“I wanted to address an area of confusion not just with patients but amongst doctor with the plethora of these new Q-lifts and S-lifts and Z-lifts and corporate lifts and every kind of lift you can imagine, there is a lot of confusion out there about what is the difference between a normal facelift and a mini-lift or a neck lift and I really want to keep it simple and we do that in terms of thinking about it strategically the procedure is actually quite intricate and elegant if it’s done correctly and all of those are but by definition I just want people to understand because really it’s the nuances between them that make the big difference and the attention to details that make a great lift, whether it’s the neck or the face or a mini face, a really great lift.
By definition, and again older days there were lots of people coming in saying I had a full facelift which meant they had they’re eyelids and brow done in the entire lower face. For us, a mini life of the face is addressing from the jaw line up in to and including the temple area and you could reproduce this by looking at yourself in the mirror and simply lifting above the jaw line backward and upward, really that’s what a mini lift of the face does. So a mini-lift addresses above the jawline up to the lateral canthus and including the temporal area there in some cases, that’s a mini-lift for us of the face.
If we’re addressing the neck, what’s a neck lift? Well neck lift is similar but it’s below the jawline its addressing the redundant or loose skin under the neck that thicken bands there often under the neck called platysmal bands and then the extra fat that might be under the neck and if you want to see what that would look like, you can get in the mirror and pull your hands up underneath your jawline and that’s the effect of the neck lift.
There is two categories of patients that are good candidates for mini-lift of the face or a neck lift. There are typically younger patients who just had sort of accelerate aging of the neck or the face from sun damage or genetics or there are patients who are older who have already had a facelift of some variety and really need a touch up in that area either the neck or the face area.
If you put the two of those together, the mini-face and the neck lift together you now have a lower facelift or what was traditionally called a facelift, period. I’m real clear on calling it a lower facelift because of the confusion but a lower facelift really addresses from the temporal area including the jawline down to the clavicles.
So if you put a mini-lift together with a neck lift you have a lower facelift I think that describe it better you can also call it the cheek and neck lift there’s lots of ways to describe it more specifically and anatomically, but I wanted to clear up the confusion there.
Again most of these names or trademarked, putting your stamp on it types of lifts are just the individual surgeon’s nuances or variations on those three types of procedures for face-lifting.
If you have any other questions about facelifts, outcomes or you want to send me, pictures of profiles, side shot and frontal view I’m happy to address and even go over what you might look like at DrMaas.com, you can submit those photographs. I’m happy to answer questions and video or in writing on our video blog DrMaas.com and as always it’s my great pleasure to answer your questions and get you some information. This is Corey S. Maas MDTM on Looking Your Best.”
