A facelift is the ultimate surgical procedure for making a man or woman look younger. It is the standard to which all other facial rejuvenating procedures are compared.

A facelift involves an incision around the ear and sometimes under the chin. A facelift removes loose skin, thereby tightening the remaining skin. It elevates sagging tissues that cause nasolabial folds and marionette lines. It makes the outline of the jaw clearer and tightens the skin and muscles of the neck.

Facelifts are for both men and women. Candidates are individuals who have a sufficient amount of facial laxity to make the procedure worthwhile. Typical physical characteristics are visible neck muscles that are causing banding in the neck, laxity of skin or an excess of fat in the neck, a loss of the clear border along the jaw between face and neck, jowling, deep lines from the corner of the mouth to the jaw, and lines from the nose to the corners of the mouth. Low eyebrows are not treated with a facelift; those are fixed with a browlift. Extra skin and/or fat of the eyelids are treated with an eyelift procedure.

The most important factor to consider is whether a facelift does what you want it to do. A facelift tightens and lifts the face, but it does not fundamentally change elasticity. It does not remove fine lines or sunspots.

A nicely done study showed a portfolio of photographs of a group of patients before facelift and another portfolio of photographs to groups of observers. On average the facelift patients were judged to be nine to ten years younger!

A patient will always look better for the rest of their life than their imaginary identical twin that never had a facelift. It is not as if one day the result goes away and you look the same as if you never had one. Remember, gravity and normal aging occurs after the facelift has healed. In general, patients will develop enough laxity that repeating the facelift starts to become reasonable after seven to ten years later. The results last longer on a younger patient, but it is also true that by and large the woman getting a facelift younger will be more interested in repeating it at a shorter interval than an older woman.

A facelift is more about lifting than it is about removing wrinkles. By elevating and tightening, the wrinkles on the cheeks will be a little more stretched flat and will look better. But it will not effect anything in the chin and upper lip area. A facelift does not actually make any change in the skin itself. So some patients will also do a peel either at the same time or later.