What is a Mini or Short Scar Facelift?
14th March 2011Facelift Surgery
Mr. Adrian Richards talks about the mini short scar facelift and how it differs from a normal facelift, scarring and results. For more information or should you wish to book a FREE Consultation with our specialist plastic surgeon, please call us on 01844 214362.
Transcript
What is a Mini or Short Scar Facelift?
Hello, my name’s Adrian Richards. I’m a plastic and cosmetic surgeon and Surgical Director of Aurora Clinics based here in the United Kingdom. In this very short video, I’m just going to be talking about short scar facelifts which are also known as mini-facelifts.
Now how does a mini-facelift differ from a normal facelift? Well, really it’s the incision. So, it’s the length of the incision which really makes all the difference. In a full facelift, you have an incision, the scar will be in the hairline normally. Perhaps a little bit in the temple, down in front of the ear, normally behind the nodule of the ear in females, in males normally in front of the nodule of the ear, which is called the tragus down to the ear. In a mini-facelift, the incision really ends there.
What a mini-facelift does is it really does that. It elevates the cheek and jaw area and a little bit of the neck. I don’t know if you can see it on me, just literally lifting that whole unit up there. So, if you do it on both sides, you can see it basically lifts upwards, like that. So, it repositions your cheeks, jaw line, in the position it was sort of eight years ago. So that’s a mini-facelift. There are lots of different types of mini-facelifts, and I’ll discuss those in a minute.
A full facelift is slightly different. A full facelift should really be called a face and neck lift. So, whereas a mini-facelift lifts here, I don’t know if you can see it, it does tighten the neck a little bit. But if you have much more laxity in this area, the central area of your neck, this mini-facelift tightens it a little bit, but it won’t really tighten this central area.
So, with people who’ve got excess skin here, what we do is a full facelift, which should really be called a face and neck lift. In that, the incision is like a mini-facelift but also goes up in the fold behind ear and back into the hairline. It does the same as a mini-facelift, in that it lifts this area. But, in addition, you also have a vector pulling back on the neck, so, pulling back this direction, here. A full facelift is used more with people if you have laxity in this area.
So, just to summarise it again, mini-facelifts are normally used when people are in their 40s, early 50s, probably to the age of 55 depending a little bit on you and how your neck and jowls are. It’s really just going to lift this area.
A full facelift, on the other hand, which should be called a face and neck lift, goes behind the neck as well. It is really used on people in their middle 50s and older when the central neck area starts becoming looser.
So I hope that’s clarified the issues. In the next series of videos, I’m going to be talking about the different types of short scar or mini-facelifts. In another video, subsequent one to that, I’m going to be talking about the different types of full facelifts. I hope this video has been helpful.
As I mentioned before, we’ve got lots more information on the website. Please look up our podcasts, which are the cosmetic surgical podcasts, and also the plastic surgery podcasts. Have a look at those on iTunes or our website. They provide lots of information in an audio format. We’ve also got lots of information on the website, before and after photographs on our website, which is aurora-clinics.co.uk. Thanks for watching, and I hope you enjoy the rest of the series of videos.