Who it is for
facelift.studio is written for the person deciding whether to have a facelift and who should do it. It answers the questions a patient brings to a consultation: who the top surgeons are, which operation fits, what it costs, how recovery goes and what can go wrong. It is written in plain words, with the source linked.
The top facelift surgeons
The Top 500 ranks US facelift surgeons by one published method: the facelift research they publish, their teaching at meetings, their roles in the specialty societies and the work their practices show. States, regions and cities have their own rankings and maps, so a patient can start with the surgeons near home. The highest-ranked surgeons have a dossier with training, practice, facelift work and the score line by line, taken from the surgeon's own website. The method is on the methodology page.
The modern facelift, explained
The procedure pages explain each operation in plain words: the deep plane and SMAS facelift, the neck lift, the midface, the eyelids, the brow, skin resurfacing, the lips, chin and fat, and safety and recovery, with a PubMed link on every claim. The cost, recovery and before-and-after pages show what top-ranked practices charge, how they describe recovery week by week and the results they publish, each quoted from the practice's own site with a link.
Past, present and future
The facelift moved from removing skin in the early 1900s to wide undermining in the 1920s and to the deeper SMAS layer in the 1970s. In 1990 Sam Hamra published the deep plane facelift, which lifts the cheek skin, fat and platysma as one piece. The history names the surgeons behind each step. The research pages say what the studies show, the latest page lists the studies added at the last PubMed check (30 September 2026), and the meetings and lectures show where surgeons teach new techniques. The news page follows what the press reports about facelifts.
The guides tell the story in full: the modern facelift, why facelifts are safer now, the papers that changed the facelift and the future of the facelift.
Sources
- Research: PubMed, the index of medical journals kept by the US National Library of Medicine, and NIH iCite for citations. PubMed last checked 2026-09-30.
- Surgeons: PubMed author records, meeting faculty lists, society leadership pages, published lists such as Newsweek, and each practice's own website.
- Meetings: the official meeting and society pages, with a source link on each date and faculty name.
- Cost, recovery and photos: each practice's own website, quoted with a link.
- Public figures: the person's own words in an interview, book or post, with a second outlet reporting the same statement.
Updates
New studies, meetings and lectures are added at each update. The surgeon scores were computed on 30 September 2026. The latest page shows what is new. The knowledge map lists every surgeon, procedure, society and meeting on the site with the public records that identify each one.
Summaries
Paper summaries are written from the PubMed abstract only. Each one states what the study asked, who was studied, what it found, what it means for a patient and the study's limits. A summary never adds a result the abstract does not state. The full paper is linked from every summary through PubMed and the DOI.
Who publishes it
facelift.studio is published by Medical Advertising Agency, a marketing firm for surgeons. Featured surgeons are clients of Medical Advertising Agency, the publisher of facelift.studio, for other services such as managing their practice websites. No one pays for a featured position. It is shown apart from the scored list, and a featured surgeon's score and rank are computed by the same method as every other surgeon's. The list of featured surgeons is on the featured page.
Corrections
A surgeon or reader can correct a record through the contact page. Corrections to a surgeon record need a public source: a board lookup, a society page, a PubMed record or the practice website. The record is changed at the next update.
Medical information
Nothing on facelift.studio is medical advice. A facelift is surgery with real risks, and the right operation depends on an examination by a board-certified surgeon. Use the surgeon records and the procedure pages to prepare questions for a consultation.