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Getting a facelift can be exciting. You’re going to have a more youthful, vibrant, bright, contoured look to your face. Not only are you now looking ten years younger, but you know you’ll be able to enjoy the results for years to come.

It’s important to note, however, that a facelift doesn’t stop time altogether. While you’ll look younger for years after your procedure, you’ll still continue to age.

The good news is that there are several things you can do to prolong your facelift results and postpone the time when you might need to consider a second procedure.

You know you are in the hands of an outstanding plastic surgeon who’s extremely well trained and experienced. But you’re probably curious about what to expect during the recovery and what you can do to get the best results in the future and in the shortest amount of time.

To get the most out of your facelift, make your recovery faster, and prolong the benefits, keep reading!

Prepare for After Your Surgery

While you will arrange for some help around the house in the initial day or two of your recovery, your additional preparation before the day of your surgery should include:

Stock up with healthy groceries:

Get clothing ready:

Prepare your resting space:

Essential items to keep nearby:

After Facial Cosmetic Surgery

Minimize Swelling and Bleeding

Unfortunately, the swelling and bruising that follow a facelift tend to get worse before the healing begins. To ease the discomfort, try these remedies:

Take Care of Your Sutures

Wash your suture lines gently twice a day with baby shampoo.

Cleanse and Moisturize

Once the bandages have been removed, gently wash your incisions with soap and water three times a day, using a mild antibacterial cleanser to prevent bacteria build-up.

Your surgeon may have also provided an antibiotic ointment. Follow his advice on how best to use it.

Be sure to moisturize to reduce scarring, making sure your skin and the incisions never feel dry.

Go Easy on the Makeup

You might need to wait two or three weeks for the bruising and swelling to have subsided and be sure you have no open wounds before applying any makeup.

Eat a Healthy Diet

Focus on eating fresh whole foods cooked at home. Omega-3 fatty acids, like those found in fatty fish, can reduce inflammation and are an excellent source of Vitamin E. Not only can they help keep skin supple and moisturized, but the zinc also found in fatty fish can aid in healing.

Protein is essential for scar recovery, and the best options are lean meats, fish, and beans.

Make sure you drink enough water.

Go Easy on the Exercise

Wait for at least two weeks after your surgery before starting any strenuous activity and start slowly.

Avoid straining or lifting as this can lead to bleeding and excessive scar formation.

Skip the Sun

Not only does the sun damage the skin in general, but vulnerable incision lines and scars are even more at risk. Wear a hat and use a strong 30+ SPF sunscreen even on days you don’t plan to be outdoors.

Avoid Smoking

Starting to smoke again after your facelift can speed up the aging process and shorten the duration of your results. Smoking interferes with healing and how your face will look after surgery.

Make Skincare a Priority

It’s essential to continue with your skincare routine after your facelift since keeping your skin exfoliated and moisturized will help keep it looking youthful for longer.

Touch-Up Your Results with Injectables

Routine treatments with cosmetic injectables are a part of many facelift patients’ post-op regimens and help them to extend the life of their facelift results. Botox and dermal fillers can fill in lines and wrinkles that form on the skin over the years after a facelift.

How To Get the Best Results – Summary

Following post-operative instructions, using sunscreen regularly, and living a healthy lifestyle is essential for your plastic surgery outcomes and for your overall well-being.

Dr. David Kim and Dr. Eugene Kim at Beverly Hills Plastic Surgery have developed an impeccable reputation for producing stunning cosmetic surgery results. Contact our practice today at (310) 746-5475 or send an online request to schedule a consultation.


If you’ve committed to losing weight this year, that’s great!

We recommend a slow and steady approach of shifting to healthier foods that you enjoy, in smaller portions, paired with a regular and sustainable routine of increased physical activity. The combination of fewer calories in and more calories burned, accomplished by adopting a set of habits that become second nature to you, can be the key to losing weight and keeping it off. Beyond that, it’s all about what works for you.

But have you thought about what you’ll do after you lose the weight?

