Is There Really Such a Thing as a Mini Facelift?

Everything is so much more charming when it’s miniaturized: a teeny-tiny Diet Coke can, the utterly impractical Jacquemus Le Chiquito bag. Or the “mini facelift”—the Baked by Melissa cupcake of plastic surgery, if you will. But how much can you actually downsize a procedure that involves scalpels and your face?

While mini facelifts aren’t a brand-new concept, they are gaining in popularity as more patients in their 40s, ready to move on from filler but not quite ready for a full-on facelift, ask about their options. A frequent answer: the mini facelift. It can be called by more technical-sounding monikers, including the limited-incision facelift or short-scar facelift, or even breezier ones, like the “weekend facelift.” (For the record, you will not, we repeat not, recover in one weekend from any facelift.) Whatever the name, the concept is certainly intriguing: a “junior” version of a facelift that’s easier on you, with a subtler result.

But when anything in the aesthetics world sounds too good to be true, we have questions. So we called six plastic surgeons to get every last one answered. Starting with: Is a mini facelift just good marketing of a major surgery?

Meet the experts:

• Adam Kolker, MD, is a board-certified plastic surgeon in New York City.

• Lyle Leipziger, MD, is a board-certified plastic surgeon in New York City.

• Josef Hadeed, MD, is a board-certified plastic surgeon in Beverly Hills.

• Jason Diamond, MD, is a double board-certified facial plastic surgeon in Beverly Hills.

• Peter Lee, MD, is a board-certified plastic surgeon in Los Angeles.

• Norman Rowe, MD, is a board-certified plastic surgeon in New York City.

In this story:

• Is there actually such a thing as a mini facelift?

• So, what is a mini facelift?

• Who is a candidate for a mini facelift?

• Can you combine a mini facelift with other procedures?

• Can you fake a mini facelift with Botox and fillers—a.k.a, a liquid lift?

• What about a thread lift?

• What are the risks of a mini facelift?

• What is the recovery time for a mini facelift?

• What is the cost of a mini facelift?

Is there actually such a thing as a mini facelift?

A facelift of any variety is always a big commitment. One could argue that’s especially true if you’re on the younger side (late 30s or 40s) and just want a little lifting and tightening from a mini facelift. We’re talking about relatively small changes for a procedure that requires moving your skin and tissue around.

But in short, yes. Mini facelifts do indeed exist. Just don’t let the word mini fool you. Because it’s also true that they require incisions that create scars (usually, these are hidden near the ear), and repositioning and redraping of deep facial tissue and skin. And you won’t exactly hop up off the operating room table right after and go out to dinner. You can expect to hunker down for about two weeks of swelling.

So, what is a mini facelift?

In the simplest terms, a mini facelift is a procedure for lifting mild to moderate sagging on the lower third of the face—the kind you get when you first start to notice a little bit of laxity along your jawline. While it’s true that there is less surgical work (e.g., repositioning of tissue) involved with a mini facelift than a traditional one, the mini is more like a little sister to the full-size version rather than a no-big-deal, weekend procedure.

In a full facelift, the surgeon might address facial sagging or jowls (on the cheeks or jaw), deep wrinkles (around the mouth), and laxity or excess fat along the jawline and on the neck all in one go. To do that, the surgeon will make an incision that begins at the hairline near the temple and follows it down around the ear and back into the hairline. In contrast, a mini facelift is concentrated on the lower third of the face and requires a shorter incision, usually just around the ears and at the hairline right above the ears, where sideburns might be. Done well, “the incisions are inconspicuous,” says Adam Kolker, MD, a board-certified plastic surgeon in New York City. (They should also be inconspicuous when surgeons start farther up in the hairline during a traditional facelift.)

There is no such thing as a one-size-fits-all mini facelift; each procedure is tweaked and fine-tuned for that specific patient. “Mini facelift is a catchall term. There isn’t one right way to do it,” explains Lyle Leipziger, MD, a board-certified plastic surgeon and chief of plastic surgery at North Shore University Hospital and LIJ Medical Center in New York City. “You’re evaluating the patient, understanding what the issues are: Is it neck muscle laxity causing wrinkling and sagging, or some jowling at the jawline to be tightened?”

But, as a general rule, in order to lift mild to moderate sagging on the lower face, jowl, or upper neck during a mini facelift, “the facial skin is lifted conservatively and the underlying inelastic deep tissue plane, known as SMAS, is repositioned,” says Dr. Kolker. In a good mini facelift, “the skin is redraped, gently and naturally taut, but never tight. Excess skin is trimmed, and the incisions are closed with fine sutures under no tension,” he explains.

