For most cosmetic surgical procedures, there are two variables that matter when it comes to consistent quality outcomes. Both of these variables are very important and I suggest patients focus on those two and skip the rest. The two variables are the patients candidacy for the procedure, and the second is the skill and experience of the provider. I suggest you try not to understand the difference between the various terminology or suppose advantages of each procedure. In reality and the hands of the right surgeon, you’ll get the right procedure with consistent quality, long-term outcomes and high patient satisfaction. To find the right provider, I suggest scheduling multiple in person, consultations with plastic surgeons in your community who seem to Specialize exclusively in facelift surgery and have at least 10 years but preferably 20 years of experience doing facelift. Look at providers websites to get an idea of which procedures they do a lot of. For example, if there are hundreds of pictures of tummy, tucks and breast documentations, and two or three facelift Then this is probably not the provider you’re looking for. Providers who have extensive experience with facelift surgery tend to be a little older. A lot of this has to do with the clientele seeking this procedure. Once you found a list of providers, who seem to really excel at this procedure or offer facelift exclusively schedule in person consultations. During each consultation, ask each provider to open up their portfolio and show you their entire collection of before, and after pictures of previous patients, who had similar facial characteristics to your own. Bring pictures of yourself to use as reference when reviewing before and after pictures. Take a look at how plastic surgeons take before and after pictures to get an idea of how facial pictures should be taken. We definitely need to see profile pictures as well as frontal pictures to make an assessment and you should have these as well. Highly experienced plastic surgeon will, in fact, have access to 100, or even thousands of before, and after pictures to choose from. Being shown a handful of pre-selected images, representing only the best results of a providers career may be insufficient to get a clear understanding of what average results look like in the hands of each provider, what your results are likely to look like or how many of these procedures they’ve actually done. This is a finesse procedure, and there is an enormous difference between those who have mastered facelift surgery versus those who do them once in a while. You’ll be reminded of the outcome every day when you look in the mirror for the rest of your life so please choose carefully. There isn’t much you can do about your own candidacy. What you do have control over is provider selection and that is the one single variable that’s going to determine , if you get a quality outcome or not. The name of the procedure is relatively unimportant. Each provider will have worked out what works for them without branding titles, gimmicks or other way of trying to market their practice. I generally tend to avoid anyone marketing, mini procedures, fast recovery procedures, or minimal scar procedures. I personally had a facelift in my late 40s and have zero regret. I also selected one of the world’s best facelift surgeons, and the experience turned out far better than I had anticipated. Quality facelift surgeons typically charge significant amounts of money for their procedures. There are no shortcuts when it comes to this. There are also plastic surgeons who truly aren’t that great who also charge a lot of money so price alone is not an indication of skill or experience. Very competent surgeons tend to be detail oriented usually spend a significant amount of time during consultations, and above all will typically present a collection of before, and after pictures that has what seems like an endless number of pictures to review. There’s no correct number of consultations needed to find the best provider. Considering the importance of provider selection, my recommendation is that patients should have at least five consultations before selecting a provider. I highly recommend against having virtual consultations, and generally do not recommend people travel long distance as for elective surgical procedures, though depending on where You live sometimes travel may be necessary. Best, Mats Hagstrom, MD