Facelifts and MINT lifts both do a remarkable job tightening your skin, minimizing wrinkles, and giving you a vibrant, younger-looking appearance. Otherwise, they have very little in common, and each offers different advantages.
James W. Goodnight, MD, at Dr. Goodnight’s Everlasting Beauty, located in Ridgewood, New Jersey, has extensive experience performing both facial procedures. After assessing your skin and learning about the changes you want to make, he talks with you about whether a facelift or MINT lift® is best for you.
Surgical vs. nonsurgical procedure
Many people choose one procedure over the other based on whether they’re ready for surgery.
Facelift
A facelift is a surgical procedure. During your facelift, we remove excess skin and fat, reposition the fat if needed, restore the underlying muscles that support your skin, and lift and tighten your skin. The recovery time takes several weeks, with most people ready to go back to work in two weeks.
There are other types of facelifts, such as a mini-facelift, that take less time. However, a standard facelift typically takes 2-4 hours of surgery and possibly longer if we perform other procedures.
MINT Lift
MINT stands for minimally invasive nonsurgical thread. We perform a MINT lift using a medical-grade polydioxanone (PDO) thread. After applying a topical anesthetic, we use a thin needle to guide the thread under your skin.
Some PDO threads are smooth and lift and tighten your skin based on where we anchor the two ends of the thread. Other threads have tiny barbs that grip and lift your skin.
PDO thread stays in place for up to six months before it dissolves and your body naturally clears it away. During that time, the thread triggers collagen production, which supports the results for a time after the thread is gone.
The MINT procedure only takes about 30 minutes, and you don’t need much time for recovery. The minimal swelling caused by the needle is gone within hours, and you can get back to your daily routine.
Facial areas treated
A facelift focuses on the lower two-thirds of your face. You will treat sagging skin on your face and neck, eliminating jowls and wrinkles around your nose and mouth. If you want other areas of your face lifted, we can add on other procedures such as a brow or eyelid lift.
The MINT lift can target nearly every area of your face. The procedure lifts your brows, cheeks, jowls and neck, highlights your jawline, and lifts sagging skin wherever it’s located.
You can enhance your results by combining a MINT lift with other facial procedures such as Botox®, dermal fillers, laser resurfacing, and photofacials.
Delayed vs. immediate results
You start to see results between the second and fourth weeks after a facelift. However, we perform facelifts using tumescent local anesthesia. That type of anesthesia reduces bleeding and bruising, so chances are, you’ll see the results before four weeks.
After a MINT lift, you see immediate results. Then your skin keeps improving over the next few months as collagen levels slowly increase.
Lift duration
The tradeoff for choosing surgery is that you get significantly longer-lasting results. Most people can expect a facelift to last 10 years. By comparison, a MINT lift lasts up to one year. However, you can have another MINT lift to maintain your results.
If you’re ready to rejuvenate your appearance and you’re not sure which procedure is best, schedule a consultation, and we can explain your choices. Call Dr. Goodnight’s Everlasting Beauty or book an appointment online today.