The goal is a natural-looking smoothing of the jawline and, to some degree, the upper portion of the neck. A full facelift, on the other hand, gives more significant changes to the facial architecture, such as lifting the cheeks and jawline, sculpting the chin, and mitigating deep nasolabial folds. “Because the mini only addresses a certain part of the face, it’s not uncommon for people to come back after and want a full facelift,” says Josef Hadeed, MD, a board-certified plastic surgeon in Beverly Hills. Our experts say that patients usually come back for a second procedure about 10 to 15 years after the first.

And as you’ve probably guessed by now, if you’re looking for a procedure to tighten and tweak the upper third of your face, like your brows and eyes, this isn’t it. The mini facelift only addresses the jawline and upper neck. Blepharoplasty and brow lifts are for the eyes and brows, respectively, and are often combined with full or mini facelifts (more on that soon). You may have also heard of the “ponytail facelift” recently. While its branding also has a breezy, NBD vibe, it has little in common with the mini facelift. It takes place farther north, involving incisions along just the hairline (not around the ears) to pull the brows, forehead, and cheeks upward.

Who is a candidate for a mini facelift?

Because a mini facelift is “a conservative procedure—minor changes, little tweaks, small, delicate movements—it’s best for somebody who may have mild laxity to the jawline but not significant jowling and not any significant sagging in the neck,” says Jason Diamond, MD, a double board-certified facial plastic surgeon in Beverly Hills. “Somebody who has heavy lines around the mouth, jowls, or real laxity to the area under the chin,” he says, would be a candidate for “my more aggressive, yet delicate,” facelift, instead.

In his practice, mini facelift patients tend to be in their mid-40s, says Dr. Leipziger, and have decided they don’t want to continue with injectables. They may have certain areas they want to target, like mild laxity along the jawline, “that are not going to be amenable to minimally invasive treatments like fillers, skin-tightening lasers, or ultrasound,” he explains.

A facelift is not generally the first dip into the aesthetics world for these patients. “These days, nobody comes in asking for a facelift right away,” says Peter Lee, MD, a board-certified plastic surgeon in Los Angeles. “They usually have done something before that’s nonsurgical—neuromodulators, fillers, lasers. Some people like [the nonsurgical route] and will continue to do it, but for others, perhaps the result isn’t enough.”

People in their 30s who have taken Ozempic or Wegovy for weight loss are starting to ask about mini facelifts too, says Dr. Diamond. Losing a significant amount of weight (30 pounds or more) quickly can cause sagging and jowling that Dr. Diamond compares to what patients in their 60s might see just with age. So, a lot of people on Ozempic or Wegovy may be candidates for traditional facelifts instead of minis. But "it truly depends on their anatomy and how weight loss has affected their aging course,” he explains. “Some patients find weight loss significantly affects their face adversely, while others see minor changes.”

Can you combine a mini facelift with other procedures?

The short answer is yes. It’s not uncommon for patients to get a brow lift or blepharoplasty while they’re under anesthesia for a mini facelift, says Dr. Kolker. Some patients will also add neck liposuction to help define the chin since a mini facelift doesn’t pull tightly enough to resculpt the jawline. Of course, when you start adding on surgeries to get the results you want, a mini facelift doesn’t feel so mini anymore. For example, blepharoplasty is often followed by two to three weeks of bruising and swelling around the eyes, and patients wear supportive chin straps for a few days after getting lipo under the chin.

Can you fake a mini facelift with Botox and fillers—a.k.a., a liquid lift?

The short answer is no. You cannot lift the jawline in a natural-looking way using fillers or Botox. “Sometimes [people think] so much filler will give them the look of a facelift,” says Dr. Leipziger. “I tell patients, ‘You can’t have any more. This is going to start going in the wrong direction.’” That direction can look puffy, with unnaturally filled cheeks. “Their face is ballooned out and I’ll have to dissolve the filler ahead of time to see what their actual facial structure looks like,” explains Dr. Leipziger. “We need to do a facelift to get the correct result or you’ll look completely overdone.”

While judicious Botox can be used to temporarily lift the brows, Botox can really only address muscle laxity, not the skin laxity that occurs with age, says Norman Rowe, MD, a board-certified plastic surgeon in New York City. “After a certain point, surgery is the only thing that will work,” adds Dr. Rowe, who compares the way skin changes to an elastic band on a shirt that gradually stretches out and loses shape over time.

