Are Non-Surgical Facelifts Worth It? What you can expect from lasers, thread lifts, RF micro-needling, fillers, and Botox/Dysport (Ep . 90)

Are non-surgical facelifts worth the hype—or just a waste of money? I'm your host, Dr. Jason Hall, and in this solo episode I break down the truth about the most popular non-surgical facial rejuvenation treatments. We'll cover lasers, radiofrequency microneedling, fillers and thread lifts, and why so many of these options fall short, especially if you're expecting facelift-level results.

You’ll learn:
- Why “non-surgical facelift” is often a misleading label
- The four true causes of facial aging, and why no single treatment solves them all
- What lasers, RF, and fillers actually do (and what they definitely don’t)
- Why thread lifts are basically “cosmetic sugar highs”
- How to approach diagnosis before you invest in any treatment

Whether you're considering aesthetic treatments or just want to understand what works and what’s marketing fluff, this episode will give you the clarity you need to make smart, informed decisions.

Grab a copy of my book The Art of Aging for an even deeper dive.

Transcript

Dr. Jason Hall: 0:36

Are you tired of wasting money on skincare products and treatments that don't work? Or are you afraid of looking unnatural after having some non surgical treatments done? If you are then my new book, The Art Of Aging, is for you. In The Art Of Aging, I break down the aging process and talk about treatments that target specific parts of the aging process, what works and what doesn't. Also, I lay out a biology based skin care and non surgical treatment plan that will keep you looking great without looking fake. Check out your copy of The Art Of Aging on Amazon or in any of your local booksellers. Non surgical facelifts are taking off in terms of popularity. The question you should be asking is, are they worth it? And in today's episode of The Trillium Show, we're going to go over all of that, what they are and whether they're worth spending your hard earned money on. Welcome to The Trillium Show. I am your host. Dr Jason Hall, author of the book The Art Of Aging. It is all about non surgical treatments. Pick up a copy. I'll put the link down in the show notes. One click and you're there. So non surgical face lifts are really gaining popular. They've been popular for a long time, but more and more people are talking about it. More and more people are asking about it. And if you look on social media, you see non surgical face lifts sold all over the place. Seems like every spa and surgeon on the planet is trying to market some sort of non surgical face lift. The question that you need to ask before going down that road and spending money on any of these non surgical treatments is, are they worth it? And really, the key in any of this stuff is knowing what you're treating before you go in to have any treatment done. There are countless different non surgical options out there, from fillers to thread lifts to laser to radio frequency to traditional microneedling to ultrasound and all sorts of different things in between that are marketed as non surgical face lifts, sort of the the office face lift. And all of them work differently, and none of them really address the underlying causes of what you're seeing in the mirror. If you look back at one of my previous podcasts, I talk about the four components of facial aging, and you can, you know, go into a brief description of those here. The four components are skin changes, volume loss, motion and gravity, and we don't have a treatment option, including surgery, that treats all four of those things at the same time. So before you go out and attempt one of these non surgical treatments, it's really important that you and whoever it is that you're seeing, really sit down and go through a thorough consultation and define exactly what it is that you're looking to achieve, and come up with a reason why you're seeing what you're seeing in the mirror. Are we looking at skin wrinkles, things that are the result of skin thinning and sun damage, things like pigment, things like crepey texture. Are we looking at volume loss, so hollowing around the eyes and the temples around the lower part of the mouth? Are we looking at motion lines so the crow's feet, the 11 lines things that Jeuveau and Dysport and Botox all treat. Or are we looking at changes that are the result of a long lifetime spent living under Earth's gravity, so jowls, sagging of the neck, sagging of the eyebrows, because there, while there are non surgical treatments that can help to some degree or another, each one of those four components, if you go in and are looking for a skin treatment to take care of your jowls, chances of you getting a good result are pretty slim. Same way if you're looking for a surgical treatment so a treatment to reverse gravity changes to affect your skin, you're also going to be disappointed. And so I can't stress enough, and I spend a number of chapters in the book talking about the importance of getting an accurate diagnosis before you actually go in and have anything done, what are the pros and cons of some of these non surgical treatments? And we will break down a couple of them. First is things like laser. So lasers typically work, and I did another podcast about those about the different types of lasers. Lasers can be broken into two categories, ablative lasers, which are, think of it as polishing the surface of your skin, or non ablative