Facelift: A Gift When Turning 50

Michele Aronesty gave herself a gift for her 50th birthday — a trip to the plastic surgeon. Ten months later, Aronesty believes she looks as young as she feels.

"I'm thrilled," she tells The Early Show co-anchor Rene Syler. "I didn't enjoy looking in the mirror anymore. I just didn't feel that I looked the way I felt. I felt very young and it wasn't reflected."

Her surgeon, Dr. Alan Matarasso, a clinical professor of plastic surgery at Albert Einstein College of Medicine, says that for patients who are 50 and older, a facelift is the ideal way to slow the aging process — and facelift procedures have come a long way over the years.

"What Michele had was a mini-lift," he says. "It's a full face lift using a mini- or short-ear incision. By eliminating the long incision and pull back, you stop the hairline from being pulled back — a common stigma of the facelift. Now, women can wear their hair pulled back or in a ponytail."

Matarasso says that 10 years ago, surgeons couldn't mix and match procedures. But now, "You can do lasers or Botox injections at the time of the facelift. They can be done before or after. In Michelle's case, she had her facelift with a short scar technique and eyelids done. Following that she had Botox injections."

Patients can recover within two weeks of surgery, Matarasso says.

The fees range from $8,000 up, and women are not the only ones willing to pay for younger looking skin. He also is seeing a lot of patients with loose skin after weight loss surgery who want liposuction and a lift.

"The incision in that is about 50 percent of what we used in the past," Matarasso says. "I think there is a trend in plastic surgery to use less invasive procedures that have less downtime and a faster recovery."

But not everybody should get a facelift, Matarasso says.

"Our first responsibility is safety for the patients," he says. "Patients have to be suitable from a medical perspective. They have to be in good health. They have to have realistic expectations. You should meet with your plastic surgeon and go over your concerns.

Here is how Dr. Matarasso says you can preview what you would look like after surgery: "A facelift is everything from the corner of your eye to the necklace area of the neck. These people will have softening of the jaw line and hanging of the neck, jowl formation. Women will say they see the neck hanging instead of a jaw line. Sit on the edge of your bed, look at yourself with a hand mirror, lie on your back with hand mirror. If you like what see when you are lying down, that's a preview of what a facelift will look like. Gravity is going against your face."

Even though patients won't need to have more than one facelift, there are maintenance things to keep in mind to keep it up: stay out of the sun, use skin care products and no-surgical procedures over time.