What is a Mini Facelift?

Around the age of 40, most people begin to realize that getting older can be a blessing as well as a curse. Sure, each trip around the sun may leave you more experienced, insightful, and confident, but it can also leave you with more fine lines, deeper wrinkles, looser skin, and flatter cheeks. 

That may be exactly why many of the middle-aged and older adults who come to see us here at Arizona Ocular & Facial Plastic Surgery say they no longer really identify with the face staring back from the mirror. While they still feel vibrant and energetic, their face makes them look as if they’re perpetually tired or past their prime.  

Luckily, ongoing advances in plastic surgery have made it easier than ever to reverse even the most prominent signs of aging, rejuvenate your appearance, and effectively reset the clock. 

Here’s how a mini facelift — the faster, easier, and less invasive version of a facelift — can help you look more like yourself in no time flat. 

The traditional facelift explained

A conventional facelift is widely regarded as the gold-standard treatment for overall facial rejuvenation because it effectively addresses virtually every prominent sign of facial aging in a single, all-inclusive procedure. 

To perform facelift surgery, we make incisions just behind your hairline that start at your temples, wrap down around the fronts of your ears (where they remain hidden in your natural contours), and continue along your hairline toward the nape of your neck. 

Through this relatively long and well-concealed incision, we’re able to separate your skin from underlying connective tissue and muscles, gently reposition your deeper soft tissues, get rid of excess facial fat, and create a firmer foundation for your skin. 

After your facial tissues are completely rejuvenated, and we’ve trimmed away excess dermal tissues, we carefully reposition your skin in a process that’s somewhat like straightening and smoothing a tablecloth over a table. 

On top of correcting loose facial skin, erasing fine lines, eliminating deep wrinkles, and smoothing out severe creases, a full facelift can also help correct jowls, redefine your chin, and get rid of saggy neck skin. 

Mini facelift, major value

As its name implies, a mini facelift is simply a less-invasive procedure designed to address milder signs of facial aging through shorter incisions and with less postsurgical downtime. 

As with a traditional facelift, the incisions used during a mini facelift start at your temples, continue down along your hairline, and either stop just above each ear or follow the natural creases around your ears. The incisions used in a mini facelift don’t extend behind your ears toward the nape of your neck. 

Through these shorter incisions, we can still reposition soft tissues and tighten supportive facial structures to correct minor jowls, redefine your chin, rejuvenate your jawline, smooth out your skin, and leave you looking fresh and revitalized. 

Because the incisions used in a mini facelift don’t extend along your hairline at the nape of your neck, however, the procedure can’t address excess skin and prominent creasing along your neck as effectively as a traditional facelift. 

As a less invasive procedure, a mini facelift comes with a shorter recovery time. While it can take a full month to recover from a traditional facelift, most mini facelift patients can resume normal activities in just one week. 

Fulfilling your cosmetic goals

You already know you want to address the most troublesome signs of aging you see in the mirror every day — in short, you want to look as good as you feel. But what does that mean?

Before you can fulfill your cosmetic goals, it’s important to define them. But even if you know exactly what you’d like to change about your face, having a comprehensive consultation and evaluation can help you recognize your cosmetic needs, clarify your goals, and set realistic expectations.

If you have a variety of cosmetic issues you’d like to address, a traditional facelift may be the best solution. This is particularly true if you have a lot of excess skin, poor skin elasticity, or other moderate-to-advanced signs of aging.  

If you only have a few minor problems to correct, however, you may be an ideal candidate for a mini facelift. Mini facelifts work best on people who still have relatively good skin texture, normal skin elasticity, and minimal excess skin.  

A mini facelift is an ideal way to correct early and unwelcome signs of aging before they become too pronounced, helping you postpone the need for more extensive surgery.   

If you’re ready to take years off your appearance, the team at Arizona Ocular & Facial Plastic Surgery can help. Call your nearest office in Scottsdale, Peoria, or Phoenix, Arizona today, or use the easy online tool to schedule a consultation with Dr. Heringer any time.