MY FACELIFT REGRETS: WHAT I WISH I KNEW BEFORE SURGERY
A note before we start: Yes, I had a facelift. I'm going to tell you everything. The stuff that went right, the stuff I wish I'd done differently, and the things I genuinely haven't heard other women talking about. If you're considering this or just curious, this one's for you.
My surgery went right.
I know that's not what you were expecting when you clicked on a post called “facelift regrets.” But that's actually the whole point. My regrets aren't about botched results or a surgeon I'd warn you away from. My surgery went well. I had an extended deep plane face and neck lift at 57 and came out the other side with almost no pain, minimal complications, and results I'm genuinely happy with.
And I still have regrets.
Not about having the surgery. About the things I didn't know going in… the things nobody really talks about… and honestly, about some of the things I said publicly that I wish I'd framed differently. Because my experience was not the whole picture, and I owe it to every woman who's considering this to be completely straight with you.
I'm coming up on six months post-surgery. Here's everything I wish I'd known.
What I Actually Had Done
Before we talk about regrets, you need to know exactly what I had done because comparing numbers and procedures without context is one of the biggest mistakes women make when researching facelifts.
I asked for the works. My doctor said no to some of it, which turned out to be exactly right. Here's what I actually had: an extended deep plane face and neck lift with central compartment neck dissection, laryngeal setback, platysmal and lateral functional platysmal sling, a small amount of CO2 laser under the eyes, an upper blepharoplasty (upper eye lift), and an under eye pinch.
A lot of that is neck reconstruction. I had very pronounced platysmal bands and a significant amount of neck work done. An extended deep plane lift is very different from a lower facelift where a surgeon just pulls the skin back. With a deep plane, they're moving muscles, moving ligaments, repositioning the structure of the face back to where it was. It's a fundamentally different surgery with a fundamentally different recovery.
What I didn't do: a temporal lift, lip lift, nose work, skin resurfacing, volume work, or fat transfers. Some of those I kind of wish I had, and we'll get to that.
The one thing I didn't know I needed and wouldn't have thought to ask for was the upper blepharoplasty. My eyes weren't something that bothered me going in. But of everything I had done, the eye lift made the single biggest visible difference. My eyes looked so much younger and more open. After the surgery, people kept telling me my makeup looked better. I wasn't wearing any more makeup. The eye lift did that. If you're feeling like you look tired and you're on the fence about an upper bleph… don't be.
Regret 1: I Made It Sound Too Easy
This is the one that weighs on me the most.
Because I had almost no pain, because I was genuinely excited about the process and the results, and because I was documenting it on short-form video where you're naturally condensing things… I made it sound easy. And I didn't always explain the full extent of the preparation I had done that made my recovery go so smoothly.
I heard from more than a couple of women after their own surgeries who came back to me and said it wasn't like what I described. For some of them it was significantly more emotional and more physically difficult than they expected. And I know that some of that is because I hadn't said clearly enough: this is just my experience, and this experience was the result of an insane amount of intentional preparation.
I treated my recovery like a full-time job:
- hyperbaric oxygen chamber treatments five days a week before surgery
- full red light therapy bed five days a week
- strict anti-inflammatory diet
- researched which supplements to stop 30 days before surgery so I wasn't thinning my blood
- bolstered my immune system for months beforehand
- delayed my surgery once because I had been exposed to mold and my immune system was compromised
- hired friends to help manage my medications, incision cleaning, bandage changes, icing schedule… everything.
Because I knew that what happens before and after the surgery makes just as much difference as the surgery itself. Most people only think about the part one other person controls. The part you control makes the biggest difference in your result. And I didn't always communicate that loudly enough.
Regret 2: I Didn't Say Every Single Thing Out Loud to My Surgeon
There's this level of intimidation most of us feel sitting in front of a doctor. Even when you've done your research, even when you know what you want, even when it's your face and your money and your decision… you don't want to seem too picky. You don't want to be rude. You don't want to point at something and have them think you're being difficult.
I did that. I held back some things. And now I can see them.
There's a volume loss on one side of my face. I knew it was there before surgery. I didn't bring it up explicitly enough. After a deep plane lift, when things are pulled back and repositioned, asymmetries you had before can become more visible because you're tightening without filling. I could have addressed it while I was in there. Now I'm waiting until I hit the one-year mark to fill it. It's a minor thing. But when you've spent that much time, money, prep, and recovery… you don't want to be sitting there at month three thinking, I could have just done that while I was already on the table.
Same thing with my nasolabial folds, those smile line creases. I thought they'd improve more than they did. When I asked my surgeon about it after the fact, he explained that pulling further would have distorted my lips. What we think we want and what's actually achievable aren't always the same thing. And if I'd had that conversation in detail before surgery I would have gone into it with the right expectation instead of spending two months wondering if something had gone wrong. It hadn't. He did exactly what he should have.
The lesson: say every single thing. Bring photos. Tape your face up (I actually did this for about a year before surgery and I highly recommend it as a visual tool) and point to exactly what you want addressed. Your surgeon cannot read your mind. Don't protect their feelings. It's your face.
Regret 3: I Skipped the Volume Work and I Wish I Hadn't
When I was planning my surgery I was so focused on the lift… the neck, the jawline, the structural repositioning… that I didn't think hard enough about volume. I didn't do any fat transfers. I didn't do any volume restoration. And some of that I kind of wish I had.
