What are Vampire Facelifts?

The term Vampire Facelift may conjure images of Dracula and blood thirsty vampires as seen in "Twilight" and " Vampire Diaries". Rest easy, the horror ends with the shows and movies. The Vampire Facelift is a non-invasive, regenerating restorative procedure that is performed to give you the “Vampire” effect. The term “Vampire” originates from a myth of being immortal and forever young. A vampire facelift regenerates and reinvigorates your skin and tissues to give you that refreshed appearance.

What is the difference between a Traditional Facelift and a Vampire Facelift?

The face and neck change with age.  Loss of collagen and muscle tone makes the skin thin and gives the face a flabby or drooping appearance. In some people prominent jowls cause a double chin and or a turkey neck.  The bones recede as the skin dries out and loses the underlying layer of fat.  The face therefore appears shrunken and gaunt as the eyes appear to sink in their sockets.

Facelift procedures using dermal fillers lift up sagging cheeks and drooping corners of the mouth and eyes. Dermal fillers have their limitations and carry risks of "over filling" and skin necrosis. With plastic surgery the flabby skin would be lifted, pulled back and tucked behind the ears. Besides creating scars, these procedures are expensive, invasive and create significant down time.

Today, facelifts have become the norm and the increasing demand for an inexpensive younger look with minimum to no down time has inspired physicians to figure out better and safer ways to achieve it. The best of these is the Vampire Facelift. You can pop into the office, get your facelift done and be out of there in an hour, and no one would be the wiser.

Despite all the advancements in medicine and technology, some facelifts are invasive to a point.

Vampire facelifts, alternatively, offer you the option of a non invasive facelift.

How is a Vampire Facelift done?

This is non-invasive office procedure wherein the physician uses the patient's own blood. An anesthetic cream is applied to numb the area. The blood is drawn from the arm just as it is done in the labs. It is then placed in a centrifuge. The centrifuge separates the platelets and the plasma from the red and white blood cells. One cc of a dermal filler is injected into targeted areas to create an immediate effect. The platelet rich plasma [PRP] is then injected into specific points of the face to create lifts and volume. The dermal filler can be avoided if desired.

The area treated may be a little sensitive or bruised for a short period of time. PRP rejuvenates the tissue over the next 5 to 12 weeks and peaks at around 5 months. It will then last for 9 to 18 months.

How does a Vampire Facelift help you look Younger?

PRP taken from the patient’s own body, is very rich in the different growth factors.

These act as a "fertilizer" for the existing stem cells in the different layers of the face and neck. PRP builds bone, tightens muscles, restores collagen and creates volume and new blood vessels. This results in plumped skin with less wrinkles, a younger appearance and a youthful glow. This is akin to natural rejuvenation, as the body heals itself using its own healing and rejuvenating properties.

Why are Doctors recommending Vampire Facelifts?

To better understand why PRP forms the foundation of health and beauty, consider your bed: if you get a surgical facelift, you get a tighter sheet. If you use PRP to make the skin healthier, you get a new sheet (outer skin), a new mattress (deeper skin) and new box springs (fatty tissue and bone).

Platelet Rich Plasma naturally fills out the desired areas, tightens the skin, and smoothens the wrinkles out. Doctors believe that using the blood from the patient’s own body as a filler is safer and healthier than using a foreign substance. PRP has been safe and effective for tissue repair for over a decade now in dental and vetinerary procedures, and therefore is a treatment that has been tried and tested.

Vampire facelifts are increasingly becoming the choice for many men and women.

Inner and Outer Beauty

The adage ‘True beauty lies within’ is accepted worldwide; but this does not preclude the fact that those who are out of step with perceived norms, do not aspire to an outer appearance of being beautiful. To prove this point, there are a million beauty products sold daily. The amount of research and development being carried out, for cosmetic products and techniques, rivals the research being done for medicines. And why not? People like looking good; they like looking young. If there is a way to achieve it, most people would probably take it.

As you age, there comes a point where exercise and a good diet are not enough. True, they help your body stay in shape and keep you healthy, but they do not keep the wrinkles away. Wrinkles, spots, fine lines are some of the banes of all women. You could have the vivacity and the health of a teenager, but those lines say otherwise. With a little help from a cosmetologist, you can look the way you feel - young!

According to the American Society of Plastic Surgeons (ASPS), 14.6 million cosmetic plastic surgery procedures, including both minimally-invasive and surgical and 5.6 million reconstructive plastic surgery procedures are performed in the United States, annually.

That says it all!

What is a Facelift?

Cosmetology is as old as time itself. According to historians, cosmetology was being performed in the times of Cleopatra. Over the last few decades, there has been a quantum leap in products and procedures that work to retain the “forever young” look. One of the most popular options is facelifts. As you age, you will find that some parts of the skin on your face tend to sag. This includes the cheeks, and the corners of the mouth and eyes.

Try this Experiment:

Stand in front of a mirror. Place your index fingers at the corners of your eyes. Place your middle fingers at either end, on the corners of the mouth. Now lift the skin up gently, just a tiny bit. Isn’t the difference in your face startling? Just those two tiny lifts can make you look ten years younger. What you just did, is the basis of a facelift. A cosmetologist will determine which areas of your face need a little lift to counter the flaccidity and where to smoothen the lines out.

Earlier, this was only possible with invasive surgery and hence the term ‘going under the knife’. Once a upon a time, facelifts were for the rich and famous, as they were prohibitively expensive and the patient needed to stay out of sight for months together, till their scars healed.

With advancement in technology, almost all facelifts are now non-invasive and it is an outpatient procedure. Since it is almost non invasive, the time taken for healing is much faster and the risks involved are negligible.

Look Young, Feel Younger

Many people frown upon cosmetology as going against nature. These same people use a variety of products, including moisturizers, sunscreens, products to prevent hair fall, and products to counter acne etc. All these beauty products are meant to enhance outer appearances of a person. Going a step further and using cosmetology to enhance how you look is no different. When you look good, you feel good. You are motivated to take on life and live it to the fullest. Looking younger makes you feel younger, and this helps you stay active and fit and independent much longer.

At this moment in time, you don’t have to be rich and famous to look good. You can choose to be the beautiful boy/girl next door, with cosmetology at your service!