The (Secret) New Anti-Aging Trend for Men
- Posted on: Sep 6 2016
“The neck is a dead giveaway of age,” screenwriter Nora Ephron says in her introductory essay to I Feel Bad About My Neck, and Other Thoughts on Being a Woman. “Our faces are lies and our necks are the truth.” But plastic surgery is a game-changer — and not just for women. Like many plastic surgeons, I see an increasing number of men in my practice. In fact, males make up nearly one-third of all plastic surgery patients. (Surprised?)
But perhaps you’ve noticed that some men still stigmatize plastic surgery as “vain” or only for women. In more than twenty years of practice, I’ve found that men often want the same procedures women do, and for similar reasons. Many of them simply didn’t consider plastic surgery as an option, until they witnessed other people (usually women and usually their significant other) who benefitted from it. Men also tend to be discreet about having plastic surgery, much more so than women. They don’t want to look like they’ve had work done (who does?) — they want to look like them. So I make sure to customize all face and neck surgery to preserve the natural, “rugged” look many men want.
Men, like women, are staying in the workforce longer, and know that part of remaining competitive is looking your best. They too understand how sagging jowls or a loose, wrinkled “turkey neck” can add years and the illusion of extra weight. Neck lifts are the second-most popular plastic surgery requested by men (behind blepharoplasty and ahead of rhinoplasty). While I usually perform a neck lift together with a facelift, I can also do it as a single procedure. Harmony is the key to good facial rejuvenation. If you are concerned about your face “matching” with your newly streamlined neck, you can consider a surgical or liquid facelift to restore a balanced appearance.
Neck lifts are always surgical; any non-permanent procedure or cosmetic treatment simply won’t achieve anything close to the results that can be achieved with surgery. It’s a fairly simple process, though. I make incisions around the ear lobe or behind the ears to remove excess skin and fat, and then tighten the neck. This has the effect of reducing and smoothing jowls and neck skin, the muscle banding in the neck and fat deposits under the chin. It’s important to note that a neck lift does not change any of your facial features. The detail of tightening a loose neck is often enough to fool the eye into thinking you’ve had a more dramatic facial change… though others may not be quite sure exactly what’s different about you. The goal of every good plastic surgeon is to produce great results that are not immediately noticeable.
So if the man (or men) in your life are unhappy about a creased or sagging neck making them look older, you may want to bookmark this article to share later. Or discreetly sign him up to receive Azul’s newsletter; even leave our Neck Lift for Men page on the computer for him to find… completely by accident, of course.
Posted in: Procedures