Is A Lifestyle Lift Surgery?

Q: Can you tell me anything about the Lifestyle Lift? Their commercials look great but I am skeptical. What is it that they do, is it surgery and how long will the results last?

A: Just like hamburgers and coffee, facelifts today are also a franchise business. The Lifestyle Lift is the most well known due to their large national advertising efforts and having been around for over ten years. While it often is not obvious in their commercials and advertisements, it is surgery and it is all based on a variation of small facelift. The other thing that is not obvious for their advertising is that many of the patients have had more than just a Lifestyle Lift to get the results that are shown.

There are numerous types of what I call franchised forms of so-called quick recovery facial tuck-ups which aare well known versions of limited facelifts or jowl tuck-up procedures. There is nothing magical or necessarily unique about the underlying procedure. They are all scaled down versions of a more complete facelift or a neck-jowl lift. It can be very effective if done well and will get years of sustained improvement which will vary by a patient’s skin type and genetics. I suspect the results could last anywhere from 3 to 7 years depending upon where one starts and how well one ages. The more relevant question, however, is whether this type of facelift approach is right for you. The vast majority of unhappiness with these franchised named ‘mini-facelifts’ is that the patient wasn’t a good candidate for it. Their facial aging issues were more advanced and they should have had a fuller facelift to get the kind of result that they were expecting. Patients understandably are tempted to choose a facelift rejuvenation operation based on how it would be done (local or IV sedation), a short recovery and/or a low cost rather than choosing a facial rejuvenation procedure(s) that best suit their needs. Like all cookie-cutter approaches, it works well for some people but not for others. Like any consult with a plastic surgeon, be educated, do your homework, and get different opinions.