Liquid Face Lifts in Beverly Hills or Facial Fat Grafting

Liquid face lift is a term that I’ve heard used commonly in Beverly Hills.  However, it is somewhat misleading. It implies that tissue are lifted, or re suspended. What a liquid face lift really does is address one of four components of an aging face: volume. An aging face is marked mainly by wrinkles, (or rhytids), skin color and pore size changes, descent of soft tissues, and volume loss. A traditional face lift addresses tissue descent with repositioning of soft tissue like the SMAS (layer under skin), redrapes the skin, and can also be combined with facial fat grafting (as I do), or mild acid peels in certain safe areas of the face to address skin quality. If volume loss is the only issue and wrinkles are mild, a liquid face lift using botox for wrinkles and juvederm, restylane, or radiesse for volume in certain regions like under eyes, jawline, or laugh lines can takes years off someone. For more drastic volume changes, one should consider facial fat grafting where a substantially larger volume of fat can be injected into the face. I do fat grafting and Juvederm and Botox in the office. Downtime is small and results are big.  The most important consideration in managing facial aging is making the right diagnosis: wrinkles, descent, skin changes, and volume loss are critical components that must be evaluated.  Other less obvious signs of aging include receding hairline (yes, in women too), elongation of ear lobes (easy fix), descent and wideneing of nose, loss of brow and eyelashes, and elongation of upper lip with concomittant drop or descent of lower lip.  An unpleasing ”patch work” result is obtained when improper diagnosis are made and/or some of the most critical components of aging are ignored.