McKeown Medical
167 Bath Street, Glasgow, G2 4SQ
Recognising the Signs of a Bad Facelift and How To Avoid Them
Published by Dr Darren McKeown
Date posted — 10.05.25
Facelift techniques have significantly advanced over recent years, providing impressive, natural-looking results when performed by skilled surgeons. However, concerns about unnatural outcomes or complications can leave potential patients feeling hesitant. Understanding the signs of a poorly executed facelift and knowing how to avoid them can help you confidently pursue your desired look.
What are the signs of a bad facelift?
Recognising the indicators of a poor facelift can help you avoid unsatisfactory outcomes or address them promptly if they occur:
- Stretched or overly tight skin: Placing too much tension on the tissues creates a tight, stretched or lumpy appearance that looks anything but natural.
- Pixie ears: Earlobes that appear to stick onto the face and are stretched or pulled downward.
- Displaced sideburns: Sideburns moved or eliminated due to improper incision placement. Katie Price is a good example of this, following her most recent facelift.
- Altered hairline: Incorrectly placed incisions can disrupt your natural hairline, moving it backwards, creating an unnaturally large temple and forehead.
- Highly visible scarring: Poor surgical technique resulting in obvious scars.
These issues typically arise from either inexperienced surgeons or surgeons who still use outdated surgical techniques.
Medical complications
Bad surgical techniques or inadequate aftercare can lead to significant health complications, including:
- Infection: Can be caused by improper sterilisation or poor aftercare.
- Haematoma: Blood collecting under the skin, leading to significant swelling and discomfort.
- Skin necrosis (dead tissue): Resulting from excessive tension or poor blood circulation.
- Nerve damage: Potentially causing muscle weakness.
How can a bad facelift be fixed?
If you’re experiencing issues following a facelift, revision surgery or other corrective treatments can help. An experienced surgeon will thoroughly assess your case, discuss your desired outcomes, and suggest the best approach. Treatments may include:
- Revision Surgery: Carefully correcting previous mistakes, repositioning tissues, or adjusting skin tension.
- Non-Surgical Treatments: Dermal fillers or Botox can help smooth irregularities or asymmetries when appropriate.
- Laser treatments: lasers can help to revise poor scars resulting from surgery.
A qualified surgeon will tailor treatments to your unique needs, helping you regain confidence in your appearance.
How to avoid getting a bad facelift?
Preventing disappointing results starts by choosing the right surgeon and preparing adequately. Some of my tips for avoiding a bad facelift include:
Choose a qualified surgeon
Always verify credentials, training, and experience.
Attend consultations
Use consultations to assess your potential surgeon’s approach, clarity, and care.
Review Before-and-After Photos
Evaluate real patient results to ensure the surgeon’s aesthetic aligns with your goals. Do not accept the excuse’ my patients don’t consent to sharing photographs’. Whilst it’s true that most patients do not consent to sharing their photos, most experienced surgeons will have at least a number of patients who do consent. If your surgeon doesn’t show you photos, it’s either because he’s not experienced enough yet to have the photos or he’s not confident you will like the look of his work.
Maintain open communication
Clearly communicate your expectations and concerns throughout your treatment journey, especially at the initial consultation. It’s better that your surgeon understands your expectations from the outset. An ethical surgeon will say no to surgery for you if they do not believe they can achieve your expectations.
Follow pre- and post-operative instructions
Adhering strictly to your surgeon’s guidance improves your outcome.
Manage your expectations
Understand realistic results, ensuring you and your surgeon share a clear vision.
Choose the right surgeon at McKeown Medical
At McKeown Medical, natural-looking, undetectable facelift results are our speciality. Our highly qualified and experienced team offers both surgical and non-surgical facelift treatments, including:
- Non-Surgical Facelift: A minimally invasive alternative offering rejuvenation without surgery.
- Volumetric Facelift: Restores youthful volume naturally.
- Deep Plane Face & Neck Lift: Delivers profound, natural rejuvenation by targeting deeper facial structures.
- Full Facelift: Comprehensive facial rejuvenation, addressing multiple signs of ageing.
We understand that excellent results start with expert care. Our team is dedicated to guiding you through each step, ensuring exceptional outcomes. Check out our gallery to see the transformative results we’ve achieved for our patients.
Book a consultation today to discuss our available treatment options and get advice on achieving the look you want.
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We’ve been in our new home for a year now and I thought this would be a good time to remind you just how special it is with a little video tour.
It’s been a remarkable year for us in our new home; we’ve introduced new doctors, new treatments, new services and our team continues to grow from strength to strength - always striving to provide more and better for our wonderful patients.
Enjoy the tour!
About last night… It was time once again for our annual Christmas celebration with this absolute bunch of legends. We were a little earlier than usual this year so we could have has many people available as possible, and the evening did not disappoint.
