Avoiding the Windblown Look: Dr. Patronella’s Approach to Creating Natural-Looking Facelift Results 

By Sherri Roberts
sherri@mybeautifulbody.com

When it comes to facial rejuvenation, Dr. Patronella has found that while most individuals desire to correct the characteristics of facial aging which cause them to appear tired and worn, they often are concerned that cosmetic plastic surgery will alter their unique facial characteristics.

“Most of my patients say, ‘I don’t mind my age. I just want to look good for my age,’” said Dr. Patronella. “Creating a naturally rejuvenated look that preserves the unique personal characteristics of an individual’s face is the most important thing I can do for a patient.”

Dr. Patronella’s True Form Facelift™ reflects the surgeon’s meticulous approach to delivering maximum improvement that appears completely natural. To create authentic-looking results, said Dr. Patronella, there must be an equal distribution of lift applied to each area of the face, as pulling one area excessively leads to an artificial look. In addition, because most people experience a loss of bone and deep tissue both in quality and quantity, restoration of this lost tissue through fat grafting is a key component of restoring a youthful look to the face. This factor, he said, is the likely reason for the much-publicized examples of windblown-looking celebrity faces. “They get repeated pulls without restoring the volume.”

Creating natural-looking facelift results requires an attentive eye to a myriad of other details, as well, in order to avoid producing a look that reveals the tell-tale signs of surgery. These include making sure the earlobes are not pulled, ensuring that there is a small concave area in front of the ear, and avoiding pulling up the hairline.

Dr. Patronella is particularly attentive to placing the incisions in such a way that they’re hard to detect, angling his incisions in the natural crease of the earlobe and behind the ear. “My goal is to make the incision in such a way that my patients can wear their hair up without feeling self-conscious,” he said.

While the late 40s to the early 50s is the most common age range of Dr. Patronella’s facelift patients, the surgeon said he has seen patients in their 30s who need facelifts and those in their 50s who do not. “The aging process can affect people in different ways. We must be flexible in our thinking and not confine our approach based on age alone.”Factors such as genetics, lifestyle, major weight changes, and nutritional habits can all accelerate the aging process, he said. Though patients often focus on one or two aged features such as jowls or loose neck skin, most will also have other aged facial features such as fine lines and wrinkles around the mouth, that, if unaddressed, will lead to an unbalanced look that appears partially rejuvenated and partially aged, said Dr. Patronella. To avoid this, he evaluates each aging facial feature in order to advise patients of the best approach to achieving rejuvenation that appears balanced, thorough, and natural.