lasers, which are heating the under surface of your skin to try and build some collagen. The two, those two treatments work really well, but are mostly aimed at treating skin damage. So we're treating skin lines and wrinkles. We're treating or attempting to treat collagen loss. There are better treatments than non ablative lasers to improve collagen in your skin. We'll talk about that in a second. But lasers really target the skin. So if you're looking for a laser to reverse jowls or saggy neck or saggy eyebrows, for example, you're going to be disappointed. But they work really well for changes in your aging, changes in your skin. The second thing that we can talk about are thread lifts. And I've kind of gone on record a number of times saying, I think thread lifts are basically worthless. They are sutures dissolving sutures that we use in surgery all the time, that somebody puts in with a needle in kind of underneath your skin, trying to lift things and hold them in position. They work great for a week or two, and then they're largely gone. So I don't really recommend thread lifts for anybody, unless you have a couple $1,000 to spend and you want to look good in a week or two for an event. Other than that, they're pretty much worthless in terms of a long term anti aging treatment. A third thing that we can talk about is radio frequency. And I'm, I think radio frequency microneedling. So I use the genius RF device. There's a number of them out there. Morpheus has made a big name for itself. Is kind of the one that everybody it's kind of the coke of of RF devices. Radio frequency devices are really good, again, at skin treatments, the idea with radio frequency is that we target the deep layer of your skin where the collagen lives, and we apply some energy into that layer to stimulate your body to grow more collagen so to thicken the layer of skin that thins with time. It is a great treatment for skin rejuvenation. You will get a little bit of tightening of the skin over time. And it's a it's a good treatment, you know, I use it for, not only before surgery, but I use it for treat patients who have a little bit of crepey texture under their neck or along their jaw line after surgery to help firm that area up and thicken that skin. So RF is a great treatment. It isn't a facelift, though. The last thing that we can talk about in terms of non surgical facelifts is fillers. And I'm a surgeon. I do a lot of facial cosmetic surgery, and I don't hate fillers. I think fillers very definitely have a place in an anti aging plan, but they're not everything they're cracked up to be. With fillers, obviously, we are replacing volume that is lost over time. The problem is, is as those volume changes, those areas of volume loss progress, we get to a point where filler either isn't look natural, or you need so much filler to replace the volume that you've lost, that the economy of the thing just doesn't work out. And unfortunately, you see a lot of bad filler results. You probably see a lot more good filler results than you know, because they're done well, they're done tastefully, they're not overdone. And you see people walking around that just look good, that have a syringe or to a filler, the ones that make the news, the ones that show up on the tabloids, the ones that catch your eye at the grocery store are the ones that are done poorly, where injectors try and add a lot of volume along the cheeks. They try and add a lot of volume along the jaw line to kind of compensate for gravity changes, and they end up over filling things and making people just look odd. And so is filler a good non surgical face lift? Absolutely not. Is it a good adjunct to other things to replace volume loss, yes, especially in patients who are in their 20s, 30s and 40s, but once you get more advanced signs of aging, we need to talk about filler as a part of another treatment, or switch gears and use your own body fat is a filler which is much more long lasting, has a much more natural looking result. But volume addition by itself isn't a good non surgical face lift. Volume by itself just is not the end all be all of non surgical facial rejuvenation. It's a great part, but like radio frequency, like laser, it is a part, not a treatment by itself, because if you go back to the four components of aging, each one of those are really, you know, the laser the RF are only treating the skin volume is corrected with fillers. Motion is corrected with things like Botox, Jeuveau, Dysport and gravity, unfortunately, is really best treated with surgical treatments, things like a deep plane facelift, brow lift, neck lift, things like that. I think the thing to remember is, when you're shopping around for non surgical facial rejuvenation treatments, that the diagnosis part of the treatment. When you're shopping around for non surgical facial rejuvenation. Diagnosis always comes before treatment, and you have to have a accurate, thorough diagnosis and somebody laying out an entire treatment plan so that you can make sure that you're not throwing money away on things that were never going to work in the first place. That's why I wrote the book on non surgical facial treatments, to kind of give you an insight into that. If you're interested, click the link below. You can get a copy on Amazon. But I hope you found this podcast interesting, entertaining and informative. If you have any ideas or questions, shoot me a DM, email me at info@drjasonhall.com, and we'll see you on the next show.