Can you get scars with a Mini Facelift?

All facelift techniques depend on the ability to remove unwanted excess skin. To do this the skin is excised and closed. This is what leaves the scar. The inscisisons for a minilift run in front of and behind the ear. They are hidden in natural folds to make them inconspicuous and as a result are not generally noticeable once healed

Plastic surgery scars require attention after surgery so that they remain cosmetically-appealing and barely noticeable. In our office, we use a protocol for scars that minimizes their activity in the 6-8 weeks after surgery. If you have late plastic surgery scars, you may also require laser and RF therapy to help reduce the longterm effects of the scarring. Keloids, hypertrophic scars, widened scars, red scars, and hyperpigmented scars all require scar modulation with topical creams followed by lasers and RF therapy. Topical skincare should be directed to a specific need, whether for pigmentation or hypertrophy and our office can guide you through the process to obtain the correct Plato’s Scar cream or Melarase cream for hypertrophy and discoloration. In terms of lasers, we would employ the vbeam laser for redness, Venus Viva RF, PRP microneedling, chemical peels, and Morpheus 8, fractional erbium, or fractional co2. All of these have their individual benefits. Most of all, we recommend you visit a solid plastic surgeon who understands surgical scar revision, laser therapy, and RF therapy for scars.

Best,
Dr. Karamanoukian
Realself100 Surgeon

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

The procedure to which you are referring involves incisions in front of the ear and down to the ear lobe.  All incisions leave scars. Whether it is called a MACS lift, a mini-lift, a weekend lift or J lift does not matter. The incisions are precisely placed in natural skin folds and behind the ear cartilage (tragus) so as to minimize visibility. This procedure is great for people looking to elinimate jowls and improve the jawline. As long as minimal tension is placed on the skin then your scarring should be minimal. If abundant excess skin and fat exist in the neck then this most often necessitates an incision that travels behind your ear and into your hairline. A consultation with a board certified surgeon will help you decide which procedure is best for you!

All facelifts require incision on front and behind the ear. The extend of these incisions vary according to the amount of skin laxity. A well performed facelift should leave minimal scar. Mini facelift has a shorter incision behind the ears. 

In order to do a facelift, the skin needs to be lifted up then the muscle below, called the SMAS is tightened. The extent of skin elevation and muscle manipulation is the difference between a mini and a more invasive facelift such as a Deep Plane facelift. In order to lift the skin and face, all require an incision in front of the ear. We usually go behind the rectangular cartilage in front of the ear canal called the tragus. What is variable is if the incision goes up the back of the ear and if it goes into the hairline above and behind the ear.

Mini Face/Neck lifts come in all sorts of procedures but quality work takes time. Hiding the incisions takes time and finesse. Even a full face/neck lift can be done under tumescent local anesthesia where there is  much less bruising, swelling and complications and cost roughly $8800 on special but still takes 6 hours. The incisions are hidden in front of, in the ear, and behind the ear. Cheap assembly-line facelifts done in 1-1.5 hrs are just that and are to be avoided at all costs. Quality work takes time. Sincerely, David Hansen,MD 

Any facelifting procedure, be it "mini" or not will require a scar at the lateral edge of the face where the excess skin is removed. This means an incision adjacent to the ear. The key is to make this scar minimally visible at social distances, and to individualize the procedure so as not to alter the hairline. If there is relatively more skin to remove, an incision that goes straight up into the hairline above the ear may result in the temporal hairline and sideburn shifting up and back. This change in the hairline looks unnatural, is a sign of surgery, and should be avoided. For patients with less skin to be removed, the incision can go up in the hair. If the incision is at the hairline, going along the sideburn and part way up along the temporal hair, the hairline will not be shifted, but the scar may be visible. The scar may be more or less visible depending on the skin type, but by beveling the incision through the fine hairs, hair may grow through it and be camouflaged.The scar in front of the ear can be made barely visible by following the curve of the ear cartilage where it joins the face, then going inside the ear (along the border of the tragus, the flap of cartilage that covers the ear canal), and then down and around the ear lobe in a natural crease, leaving a few millimeters of facial skin on the ear lobe. Doing this prevents the unnatural look where the ear lobe is sewn unnaturally back to to facial skin and looks pulled or unnaturally attached. All of these measures, plus not putting undue tension on the facelift skin flaps can result in a scar that is really not detectable at social distances. Doing this well takes skill, time and experience. A fast face lift, done to minimize the extent of surgery and the time and expense needed, makes paying attention to the details needed to minimize scar visibility and get optimal healing, less likely. Although scars are a necessary part of facial surgery, when done carefully, they should be acceptable and minimally visible.  Sometimes with laxity limited to the neck, an isolated neck procedure with scars only behind the ear will work, but more often than not, pulling laterally on the neck to smooth it out will cause bunching around the lower face, jaw and ear area. By having a scar in front of the ear, much more options are available to re-distribute loose skin and get a good result.

Scars from mini facelift can be done inside the ear and in this way they do not show. Make sure you see an experienced faceliftsurgeon for the best result.

Scarring is, unfortunately, an inevitable part of any type
of surgery. A scar will always result from an incision, not matter how large or
small. Rest assured, however, that scarring from a mini facelift is designed to
be shorter than that of a traditional facelift surgery. The goal of a mini
facelift, as with any cosmetic surgery, is to make a patient look and feel
better. A qualified, experienced surgeon will do their best to ensure that
scars of your mini facelift are hidden behind hair, ears, or crevices in your
skin so that they will be least visible to onlookers.