If you’re bothered by signs of facial aging, you may wonder which treatment, or combination of treatments, will be most effective in helping to restore your younger, more attractive look. Let’s explore two popular facial rejuvenation options in this article: facial fat grafting and a facelift.

What is involved in facial fat grafting and a facelift? How can each treatment improve your appearance? The answer to both of those questions can help you understand the differences between the two treatments, when each procedure can be an effective cosmetic solution, and which might be the right option.

What Is Facial Fat Grafting?

Facial fat grafting, also known as facial fat transfer, is a combination of two procedures: liposuction to remove fat from a part of your body where a slimming effect is desired, and facial fat grafting to transfer some of the harvested fat to areas of your face where more volume is desired.

What cosmetic improvements can facial fat grafting make?

One of the unwanted effects of aging is the loss of facial fat in the cheeks, under the eyes, temples, and in the lips. Where you once had rounded cheeks, they can become flat or hollowed. When you once had plump, smooth lips, they can become thin and lined. Dark hollows can develop under your eyes. Facial fat grafting corrects these problems by restoring volume where it has been lost. The procedure can even add facial fat to areas that have always been thin or weak-looking to resculpt your face for a more attractive appearance.

Facial fat grafting can also fill and smooth facial lines and wrinkles to some extent in the same way dermal filler injections do but with longer-lasting results.

Facial fat grafting/fat transfer offers another significant benefit, as well, by removing fat from places where you want to sculpt with liposuction. That can include pockets of fat in the abdomen, hips, thighs, upper arms, or the submental fat that can accumulate below the chin.

While facial fat grafting/fat transfer can improve skin vitality and resilience and may have minor skin-tightening effects, it is not designed to correct loose or sagging facial skin or eliminate excessive wrinkles.

What Is a Facelift?

A facelift is a procedure to tighten and smooth sagging and wrinkled skin on the face and reposition underlying muscles and connective tissues that have weakened or shifted downward. This combination of skin tightening and structural re-sculpting is known as a deep plane SMAS composite facelift, which creates beautiful, natural-looking results.  Dr. Spiro is an expert in deep plane facelifts in New Jersey. 

What cosmetic improvements can a facelift make?

The facelift is considered the gold standard of facial rejuvenation procedures and is the option of choice when moderate to advanced skin laxity is a concern. No non-surgical or less-invasive surgical treatment can correct loosened sagging skin as effectively as a facelift.

A facelift can also remove facial fat that has been stretched and pulled by gravity to form jowls or a double chin and use it to add volume to your cheeks or lips or to fill hollows under your eyes, to enhance the procedure’s rejuvenating effects. This is very similar to the kind of fat reposition done in facial fat grafting/fat transfer; however, in a facelift, it is performed as an addition to the primary procedure of tightening and smoothing loose skin and resculpting the face’s underlying structural tissue.

What Are the Differences and Similarities Between Facial Fat Grafting and a Facelift?

• • Both facial fat grafting/fat transfer and facelifts are surgical procedures to make the face look youthful and more balanced.

• • Facial fat grafting makes cosmetic improvements by adding volume where it has been lost or where more volume is wanted, which a facelift can also do.

• • Facial fat grafting involves liposuction to remove fat from another part of the body, so it offers added body contouring benefits that a facelift does not.

• • A facelift smooths and tightens facial skin that has loosened, sagged, and wrinkled. It does this by using small incisions concealed along the hairline to remove excess skin. Facial fat grafting/fat transfer does not remove excess skin or correct moderate to advanced skin laxity.

Can Facial Fat Grafting and a Facelift Be Performed as a Combined Procedure?

Yes. Some facial fat repositioning is typically included in a facelift. If you want additional volume enhancement beyond what can be obtained by moving fat from below the chin, a facelift can be combined with liposuction on another part of the body and fat grafting/fat transfer to add some of that fat to the face in the key locations like the jawline, cheeks, lips, temples, and under-eye hollows. See Dr. Spiro’s results for deep plane facelift and neck lifts and facial fat grafting.

Either facial fat grafting or a facelift can also be combined with other surgical procedures, such as brow lift or eyelid surgery (blepharoplasty), or with non-surgical treatments, such as a chemical peel or microneedling, to even your skin’s coloring and improve its brightness and texture.

Choose a Plastic Surgeon Who Creates Beautifully Natural Results

Scott Spiro, MD, FACS, one of New Jersey’s premiere board-certified plastic surgeons with an artistic flair, has years of experience performing liposuction, fat grafting, and facial plastic surgery using deep-plane SMAS techniques. He is regularly cited as a “top doctor” or “best surgeon” in national and New Jersey ratings. The before and after galleries of his facial fat grafting and facelift patients show his care and artistry in creating beautifully natural results.

Schedule Your Consultation with Dr. Spiro

Discover which facial treatment is right for you and whether Dr. Spiro is the plastic surgeon to guide you on your facial rejuvenation journey. Contact Spiro Plastic Surgery online or call (973) 736-5907 to schedule a consultation at Spiro Plastic Surgery in New Jersey serving Essex County and beyond.