When you notice your skin sagging around your jowls and neck, you may start thinking about a facelift, also called a rhytidectomy. But if you’ve been turned off by poorly done celebrity lifts, you may be reluctant to consult a plastic surgeon. The last thing you want is an unnaturally tight, mask-like face.
The good news is, beautifully done facelifts are all around Hollywood and probably all around you, too. You just don’t notice them because they look so natural you think that someone’s found the fountain of youth. Or were just born with great genes.
Dr. Yaqub Baraki, a highly-skilled cosmetic surgeon at Lansdowne Aesthetic Center, specializes in creating facelifts that turn back the clock about 10 years while giving you a look that’s natural and refreshed. Women and men in Leesburg and Ashburn, Virginia, as well as other areas all over the globe, come to Dr. Baraki for his aesthetic and surgical expertise in using the minimally invasive short scar (S-lift) technique combined with a superficial muscular aponeurotic sheath (SMAS) lift.
To address the signs of aging that concern you and to create a beautiful, natural-looking facelift, Dr. Baraki does more than merely lift your skin.
Skin droops on your face because the underlying structures that support it have atrophied due to age. Your bone density actually decreases as you get older, leaving you with a skull that’s slightly smaller than it was in your younger days. Plumping muscle and fat also diminish with time, and your body stops making as much of the essential building components of your skin: collagen and elastin.
A beautiful facelift addresses and rectifies as many of these factors as possible. That’s why lifting the skin by itself is not enough.
The SMAS layer lies between the muscle and fat in your face. Dr. Baraki separates your skin from the SMAS layer and then repositions the layer higher on your face. He redrapes the skin over the corrected SMAS layer for a more youthful, uplifted look.
Lifting the SMAS layer in addition to lifting skin is one of the reasons Dr. Baraki’s facelifts seem so natural. The repositioned SMAS lends your skin much-needed support and also gives your lifted skin depth and volume, rather than looking like it’s been stretched directly over your bone.
By the time you need a facelift, you usually need a neck-lift, too. Dr. Baraki almost always lifts the neck as part of his S-lift procedure. Before lifting and redraping your neck skin, he performs a procedure called a platysmaplasty, in which he tightens your neck muscles.
If you have excess fat underneath your chin that’s causing a double chin or a turkey waddle, Dr. Baraki removes it with a tumescent liposuction procedure using mini cannulas for fine and uniform results. He then redrapes and tightens your skin, and trims away the excess.
The S-lift procedure gets its name because it relies on small incisions that are hidden behind the crease of your ears. The neck-lift and platysmaplasty leave a barely-visible scar under your chin. The appearance of your scars can be improved with microneedling and lasers, too, if you wish.
As with most anti-aging procedures, the way to get the most amazing results is to create the most amazing skin quality possible. To ramp-up your skin’s production of youth-giving collagen and elastin, Dr. Baraki can combine a facelift with laser rejuvenation.
To replace some of the volume of your skin that’s lost to age, Dr. Baraki may also recommend fillers. You can choose from hyaluronic-acid based fillers, such as Juvederm, or opt for an autologous fat graft.
Your perfect and natural facelift starts with a consultation. Dr. Baraki bases your facelift procedure on your unique anatomy, facial proportions, and needs. Contact Lansdowne Aesthetic Center by phone or online form to set up a facelift appointment.
