Facial design and cosmetic surgery in NYC
Manhattan, Flushing, and New Jersey
If you are unhappy with your appearance when you look in the mirror, you are not alone. Almost everyone has something about their face that they wish was different, whether it is more youthful-looking skin and contours or a dramatic change in the shape of one or more facial features. Dr. Edmund Kwan is devoted to the aesthetic and cosmetic rejuvenation of the face and neck for patients in the NYC area, with offices conveniently located in Manhattan, Flushing, and New Jersey. He offers a variety of facial design and cosmetic surgery treatments to help women attain a more delicate, beautiful, and feminine face, and to give men more refined, chiseled, and masculine contours. Dr. Kwan is the first plastic surgeon in the United States to offer facial designing to change the shape of the face and give patients the facial features they want. This is truly a 21st century achievement in aesthetics, and one of the many factors that makes Dr. Kwan’s practice unique.
Personalized assessment
Dr. Kwan has numerous years of experience in reconstructing and redesigning both the bones and the soft tissues of women and men’s faces in the NYC area. The first, and perhaps most crucial step, is a thorough assessment of treatments that are right for you. During your personalized consultation, Dr. Kwan will talk with you about what you like about your appearance and what you would like to change, using a variety of tools such as photographs of your face and celebrity photos to help elucidate the characteristics of facial features that you like and your desired results.
An important part of helping you achieve the results you want is understanding your treatment preferences. Some patients are interested in refining their appearance but don’t want to undergo any surgical procedures, whereas other patients are seeking more dramatic changes and are interested in cosmetic surgery to help them achieve the facial appearance they have always wanted. Dr. Kwan understands that no two patients are alike, and as such, offers a full array of treatment options from minimally invasive injections to customized implants and surgical treatments to help sculpt the face you desire.
With the aid of the latest technological tools such as 3D imaging and a thorough examination of your skin, bone, and soft tissue structure, Dr. Kwan can provide recommendations on the best options for designing and achieving the facial features you want. He has the unique combination of experience, precision, and artistry to truly transform your face while taking into consideration your preferences and your unique facial structure.
Dr. Kwan uses a variety of tools to help you achieve the facial design you are seeking. Cosmetic injections such as Botox, dermal fillers, and fat injections are minimally invasive options that can be used alone or together to re-shape and contour your face without scalpels or incisions.
Patients who are interested in minor surgery can benefit from fat grafting. More intensive surgical procedures—such as implants to highlight your facial features or a reduction in bone or muscle in targeted areas for a slimmer appearance—can provide truly transformative results. Below, we explain these options in further detail.
Botox Injections
Botox cosmetic filler in New York, NY is one of the many tools that can be used to not only reduce the wrinkles associated with aging, as many people are familiar with, but also adjust the contours of the face by lifting it and reducing the thickness of certain muscles.
Removing facial wrinkles
When used in strategic, small doses, Botox injections can be incredibly effective at reducing the formation and appearance of wrinkles that form due to normal facial movements and expressions. Common wrinkles that Botox can treat include:
- Crow’s feet around the eyes
- Frown lines
- Lines on the forehead
- Wrinkles on the neck
- Bunny lines on the nose
- Marionette lines
Non-surgical facial shaping
In addition to dealing with wrinkles, Botox can be used as a type of non-surgical face lift, helping to re-shape the jaw and even lift the tip of your nose. As we age, skin becomes more lax and sagging, which is particularly noticeable around the jawline, but affects all areas of your face – including the skin on your nose. Using Botox along the muscles of the jawline can help pull and lift the skin to reduce the appearance of jowls and create a slimmer, more youthful profile. Similarly, a droopy nose can make your whole face look old and tired, and with injections of Botox between the nostrils, the muscle that pulls your nose down relaxes, releasing the nose and giving a more lifted appearance to the whole face.
Reduce the thickness of muscles in the face
Botox can also be strategically used to bring more balance to your facial features by slimming areas where the muscles are too thick, such as the jaw muscles and the muscles in the temples. For example, if you grind and clench your teeth, your jaw and temple areas can actually become wider over time due to repetitive use of the muscles, and injecting Botox in this area shrinks the affected muscles for a slimmer, more lifted appearance. It can also have the added benefit of reducing pain that teeth grinding can cause.
Dermal Fillers (Restylane and Juvéderm)
Facial fillers such as Restylane and Juvéderm are commonly used to restore volume that has been lost due to aging and to plump up areas of the face that are genetically thinner or less round than you would like. With fillers, you get an anti-aging boost while also augmenting specific features of your face.
Softening facial lines and wrinkles
Aging processes naturally lead to a loss of volume in areas of your face. This makes you look older in two ways: the roundness from facial volume in certain areas such as the cheeks is part of what makes someone have a youthful appearance, so when it is lost, you look older, and the volume loss also makes the skin looser in those areas, leading to lines and wrinkles. Common facial lines that dermal fillers can be used to soften include:
- Nasolabial folds
- Forehead wrinkles
- Smile lines around the mouth and eyes
- Wrinkles in the neckline
Facial Augmentation/Facial Feminization
With Juvéderm, Voluma, and Restylane facial fillers, NYC area patients can augment the following parts of their face:
- Nose
- Cheek
- Forehead
- Midface
- Chin
- Tear trough groove
- Upper and/or lower lip
Restore facial balance with Facial Implants. – Dr. Edmund Kwan
Who is an ideal candidate for this procedure?
