Mini-brow Lift Vs. Full Face Lift?

Be very careful when asking for a brow lift, you might get it.  If you look up brow lift results in published papers and before and afters you will see that many surgeons successfully lift the brow.  Unfortunately a true brow lift makes patients look scared or surprised!  It is almost never necessary to elevate the medial third of the brow.  Many women actually benefit aesthetically from a slight lowering of the medial third.  On the contrary, there are few women even at your age that would not benefit from elevation of their lateral brow.  The reason for this is probably not what you think.  Much more important than the brow positionand shape is the infra brow skin.  If you look at yourself in the mirror you will see some bunching of skin under the brow next to your eye and a flat shape.  I call this the lateral hood.  The only kind of brow lift that I typically perform in women of your age I call a lateral hood lift.  If you gently pull up on your forehead skin above the lateral brow, you will see that a very subtle elevation makes you look younger.  This is mostly because it cleans up the lateral hood.  It is usually necessary to also restore brow volume at the same time as a lateral hood lift to create a beautiful rejuvenated shape.  I hope this helps!

 

All the best,

 

 

Rian A. Maercks M.D.

A 33-year old woman with a sad tired look around the eyes is actually a common complaint of patients in my practice. This is related to brow muscle action and genetics. A full Facelift or even a mini lift of the face is unnecessary and would not solve the problem. You are most probably a good candidate for a minimally-invasive Modified Browlift and possibly upper Blepharoplasty as well. The good news is that results with these procedures in young people last a long time and look natural. 

Most browlift procedures elevate, to various degrees, the hairline. There are several execeptions: one is the midforehead browlift, which I only perform on men due to the fine line scar; one is the lateral hairline browlift that results in a fine line barely if at all detectable incision scar along the hairline that if performed properly will have hair growing through it; and lastly is the combined browlift with hairline advancement procedure- which not only allows for brow sculpting as you desire but also can bring forward the hairline by as much as 1 inch in many patients. You can see many examples of these procedure results online, but you need to be evaluated by an experienced surgeon.