Vertical facelift: can i get the same result from pulling my skin up from the temple?

An incision that is totally in the temporal region is generally used for lifting the lateral part of the brow or forehead.  In my opinion, one cannot get any demonstrable improvement in the mid and lower part of the face with a temporal incision alone.  
A facelift incision that starts in the front of the earlobe, goes along the front of the ear, and up into the temporal region can be used in patients with minimal laxity of the face.  This is often called a mini-lift or an S-lift.  The incision going along the front of the ear should heal very nicely and is usually imperceptible
The incision for the traditional facelift has a component that goes behind the ear in addition to the areas described for the S-lift.  With this type of incision, the full face and neck can be corrected.

A few years back much hay was made about the "vertical vector" in facelifting. This was referring to the vector of pull on the SMAS and underneath structures and not the skin.You can certainly lift the temple area by tightening the skin is this area but that's about all it does-lift the temple an maybe the lateral brow. If one is trying to rejuvenate the mid-face, jaw, neck or brow, make another choice. I think the truly vertical vector facelift ended with the mid-face lift through the lower eyelid incision; otherwise known as the vertical cheek lift. Facelifting terminology is confusing at best, and for the most part inaccurate. Operations do not rejuvenate faces, plastic surgeons do.