Body Contouring

If you’re lucky, your weight will come off in all the right places and you’ll be delighted with your slimmer body contours. But weight loss doesn’t always work that way. Many people are left with stubborn pockets of fat that are resistant to diet and exercise. Those might be around your waist, on your arms or thighs, or under your chin. Wherever the last bulges of fat persist, there are ways to get rid of them without going to extremes in dieting or at the gym.

Once you’re close to your weight goal — within about 10 or 15 pounds of your ideal weight — you might think about a body-contouring procedure to put the finishing touches on your self-improvement efforts. These procedures reduce unwanted pockets of fat on specific areas of your body in ways that eliminate those fat cells forever. They aren’t weight-loss treatments, but they make great complements to weight loss through healthy eating and exercise.

Breast Surgery

Weight loss can sometimes affect a woman’s breasts in ways that are less than desirable. Stretched breast skin can sag when the fat is gone, or your breasts can lose more volume than you would prefer.

Mommy Makeover

A mommy makeover combines procedures—typically a tummy tuck, breast surgery, and liposuction—to restore a more attractive, younger-looking figure. A mommy makeover can provide the finishing transformation after successful weight loss to give you the body you want.

Facial Rejuvenation

As you get your body in beautiful shape, you might consider treatments to make your face look younger, too. You have many options for facial rejuvenation, including:

Learn More About Body Contouring and Other Rejuvenating Treatments in Beverly Hills

Find out more about the possibilities of cosmetic treatment in a personal consultation. Dr. David Kim and Dr. Eugene Kim at Beverly Hills Plastic Surgery have developed an impeccable reputation for stunning, natural-looking cosmetic treatment and plastic surgery results, attracting patients from all over the world. Contact our practice today at (310) 746-5475 or send an online request to schedule an appointment.

Facelift techniques have advanced dramatically in recent years to produce subtle and natural-looking results. A facelift can reverse signs of aging like jowls, sagging skin in the midface, and deep creases below the eyes and at the corners of the mouth. The results are a smoother, younger-looking face with a more defined jawline. Many patients also choose to combine their facelift with another procedure.

By combining plastic surgery procedures, you can achieve your ideal look faster and with a single recovery period. A skilled and experienced plastic surgeon can combine procedures to give you a naturally younger and fresher appearance, as well as bring your facial features into better harmony.

Here are a few recommended procedures that can greatly complement your facelift results.

Brow Lift

A facelift corrects the effects of aging in the middle and lower part of the face — below your eyes. A brow lift, or forehead lift, restores a younger look to the upper part of the face. It subtly raises droopy eyebrows for a more alert look. It also smooths the lines and furrows on the forehead and between the eyebrows that can make a person appear angry, sad, or tired.

By combining a facelift with a brow lift, you’ll get a more complete refresh of your face without additional recovery time. You’ll look younger, more relaxed, and more alert.

Eyelid Surgery

The other upper-face procedure that is commonly combined with a facelift is eyelid surgery. The same aging process that causes the skin on the lower face and around the jaws to stretch and sag can cause the eyelids to droop, giving you a sleepy and prematurely aged appearance.

Upper eyelid surgery can make the eyes appear brighter, younger, and more attentive, and can remove fatty deposits from the lids that make them heavy and difficult to raise fully. Lower eyelid surgery lifts drooping lower lids and reduces the puffy appearance caused by fat buildup below the eyes.

Combining a facelift with eyelid surgery shifts the focus of your face from loose, hanging skin around your jawline to brighter, more beautiful, and alert eyes.

Nose Surgery or Rhinoplasty

Nose surgery or rhinoplasty can also be performed in combination with a facelift. As the central feature of the face, the nose defines your appearance in important ways. Nose surgery can change the size or shape of the nose in many ways and is a highly customized procedure. It can change the shape of the tip of your nose, modify the bridge of your nose, narrow the span between your nostrils, and even change the angle between the nose and the upper lip.