What about a thread lift?

Another popular procedure that claims to have similar results to a mini facelift is the thread lift, also called a lunchtime lift because it can be done in just about an hour. During the nonsurgical procedure, a provider places small surgical threads made of materials that can be absorbed by the body in a few months, including poly lactic-co-glycolic acid, polydioxanone, polyglycolic acid, and poly-L-lactic acid, under a patient’s skin. The threads are gently lifted or pulled tighter to raise and hold the underlying tissue.

Sounds ideal, right? A patient could just pop into their doctor’s office during lunch and emerge looking bright and youthful. Well, maybe. The thread lift has been somewhat controversial, in part, because of its short-term results: One study of 33 thread lift patients published in the journal Archives of Facial Plastic Surgery states, “Our results objectively demonstrate the poor long-term sustainability of the thread lift procedure. Given these findings, as well as the measurable risk of adverse events and patient discomfort, we cannot justify further use of this procedure for facial rejuvenation.” There’s also the fact that they can be done in medspas instead of by board-certified plastic surgeons.

“In my opinion, thread lifts produce limited, short-lived results,” says Dr. Leipziger. (About one to three years is typical.) “They are certainly not a replacement for a true surgical facelift that provides global facial enhancement with much greater longevity.” He doesn’t perform the procedure in his practice due to the short-term results and potential complications, including scarring, infection, and dimpling or puckering of the skin. “Threads may sometimes be visible under the skin and may even break if put under too much tension,” he explains. “This would result in loss of the lifting benefit and possible facial asymmetry. In addition, the tissue scarring caused by the thread lift may complicate future facelift surgery.”

What are the risks of a mini facelift?

They are not exactly mini. Actually, they are pretty much the same as the risks of a regular facelift. “There’s always a risk of infection and bleeding with surgery,” says Dr. Leipziger. And any time you’re getting an incision, you’re getting a scar. In the case of the mini facelift, those might be at the earlobe, behind the ear, and into the hairline, but the surgeon should make painstaking efforts that these are as undetectable as possible. “Any plastic surgeon should review risks [and give you a] complete description of the procedure,” says Dr. Leipziger.

Mini facelifts are often done under general anesthesia, the risks of which include anaphylaxis (a severe allergic reaction) and the very rare risk of accidental awareness (waking up while the operation is going on). However, they may also be done under intravenous (IV) sedation, which also carries risks, including anaphylaxis and hypertension. But a “desirable quality of an intravenous anesthetic is patients fall asleep very quickly after it is initially administered, ideally in less than a minute, and can wake up quite quickly after, minimizing time spent in the operating room and allowing them to ultimately be discharged from the postanesthesia care unit faster and in better condition,” says Dr. Lee. “One of the determining factors for some patients to undergo a mini facelift instead of a full facelift surgery is their desire to have the procedure performed under intravenous sedation instead of general anesthesia.”

What is the recovery time for a mini facelift?

The recovery period for a mini facelift is typically shorter than it is for a full facelift, by about a week or two. That’s because the incision is smaller, less deep tissue is repositioned, less skin is redraped, and less excess skin is removed. “After surgery, it’s not really painful; it's all about swelling,” explains Dr. Lee, who finds most of his patients take only oral narcotic pain medication for a day or two after surgery, then switch to Tylenol for two to three days, and then stop. “On average, after two weeks, about 70 to 80% of swelling goes down for the majority of patients. It’s not that obvious and they can go about their usual activities.” By comparison, the typical facelift recovery time includes about three to four weeks of swelling, with patients usually needing pain medication for about four to six days after the procedure. Dr. Leipzeiger takes a conservative approach with his recovery plan for mini facelift patients, cautioning no exertional exercise for about four to six weeks. “You can get on a treadmill lightly after a few weeks, but more for strolling,” he says.

What is the cost of a mini facelift?

Although the cost varies depending on your location and surgeon (you’ll probably pay more for a mini lift in Beverly Hills versus one in Minneapolis), you can expect a bill of about $12,000 to $20,000. It’s not all that much less than a full facelift, which could run about $20,000 to $26,000.

Want to read more about facelifts? Check out these article in Want a Lift?, Allure's series exploring the modern facelift:

• 13 People Get Real About Their Facelifts

• I’m 96 and I’ve Had 3 Facelifts — Here’s What I Learned

• What's the Ideal Age for a Facelift?

Now watch a video on how to remove calcium buildup from your hair:

Originally Appeared on Allure