Linda,
Thanks for your question regarding the “liquid facelift”. That term describes using fillers (restylane, juvederm, radiesse) to lift the face by adding lost volume back. I believe the term was originally used by the Sculptra company. In my opinion, it is just like many other catch phrases in this field. It tries to get the consumer to buy into something that is not what the name implies. Fillers can be very useful to rejuvenate the face and we utilize them frequently, however it is hardly a facelift. In fact when you get into the type of volume that it requires to fully restore an aged face it no longer makes financial sense to use a syringe based filler that will be gone in 9-18 months. At that point we redirect our patients to autologous fat transfer procedures. Fat transfer allows much larger volumes to be placed in a natural way to rejuvenate the face, but the fat will last years and not months. Also, neither of those procedures is really a facelift. A facelift is intended to restore the jawline and neck, which neither syringe fillers or fat are very good at. It still requires a surgical procedure, although at times minimally invasive, to restore the jawline and neck. Our website has a great many examples of these procedures and more. Please take some time to look around and feel free to contact us with any further questions.
Ed Buckingham
