Brow lift

Usually somewhere between three and six millimetres, and rarely more. It sounds like nothing written down, but the brow is the most expressive line on the face and small moves there are legible. Anyone promising a dramatic number is describing the over-lifted look you came here to avoid.

Not if the plan is conservative. The startled look comes from lifting the centre of the brow too far, or from repeated revisions stacking on each other. We plan to your original brow position — there are usually old photographs, and they are the best brief we can get.

Yes, and it is often the right answer. The tail of the brow descends first and furthest, so a temporal lift through two small incisions at the temples fixes what actually bothers you without touching the centre. It is a smaller operation with a quicker recovery.

A neuromodulator lifts the tail of the brow a little by relaxing the muscle pulling it down, and in your thirties and early forties that is often all it takes. Surgery becomes the sensible option once the brow has genuinely descended, or once injections stop moving it as far as they used to.

They fix different things that look alike. A heavy brow pushes lid skin down and mimics hooding, so removing lid skin from a patient whose real problem is the brow can pull the brow lower still. We assess both and often do both, but which one leads is decided on your anatomy, not on which name you arrived with.

It moves with the brow, which is worth thinking about — pigment placed to compensate for a low brow can sit oddly once the brow is where it should be. Leave a few months after surgery before any retouching, and take a photograph of the current shape to your artist afterwards.

Ten to fourteen days for most people, depending on how visible your job is and how fast your bruising clears. Desk work from home often comes sooner, though the brows sit high early on and you may not want to be on camera for it.

You speak with the surgeon before you travel, then plan roughly 7 days in Istanbul — enough for surgery, suture removal, and clinic checks. Written flight clearance comes at the final visit, and care continues for twelve months after you fly home

They decide where the incisions can hide. Endoscopic and temporal lifts place their scars inside the hair, which needs enough hair density to conceal them, so thinning or a receding hairline weakens that advantage. A tall forehead is the other constraint — lifting from behind the hairline raises it further — which is why a technique working closer to the brow sometimes suits better.

Less than most people expect, and it is a different sensation from pain — tightness across the forehead and a dull headache, at their most noticeable through the first two or three days while the swelling is heaviest. The painkillers you are sent home with cover that comfortably, and most people stop needing them within a few days. The itching that follows along the scalp in the second week is sensation returning, not something going wrong.

The lift itself does not wear off — what you gain is a lasting head start. Ageing carries on around it, though, so the brow will drift again at its own pace, set by your genetics, skin quality, and lifestyle. Most people keep a visible benefit for many years.

Often, yes. A low brow makes the forehead muscle work constantly to hold it up, and repositioning the brow takes that effort away — so horizontal forehead lines and the "11" lines between the brows tend to soften. It is a repositioning operation rather than a wrinkle treatment, so if lines are your main concern, a neuromodulator is the more direct answer.

Most candidates have a brow that has descended with age or after weight loss, or one that has always sat low — often a family trait. Beyond the brow itself, you should be in good general health and expecting a few millimetres of change rather than a new face. The two-finger test in the mirror settles most of the rest.

Keep them out of the sun for the first year — a hat or high-SPF sunscreen once the incisions have closed — and stay off nicotine while they heal. Silicone-based scar products help, but start them only once your surgeon clears you. Scars look their worst early and fade steadily from there.

Mostly the technique — a temporal lift is a smaller operation than an endoscopic or coronal one — and whether upper eyelid surgery is combined with it. Anaesthesia and operative time follow from those choices. The €2,000–4,500 range covers all of it; your fixed quote comes after the surgeon reviews your photographs.