Increasing numbers of young women between 35 and 40 years of age are having cosmetic surgery, according to Professor Laurence Kirwan.
Professor Kirwan, who has practices in Harley Street London and New York, appeared on BBC Breakfast during the PIP breast implant scandal and wrote in the Mail on Sunday last week about how cosmetic surgery can make you live longer.
He says he has seen a 5% increase in women between 35 and 40 years of age having cosmetic surgery every single year for 5 years.
Young women are largely opting to have ‘liquid lifts’, according to Professor Kirwan.
These injections of facial fillers – usually hyaluronic acid, a gel-like substance that occurs naturally in the skin and helps it retain moisture – plump cheeks and lift up sagging jowls. This treatment, combined with Botox, interferes with nerve transmission, freezing the muscles to lift drooping brows.
Younger women are tending to opt for the short-scar facelift (SSFL) – the same type Louise Mensch is suspected to have had. The SSFL sees the skin pulled upwards and re-draped over the bony structures of the face. Fat pads that have dropped with ageing are restored to their proper place.
This is new, unintrusive and really has only a maximum two week down time, costs around £10,000 and last for 10 years.
“This is a miracle treatment for many young women wanting to cut off the effects of ageing at the pass,” says Professor Kirwan. “They don’t want to wait until they look older. They strike in advance. It is the perfect choice for those seeking to turn back the clock. It redefines the lower face, jawline and upper neck. It lifts the mid-face and the only visible sign it leaves is a 0.4in scar tucked into the crease where the ear joins the cheek. The rest of the incisions are hidden in the hairline and the back of the ear.”
Mini-facelifts, such as the one-stitch facelift, also attract younger women and cost approximately £2,000 but lasts only 1 year. Professor Kirwan performs this 30-minute procedure under local anaesthetic. It involves a semi-circle of skin being removed at the hairline at the top of the ear, the skin and tissues over the cheeks are pulled up as the wound is stitched together. Scars are hidden in the hairline.
In these distressing and troublesome times, the procedure acts as a ‘refresh’ with no one having a clue that you have anything done whatsoever.
Professor Kirwan continues: “Surgical techniques have become significantly more refined in the past decade and the surgery is tailored to the individual while retaining a very natural result.”
Professor Kirwan, a member of the British Association of Aesthetic Plastic Surgeons, has seen demand rise by 250% in two years and the facelift is now one of the top three procedures he offers.
New figures released by the British Association of Aesthetic Plastic Surgeons show that demand for surgical facelifts performed by the organisation’s members rose by 4.7 per cent to 4,700 in 2011.
Professor Kirwan says: “The growing acceptance of Botox and fillers by women under 30 has made the step-up to cosmetic surgery much less scary.”
Infact, it’s younger women recommending cosmetic procedures to their friends that have grown the category of younger women opting for cosmetic surgery. “If it’s the done thing in the young social circle and the results are fantastic, then this is playing a major part in why so many younger women are opting for cosmetic procedures,” says Professor Kirwan.
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