The Biomechanics Behind Dr. Andrew Jacono’s Facelift Approach
The Biomechanics Behind Dr. Andrew Jacono’s Facelift Approach
Facelift results often come down to a question of physics as much as surgery: where is tension applied, and what happens to the tissue that carries it? Dr. Andrew Jacono built his technique around answering that question differently than most surgeons before him.
Conventional facelifts separate the skin from the muscle layer beneath it, then pull the skin backward and upward to create tightness. That tension is what smooths wrinkles, but it is also what creates the stretched, wind-swept look that can betray recent surgery.
One Unit, Not Separate Layers
Dr. Andrew Jacono‘s Minimal Access Deep-Plane Extended facelift moves skin, muscle and fat together as a single connected structure. Because there is no separation between these layers, there is no isolated skin tension to create that telltale pulled appearance. The lift instead comes from repositioning deeper tissue, including facial ligaments that anchor structures to bone.
Releasing those four ligaments allows fat pads that have descended in the midface, jawline and neck to move vertically back toward their original position, rather than being dragged sideways or backward the way skin-only tightening does. That vertical correction mimics the natural, youthful contour of the face more closely than horizontal tension can.
From Theory to Practice
Jacono introduced this biomechanical approach in the early 2000s and formalized his findings in a 2011 Aesthetic Surgery Journal paper covering 153 patients. He now performs about 250 of these procedures annually at his Manhattan practice, a volume that reflects sustained confidence in the underlying mechanics.
Understanding this distinction, tension versus repositioning, helps explain why deep-plane techniques have drawn sustained interest from patients seeking results that look structurally natural rather than surgically pulled.
The physics involved also explain why recovery and swelling patterns can differ between techniques. Procedures that reposition deeper tissue rather than relying primarily on surface tension often require patients to be patient with the healing timeline, since deeper layers take longer to settle fully than skin alone.
For patients who prioritize a natural-looking outcome over speed of recovery, understanding how a given technique applies force to facial tissue is a useful question to raise directly during a consultation. Visit this page for additional information.
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