“I want to look like her again.”

“I want to look like her again.”

She looked me in the eyes..and she told me, “I want to look like her again.”

A lot of patients see me for their revision work. One patient in particular, who happens to be a former Playboy centerfold model, has instilled her trust in me to bring back the version of herself that was at one point thought to be lost to time.

Going beyond the standard “before and after” documentation, I’d like to go a bit more in depth about this surgical process and provide you with the realities of performing such a unique procedure. The structure and path were all there, so this felt to be a fun challenge of turning her back into herself.

On top of doing a restoration of her features, I also had to factor in that my client wanted these results completed within a one month time frame. She wanted to get back to work as soon as possible, as she also works in the aesthetics industry.

First things first, what is her story? This is how she used to look.

She's been in the industry for years. In the past, she's gotten a face lift, lip lift, eye lift, and filler. Unfortunately, a lot of this work did not turn out the way that she had envisioned. Going into this process, I recognized that there were a number of things right off the bat that I personally did not think fully maximized her beauty to the best potential.

Step by step, what procedures were done to recreate her iconic look?

To restore these stunning features, what we had to do was remove excess skin around the lip, eyes, and brows. I always advocate for a brow lift to coincide with an upper blepharoplasty, as eyes often tend to fail within the corner, where the gland is out.

She had gotten a blepharoplasty done in the past, and I could tell that this was unfortunately the case for her as well. By balancing out her brow, I took off the heaviness without having her look over-arched.

Her original lip lift from a previous surgeon was not effective, which also left a scar that I had to reposition to hide.

The problem with most lift lips is that the scars are in a bad location. They go straight across, rather than hidden inside the nose. When we did her lip lift, I had to shorten some distance to make it look exactly like she did in her past photo.

I did my patented 5-layer neck lift on her, where I improved the deep contouring of the neck. This targeted the aging in all five structural layers of her neck, lifting her physically and improving her hyoid along the way. We were able to create a sharper angle along her jawline, which is the most iconic feature that landed her jobs in the past.

I also revised her face by doing a deep plane facelift. A lot of surgeons may say that they do a deep plane lift, but they don't actually do so. You can see by the way there is tension in her scars that this was unfortunately true for my patient as well.

It was clear that what we needed to do was balance two important shadows across her face; the OG Shadow and the Triscural Shadow. This improved her Tragus contour, giving the face a proportional, less flat look.

RECOVERY

The recovery process was really important for this patient. As I mentioned before, she needed these results ready within one month. Most people talk about having wraps, drains, or maybe even using tissue glue. We decided to go above and beyond that. We prepped her with supplements and a diet plan, to make the recovery as seamless as possible. In addition, we used a special continuous cooling device, alongside applying exosomes topically around the incisions to help her scars heal faster. This is her at day one:

The first 24 hours are crucial for a speedy recovery. She reported little-to-no pain, starting to maintain a high protein diet along the way.

This was her at one month:

She followed these guidelines that we set in place. You can see already, she looks great and is already feeling much more confident.

Why Dr. Shah?

The first time that this patient and I met was during a lecture I did in Las Vegas. After 2 years of research, she expressed that she was drawn in by my strong attention to detail and non-cookie cutter approach to each patient’s wants and needs. We are very passionate about going in depth with our patients, and we prioritize communicating clearly to end each consultation knowing exactly what is going to be done. Each and every one of these cases is a customizable procedure, designed to achieve what the patient wants.

Her full journey can be found on our YouTube channel, as well as in multiple installments on Instagram. I am immensely grateful for her faith in my skills and expertise, and being able to share this experience with you all.

Recent photo submitted by patient, with makeup on.