A few sore heads this morning, but absolutely worth it to celebrate the hard work this team dedicate to our patients day in, day out all year round. I am very proud to have the undisputed best team on the planet. Merry Christmas everyone! 🎄
Fine lines etched into the skin around the mouth - this is a common problem and in this patient`s case she had what we call ‘actinic elastosis’, whereby abnormal bands of elastin build up in the skin as a result of years of previous sun exposure.
When patients have this condition, the gold standard way of dealing with it is fully ablative laser resurfacing. It’s an intense treatment with two weeks of downtime afterwards, but the results are spectacular - just like in this lovely patient.
The after photo is three weeks after the treatment and you can see that the skin is still a little pink, which will continue to fade over the next few months.
The patient is already delighted with the result - what do you think?
It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas!
At least according to Michael Buble, who’s been on repeat in the clinic this week. The decorations are up and we are officially in ‘our season’. The clinic has been packed with everyone having their skin polished in time to make it on the nice list. If you’ve still to make a pre-Christmas appointment, we’ve still got some spaces left for your festive glow up.
Ho ho ho everyone… It’s time for Santa!!!! 🎅🏻
Ok, so this is the one we’ve all been waiting for. Sofwave : the results, in our hands!!!
This is the first patient we treated with @sofwave.uk when we were assessing the machine and deciding whether or not to buy it. These are the patient`s own photos that she kept throughout the healing journey.
Now do you see why we are so excited?! 🤩
#sofwave
#sofwavemed
#SUPERB
#sofwavemedical
#sofwavejourney
#sofwaveexperience
We are now well up and running with @sofwave.uk , much to the excitement of the whole team in the clinic (we are all queuing up to get a shot!)
This is a little video of the treatment being performed, so you can see what the process is like and there is even a little early preview of the results at the end.
One of the best parts is that there is no downtime, so we can still fit it in before Christmas without worrying about redness in the party season!
What do you think?
#sofwave
#sofwavemed
#SUPERB
#sofwavemedical
#sofwavejourney
#sofwaveexperience
We`re absolutely delighted to introduce you to our lovely new doctor, Dr Sharon.
With over 30 years’ experience as a medical doctor and a decade specialising in aesthetic medicine, Dr Sharon brings exceptional skill, warmth and a deeply patient-centred approach to every treatment.
She joins us with extensive expertise in injectables, including advanced toxin and filler techniques, and will also be leading our regenerative aesthetics offering with Ameela polynucleotides and Ameela Exosomes - two of the most exciting developments in skin rejuvenation. She will also be offering Profhilo and Profhilo Structura!
We have a super exciting new addition to the clinic this week, with the launch of @sofwavemed.
Sofwave is an incredible skin tightening technology that has been around for five years now. I am never first to the queue with new devices because so many don’t deliver and disappear within a couple of years of launch. Sofwave however has continued to grow in popularity over the years and earlier this year I decided I had to find out what all the fuss was about.
I asked the reps to bring it round for us to play with and we treated a few of our patients to see what the results were like and, three months later not only was I signing the purchase order I was asking how quickly I could get one of the reps round to treat me 😊
Sofwave works using ultrasound waves to create a thermal injury to the deeper layers of the skin, initiating a healing response which over a period of several months results in a skin tightening effect.
I have trialled a number of ultrasound devices in the past and have never bought any of them because I was always disappointed in the results. There are a couple of things that I think makes Sofwave different.
First, it only goes to 1.5mm which means all of the energy is being delivered to the skin. Most other devices go down to 3 or 4mm, by which point you are past the skin and into the fat which can, if anything, have a worsening effect on volume loss. The second difference that I think is important is that it treats a bigger proportion of the surface area of the skin.
We have a new page on our website where you can read all about Sofwave and how it works, but for now, enjoy some of these before and afters that the manufacture supplied.
Let me know what you think!
Lower eyelid surgery is one of the more challenging operations in aesthetic practice. If we can avoid it, we normally try to help our patients chose non-surgical paths using laser or fillers.
However, there are some situations where it can’t be avoided, especially when there is excess fat under the eye causing puffiness. This is exactly what this patient had and so the very talented @bramhallplasticsurgery performed an upper and lower blepharoplasty for him. Whilst we often do the upper eyelids without doing the lower eyelids, usually when we do the lower eyelids we always need to do the uppers too.
This patient is now a couple of months out from surgery and loving his result. What do you think?
Join us on Instagram to keep up with the latest results and expert insights from the clinic team.
Our dedicated team of experts are on hand to help you as you navigate your journey with us.
When you first make contact with us you will be assigned your own personal Patient Relationship Manager. They’ll start by understanding your needs and liaising with our doctors to book you an appointment with the most suitable specialist. For any additional questions or needs, you can message or call them anytime and they’ll be delighted to assist you. Our entire team is dedicated to providing you with the best possible treatment and care tailored to your needs.
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