Especially some of the ethnic descent Asians tend to have the middle part of the face kind of sunken in.
If we look at the Asian’s facial bone structure, the Asians tend to have a wider outer bone instead of a flatter central portion of the face. Asians tend to have flatter foreheads; the nose tends to be a little bit flatter. In the mid-face, the part next to the nostrils on both sides of the face that again is sunken in.
How do you treat the mid-part of the face?
This is due to the lack of projection of this area, and then I consider mid-face so to take care of the mid part of the face, I make an incision inside the mouth and place small implants in.
I use silicone implants; in this area, the silicone implants tend to do very well since they are small and work really well. A very small implant and it will project this area out.
Are patients happy with the implants?
Patients like it because it tends to bring balance to the face even with patients who have their upper jaw or upper teeth jutting out, and this will sort of set it back. So, it’s a nice way to restore the esthetic of the middle part of the face.
And then along with these implants, I put a chin implant because the chin is very small and re-sets can have an adverse effect on the facial appearance. It gives them a shorter chin, shorter face and the profile is not that aesthetically pleasing, and the patients know this and they hate their profile.
Why do you recommend a chin implant for facial contouring?
The chin implant is placed inside the mouth with a small incision and it is not a long procedure and I use a silicone implant as it is the ideal material for this area. Any complication from a chin implant is extremely rare and patients by just putting a chin implant in can get amazing results.
I believe in the face one of the profits or the most improvements I get from the smallest surgery is the chin implant. Their entire outlook and facial balance are restored in many cases by just putting a small chin implant. So, I find this to be very effective to many of the ethnic populations and even for the Caucasian population, many Caucasians have very small chins.
Especially in the Asian population, this is a very effective way to restore balance in the face.
Fat Grafting/Injections and Fat Removal
With fat grafting and fat reduction, NYC area patients can achieve even greater facial contouring and sculpting results.
Fat grafting/injections
Fat grafting is a procedure where a small amount fat is gently harvested – typically from your abdomen or thighs – and then purified and injected into the face in targeted areas. Fat grafting/injections are a natural-looking way to fill in lines that have developed due to aging, such as on the forehead, nasolabial folds, and neckline. It is also used to augment specific areas of the face to provide a beautiful reshaping of features and to fill in lost volume. Areas of the face that are good locations for this type of augmentation include the forehead, cheeks, nose, and chin. It is important to note that fat grafting results can be temporary in some patients, wearing off over time.
Fat removal
While fat can lend a youthful, beautiful look to certain parts of the face, when there is too much of it in other areas, it can make you look older or less healthy. For example, one way to add more definition to your face is to reduce the size of the buccal fat pad. Dr Kwan performs cosmetic surgical revision of the buccal fat pads to enhance the definition and prominence of the cheeks. Liposuction can also be used on the face to contour it in targeted areas and refine the shape of your face.
Facial Bone Contouring
With facial bone contouring surgery, NYC area patients can truly transform their appearance with customized facial designing by Dr. Kwan. Your facial bones play an important role in how your face looks, and augmenting the facial bones can highlight specific areas of your face and bring balance and beauty to your features. Dr. Kwan performs facial bone augmentation by carving out unique, customized implants that are designed to suit your specific face and produce the best results. Common procedures Dr. Kwan performs include:
- Customized nose implants to raise the bridge of the nose or give a higher or “stronger” appearance to the nose
- Cheek implants to give the cheeks a more rounded, youthful appearance
- Midface implants to provide volume in the malar fat pad area
- Chin implants to reshape the chin and jowl area and to change the shape, appearance or size of the chin
- Jaw angle implants to change the shape of the jawline
- Forehead augmentation with bone cement, which balances the profile and overall facial appearance
Many of these procedures can safely be performed on patients of varying ages, from teens through older adults.
Facial Bone Reduction
In contrast to bone augmentation procedures, the best way to achieve the appearance that some patients desire is to reduce the amount of bone in certain areas. With facial bone reduction, NYC area patients can achieve a more balanced appearance to their face, minimizing the emphasis of certain features and leading to a more feminine or contoured appearance.
- Cheek bone reduction can be used to reduce the width of the cheek
- Jawbone reduction can be used to reduce jaw width; both bone and muscle may need to be reduced in this area
- Forehead/brow reduction for men or women with prominent brow bones that may be contributing to an intense or angry appearance
- Nose reduction to minimize the size of the nose, either overall or in certain locations on the nose
- Chin reduction, where both length and width of the chin can be reduced
Cosmetic Surgery Before and After Done By Dr. Kwan
No matter what you would like to change about your facial appearance, Dr. Kwan can help you design the face that makes you look and feel your best. With offices in Manhattan, Flushing, and New Jersey, we are never far from work or home.
Call us at (212) 734-4488 to schedule your personalized assessment today.
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Schedule a consultation with Dr Kwan to find out if you are a good candidate for Facial Design and Cosmetic Surgery. He will be happy to answer all your questions and discuss best options, using Vectra 3D imaging so that you can see potential results.