Here's what most women don't fully understand going in. A facelift lifts and repositions. It does not fill. As you age you lose volume in your face, around your temples, your cheeks, under your eyes, and a lift pulls everything back beautifully but it doesn't replace what's gone. In some cases, like mine, pulling things back can actually make volume loss more visible because you've tightened the surrounding tissue without addressing the hollow.
I knew I had some asymmetry and volume loss on one side. I just didn't push the conversation far enough to address it while I was already in surgery. Now I'm waiting until the one-year mark to fill it. Which means more appointments, more recovery, more cost… for something I could have handled in one go.
If you're planning a facelift, have an explicit conversation with your surgeon about volume before you finalize your surgical plan. Ask specifically whether fat transfer or filler would improve your result. Ask what the lift will reveal that isn't currently visible. A good surgeon will tell you honestly. And if you're already working with a patient advocate, this is exactly the kind of conversation they can help you prepare for so nothing gets left on the table.
Literally.
The Emotional Impact
I was not one of the women who experienced a significant emotional reaction post-surgery. But I've heard from enough women who did that I feel like I need to say this clearly.
Some women come out of facelift surgery and fall into an unexpected emotional spiral that has nothing to do with how the surgery went. It can show up as anxiety, grief, loss of control, or a deep unsettling feeling that's very hard to name. In the women I've talked to who experienced this, many had a history of childhood trauma. And when you think about what surgery actually involves, being fully under, having no control over what's happening to your body, trusting someone with your life… it makes sense that it could trigger something deep.
If you have any trauma history at all, please factor this into your preparation. Don't go into it assuming that because you've done the emotional work, this won't touch you. Talk to a therapist before. Make sure you have strong support in place for recovery.
What I'd Tell You About Recovery
Healing is not linear. That sounds simple but it doesn't sink in until you're six weeks out, feeling great, convincing yourself you can go back to everything, and then your skin completely revolts.
That's what happened to me in January. I tried a new product on my face and got contact dermatitis. My skin is a different organ now. It's thinner. It's more sensitive. It reacts to things it never reacted to before. I never had sensitive skin before this surgery. I do now. The facelift doesn't change the texture of your skin, it actually makes it thinner, which means you have to treat it differently going forward.
I've completely changed my skincare routine. I use far fewer products and focus entirely on collagen production, barrier protection, and skin thickness. I did a whole separate post on the exact routine, including the two prescription actives and the $12 barrier cream that every single dermatologist recommended when my skin freaked out. Here's that post.
Think of your healing as a six-month season, not a two-week recovery. Your face is still changing at six months. My surgeon told me I'll see changes for up to a year. So if you want to do any additional filling or tweaking after, which I do, wait until the one-year mark. I know that requires patience. I am not a patient person. But you spent real money and real recovery time on this. Let it finish.
Also budget for the things most people forget to factor in. Compression garments. Special bandages and ointments. The wedge pillow for sleeping upright. The cost of extra care in recovery, whether that's a recovery house, a nurse, or flying a friend in. The hyperbaric oxygen and red light sessions if you go that route. Time off work. These all add up and being surprised by them mid-recovery creates stress, and stress impacts healing.
The Numbness
They tell you your face will feel numb. I want to tell you that I was still not prepared for how strange that actually feels.
When nerves get severed and repositioned, the numbness isn't painful. It's just profoundly weird. Like your face doesn't quite belong to you. I couldn't tell how hard I was pressing when I was doing lymphatic massage. I couldn't gauge pressure when I was doing my skincare routine. It gave me a real understanding for people living with neuropathy. It's not dangerous. It resolves over time. But “your face will feel numb for a while” does not fully prepare you for the experience of not being able to feel your own face.
One More Thing About Being Public
If you choose to document your facelift the way I did, be ready for the fact that your face becomes a group project.
People will tell you that you looked better before. That the surgeon pulled you too tight, or not tight enough. They'll ask why you did your eyebrows (I didn't) or why you didn't do your lips or why you did this at all. Strangers with no photos on their profile will diagnose your result with complete confidence.
I genuinely don't care. I'm level 57 and I have the freedom that comes with that. But if you're not there yet, factor it in. Public transparency is wonderful and I believe in it. Just know that openness invites opinions, and not all of them will be kind or informed.
The Bottom Line
A facelift is not a manicure. It's a major surgical decision with real risks, real preparation requirements, and a recovery that takes longer than most people expect or plan for.
My facelift regrets have nothing to do with the result. They're about the things I wasn't fully prepared for, the communications I didn't have explicitly enough, and the ways I may have made it sound simpler than it is for women whose experience was harder than mine.
If you're considering this, here's what I'd tell you:
Work with a plastic surgery patient advocate (like The Beauty Brokers) before you choose a surgeon. Say every single thing that bothers you out loud in that consultation room. Prepare your body and your immune system like it's your full-time job for months beforehand. Build a real recovery plan, not just a week off work. And think of your healing as a season, not a deadline.
For the complete breakdown of everything I bought, every supplement I took, every step of my prep and recovery in detail, it's all on my Patreon. It covers pricing, how I found my surgeon, the patient advocate process, everything.
And for the skincare routine I switched to after surgery to protect and rebuild thinner post-facelift skin, read this post next.
Love you, mean it,
Chalene
P.S. Some links in this post are affiliate links. I make a small commission if you use them. It does not cover the cost of a facelift. Trust me I checked.
