a procedureFacelift

Incisions are made in front of and behind the ear and into the hairline, the skin is lifted, the fibrous layer beneath it is repositioned or tightened, excess skin is trimmed and the wound closed along the lines where the scars can hide. Neck lifts and brow lifts are separate operations sold alongside. The facial nerve runs through the field, and injury to a branch of it is the complication surgeons describe first.

Facelift is the most expensive of the standard cosmetic operations in every market read for this record, and the widest spread between them. Yanhee in Bangkok prices a mid-facelift at 165,000 baht with two nights, a secondary facelift at 171,000 and an endoscopic facelift at 250,000. Premier Clinic in Prague prices a SMAS facelift from 84,000 koruna. Artplastica in Poland prices a facelift from 25,000 zloty with the ward day separate. The American society publishes an average surgeon fee of 11,395 US dollars and says it excludes anaesthesia and the theatre.

Inference -- the reason those numbers do not line up is that the word covers several operations. A skin-only lift and a deep plane lift take different times, different anaesthetics and different skill, and only a consultation note says which one a price bought. The published figure that is easiest to compare across borders is the least informative one.

Trade practice -- recovery is the constraint that makes this operation travel awkwardly. Bruising and swelling are visible for two to three weeks, sutures come out in stages over ten days, and a patient who has flown a long way is usually asked to stay locally until the first review. The accommodation, not the theatre, is what a two-week facelift trip is mostly buying.

General anaesthesia in most published packages, one to two nights, drains sometimes, a head dressing overnight. Sutures come out between five and twelve days depending on the site, which sets the earliest flight home. Numbness in front of the ear lasts months. Smoking is the contraindication surgeons enforce hardest, because the skin flap depends on a blood supply that nicotine narrows.

Four published prices from four countries, read in September 2026, ranging from 25,000 zloty in Poland to 250,000 baht for an endoscopic lift in Bangkok, with an American surgeon's fee of 11,395 dollars that does not include the operating room. None of the four pages says which layer of the face its price lifts.

This page describes an operation. It gives no advice about having one.