Silhouette Soft Thread Lift – A Review 

The time has come and not quickly enough, for me to test the newest non-invasive procedure on the market. The silhouette soft thread lift. I had been ready many months ago but rudely fell pregnant in between which scuppered my chances of looking young again and in fact enhanced my ageing significantly (have you tried months of sleepless nights at 43 years old?!). 

I’m a young looking 43, in lucky, it’s  in my genes but I haven’t aged as well as my mother – lots of hard living and far too much partying has taken its toll. 

So, I’m ready, call me desperate, for this lunchtime procedure with almost no downtime that is set to change the way we look at staving off the years. Botox and fillers have their place I know, but a new generation of treatments have emerged. 

The thread lift literally just that – threads of polylactic acid (soluble stitches to you and I) threaded through the face using local anaesthetic injections to numb  are pulled tight over tiny cones (also threaded) under the skin. They dissolve over time but as they do, stimulate the skin’s own collagen production, so you see immediate results that continue to improve over time, lasting up to eighteen months. 

It’s a very quick procedure. Taking no longer than hour from start to finish and you are ready to go. 

The doctor marks out the areas that need tightening with dots where the threads will be inserted and then with a very fine needle injects those sites with anaesthetic. Now that’s as far as the pain goes because after this all you feel is pressure when the threads are pulled through. My ‘problem area’ (my words, not hers!) is a slight sagging in my lower face; apparently I’m a great candidate for this because results are subtle; this isn’t a replacement for a full facelift. So, I’m prepped and ready. Sangita takes her time inserting the three threads on each side of my face. I lie there patiently with my biggest worry being that I’m going to feel something when in fact I don’t. 

I’m feeling a little tightness and am prepared for bruising as I bruise easily. I’m also ready with the ibroprufen to take any minor pain away and help with any sweling which should go down after a few days. I know my skin is quite sensitive but I’ve seen others who literally needed no pain relief and with no bruising too. 

Directly after the procedure I feel no pain and have one tiny bruise and that’s about as far as it goes. Asked to sleep on my back for two weeks is really all that I did. 

I am thrilled with the results and so pleasantly surprised that the procedure – subtle but still taking me back ten years or so was painless as was the ‘ recovery’;  not one painkiller needed. Having fillers was more uncomfortable. The  good news is that I can expect even better results as collagen is stimulated under the skin.

These new, less invasive procedures are truly innovative. If you are feeling a little older than you’d like and you aren’t in the market for anything serious then try a more modern approach than the Botox/filler route and try a thread lift. The costs are similar but the results last longer and actually prompt your skin into anti-ageing mode too.

Thread lift by Dr Sangita Singh of Beaudocs who will be working from the Aesthetics Lab in Primrose Hill.