 How to Have the Appearance of
an Eye Lift without Surgery
By Lori Van Wormer, L.E.
It is quite amazing what a little make up can do for the eyes. We all know how gravity can cause your eyes to look a little less appealing as we grow older. Make up can give the illusion of a lift and make your eyes look more alive without surgery.
The first bit of advice I have for you is seek out a licensed esthetician to have your eye brows professionally arched. If your brows have a tendency to sag or lack arch, this in itself will cause your eyes to look older and tired. For a very nominal fee, an esthetician can wax and arch them to perfection. If over the years you have “over tweezed” your brows and find that you have very sparse brows, then, you may want to look into permanent make up for them. The permanent make up artist can do wonders for giving them a whole new opened arched look. Once this is accomplished, then, we are ready to get to the eyes!
Eye shadow applied correctly can give the eyes an instant “eye lift”. The basic idea is to choose complimentary colors in three intensities, light for highlighting (i.e. cream color), medium for adding definition and lift on lower half of lid and crease sweeping upward and outward (i.e. mushroom color), and then dark to be used as lash liner on both upper and lower (i.e. dark brown color). Start by priming the entire eye area with powder. Then, using a shadow brush, apply highlighting shadow over lid from lash line to brow. Apply medium shadow color on lower lid from lash line to crease of eye seeping upward and outward. Use the darkest shade as liner. After carefully blending the colors, add a touch of highlighting color just below the most arched portion of the brow to bring attention upward. Apply mascara to upper lashes from underneath and to the lower lashes from the top. Remember to use less mascara on lower lashes or skip lower lashes altogether as you don’t want to bring attention to anything going in a downward direction from the “lift”.
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 The Transconjunctival Blepharoplasty
(Corrective of lower eyelid bags)
By GreatSkin.com, MD
At the GreatSkin® Med-Surge Spas of the Southwest, we utilize minimally invasive facial surgical techniques with little downtime and maximal improvement in facial features. Many patients complain that their friends are always asking why they “look so tired” all the time. Even after a good nights rest, the lower lids are “puffy.” This characteristic is not attractive and can be corrected very quickly without much down time, or any bruising or hemorrhage in the surgical field when performed properly using a carbon dioxide laser as the surgical scalpel.
The Transconjunctival (meaning the incision is inside the lower lid, not external) blepharoplasty (eye lid bag correction surgery) technique was first described in 1924, and then renewed interest occurred in 1973. The use of a C02 laser to perform the procedure was first described in 1988. Since then, many plastic surgeons/cosmetic laser surgeons would never return to external skin incisions for a number of reasons. The tissues are never touched with a knife, only a cauterizing laser beam. This minimizes the risk of complication and hemorrhage and dramatically improves healing times.
First, there is no visible external incision to heal or scar to form; in fact, the small curved incision inside the lower lid is not even sutured at the time of surgery. The incision is in a mucous membrane, so it heals on its own almost literally “overnight.”
Second, and most importantly, the very fine membrane that “holds all the fat in” under the orbit, called the “orbital septum,” is not incised or disrupted, because the fat pouches that bulge outward are removed from behind the septum from the internal approach rather than externally through the septum. This results in no disruption of the orbital septum, and complete removal of the three fat globules which puff out, the medial, central, and lateral fat pads.
Thirdly, the physician can then resurface externally over the lower lids and “tighten up” the lower lid skin, to yield a beautiful, flat lower lid plane.
In this age, surgical “fat conservation” is a very important part of the procedure. Patients do not want over-correction and that “sunken eye” look. Fat conservation can be performed quite nicely with this technique. The fat which is removed through the inner lid incision is “allowed to protrude” into the surgical field and be “vaporized down to size,” through gentle pressure on the eyeball itself. This way, not too much fat is removed, but just enough to get the external appearance of the orbital septum flat, not sunken. Also, there is no clamping or tugging on orbital fat, which can result in hemorrhage. Then with external skin tightening of the crow’s feet, glabellar frown lines, upper lids and lower lids, the entire ocular unit heals as one, very smooth, bruise free, scar-less unit. That tired look is gone, and no sutures to remove.
Post operative care is relatively simple with one day of post operative icing with an ice mask cooling device, applied right to the surgical dressing, a return visit to the office 24 hours after surgery for dressing removal, then minimal care to the freshly resurfaced peri-ocular tissues for a few days.
In my practice, the procedure is performed on a Wednesday and patients are back to work Monday. The procedure is performed under mild conscious sedation with some local infraorbital blocks. I believe the transconjunctival blepharoplasty is the quickest way to lose that tired look, literally over the course of a weekend.
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