The answer to this question is not about the surgery but about understanding the terminology. A facelift is an operation that will lift from the lower cheek down to the neck. In our practice a facelift always includes a full necklift but does not lift the eyes or eyebrows. There are really only two types of adequate facelifts; the deep plane facelift and the SMAS facelift, both of which provide excellent improvement of the neck, jawline and lower face. In our practice we only perform deep plane facelifts and we have extensive videos explaining why on our website.
A minilift is really a completely different operation which limits the surgery to pulling on the skin and often produces short lived results. Unfortunately, it is common to give a sexy name like lifestyle lift to a minilift to give the impression that there is something unique or special that other surgeons don’t have. Thread lifts, like minilifts, are attractive to patients because they seem to be a less invasive procedure but have the same problem, once the swelling is gone in a few months there is often very little improvement. You can often get realistic expectation for a procedure by going to a website like Realself.com, where patients will tell their own experiences with procedures and doctors.