Pleating in malar area a year after facelift. What options do I have to fix this? (Photo)

The reason this happened was because your skin was pulled too vertically. There are a number of ways to fix it. To me it appears the entire area of skin in the cheek and temple would need to be tailored better

Hello,

The presence of pleating in the malar area following a facelift can be an interesting occurrence. While pleating behind the ears typically resolves over time, pleating in the malar area may persist and require further discussion regarding resolution and potential revision.

It appears that the vector of skin pull might've been a little bit off as well as the fact that your surgeon did not excise enough of the skin (it looks like the skin excision stops at the base of your temporal tuft but for this amount of excess, you need to chase it up higher in the temple). A scar revision could help.

so these are more common with deep plane techniques, but we see them in all types of facelift.

The pleat forms where the surgical dissection stops and the normal tissue starts.

I've seen this a couple of times and the best way I've seen to correct, it is by making a small tunnel, incision from the hairline down and release the tissue above the pleat. It's not guaranteed to work first time but I've had success with this technique.

Hopefully that helps. If you have any other facelift questions, then I have a number videos on my YouTube channel Adam goodwin surgery that you might like to watch.

Best wishes, Adam, Goodwin.