite can internally tighten the skin in the lower face and neck. After all the skin has been heated and contracted, we shape the neck with liposuction to give definition and remove stubborn pockets of fat. In one quick treatment, we can tighten skin, remove fat, and contour the lower face, jawline, and jowls with only a weekend of downtime.​ Keep in mind that combination approaches will give you a more significant improvement as opposed to a single procedure. I recommend getting a consultation with a board-certified cosmetic dermatologist and facial sculpting expert. Best, Dr. Emer

Most patients demand improvement to facial laxity without a significant downtime. Most surgeons demand the procedure that will produce the best possible result.The best possible result often demands more invasive techniques and greater downtime.This mini lift debate arises from these opposing demands. For a time, I did not believe mini lifts had a role in facial plastic surgery (largely due to how I was trained). Since then I have seen many patients in their late 30s, 40s, and 50s who are bothered with facial laxity but still maintain active lifestyles. They do not need a full facelift, and the skin tightening technologies (radiofrequency, ultrasound, lasers, etc) can only do so much. These patients deserve surgical options and could benefit from a little "nip tuck". Now I believe mini lifts do have a role and employ them often to make patients very happy.
Another problem with the mini lift debate is that the procedure itself is not well defined. If you asked a group of surgeons the difference between a mini lift and standard facelift, you would get many different answers. We even cannot agree whether to spell it "mini lift", "minilift", or "mini-lift". Until we agree to standard definitions for the various types of lifts out there, the "mini lift" will continue to get a bad name as it is grouped with the "lunchtime lift" and perhaps even the "thread lift" (both poor options).
We define the mini lift as a deep plane procedure designed to specifically tighten jawline and upper neckline. It does not address the lower neck, upper face, or midface. But for many patients, this is enough to create a significant, enjoyable result.