Rhinoplasty can be performed to make subtle changes that keep your nose in harmony with your rejuvenated face after a facelift. Or it can be done to make more significant changes to your nose to bring it into better balance with your other facial features.

Learn More in a Personal Consultation

For any cosmetic procedure, it’s essential to choose a plastic surgeon with extensive experience in the operations you’re considering. That’s especially true with facial procedures, which require particularly precise technique, and for combined procedures.

Dr. David Kim and Dr. Eugene Kim at Beverly Hills Plastic Surgery have developed an impeccable reputation for stunning, natural-looking cosmetic treatment and plastic surgery results, attracting patients from all over the world. Contact our practice today at (310) 746-5475 or send an online request to schedule a consultation.

Facelift surgery has been around for more than 100 years, and with each generation, the results have grown subtler and more natural-looking. The “windswept” look of facelifts past has fallen out of favor, replaced by today’s naturally youthful look — done with such artistry that friends and family members who aren’t in the know often can’t tell what gives your face that new sparkle.

Early Facelifts

Medical historians believe surgeons developed and performed the first facelift between 1901 and 1906, though records are incomplete. From what we can tell, these early facelifts were simple skin excisions: A doctor removed a strip of skin at the edge of the face and pulled the remaining skin tighter to reduce sagging and wrinkles. Advances in reconstructive surgery during World War I pushed the procedure a few steps forward. Facelift surgeons in the 1920s separated the skin from the underlying layer of fat before tightening it, preserving facial volume, and giving somewhat better results. Doctors also refined the placement of incisions to make scarring less visible.

Improvements in the 1960s, ‘70s, and ‘80s

The next significant improvements in facelift surgery came in the 1960s and ‘70s when pioneering surgeons began to sculpt the facial tissue below the skin as part of the procedure. At first, in the 1960s, they modified the volume of the fat just beneath the skin. Over time, they began to go deeper, until, by the late 1970s, some began to work on the superficial musculoaponeurotic system (SMAS), which includes the muscles and connective tissue that cover the bones of the face. This milestone marked the first significant change in facelift surgery in 70 years.

By the 1980s, the most advanced plastic surgeons were approaching facelifts from the inside out — lifting and reshaping the underlying facial muscles to provide a younger-looking structure for the smoothed skin on the surface. They also introduced new methods to reshape fat and tighten skin along the jawline for a more complete effect.

This shift to include the underlying SMAS in facelift surgery marked a distinct turning point in facelift results. Skin-only facelifts had required extra tautness, and the stretched results were sometimes all too obvious. Reshaping the foundational musculature of the face required surgeons to remove less skin to provide lift and remove wrinkles. So the results were both more natural-looking and longer-lasting.

Today’s Deep Plane and Volumetric Facelifts

The best plastic surgeons today still resculpt the underlying SMAS as part of a full facelift procedure. They also go even deeper to release the SMAS from the ligaments below them and elevate the facial tissue by resuspending it slightly higher on the face. This “deep-plane” technique gives a naturally younger look to the face, restoring contours that have fallen with age.

Today’s plastic surgeons have other techniques in their toolkits, too, to add volume to areas of the face that have started to sag or become hollow and gaunt-looking. It’s a natural effect of aging to lose volume in our cheeks, for example, or under our eyes. The fullness and softness of our younger faces tend to thin and drift down as we grow older. So the plump cheeks we had at age 18 can become drooping jowls or a hanging chin in our 50s. Today, a facelift can correct these volume changes by including fat transplants or dermal fillers.

The best surgeons now customize your facelift by combining the latest surgical techniques with volumetric procedures to produce subtly beautiful results. And with advances to minimize incisions, reduce bruising, and promote faster recovery, you’ll be able to show off your results without as much downtime.

Learn How Today’s Facelift Can Make You Look Years Younger

Dr. David Kim at Beverly Hills Plastic Surgery has developed an impeccable reputation for stunning, natural-looking facelift results. Contact our practice today at (310) 746-5475 or send an online request to schedule a consultation.