Meet the Doctors Behind 2025's Most Luxurious Facelifts

Elle

2 days ago

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There's a new face in town, and it's gotten lifted, toned, and plumped in all the right places. The modern-day facelift is expensive yet subtle, with shorter healing times, and results that have people wondering, 'What did they get done?' Not to mention where: There is an upper echelon of surgeons with special tools, tricks, and techniques. Below, some of the most hard-to-get appointments.
Wait list: 12 months.
Special amenities: Erbium lasers; a makeup artist who custom-blends a mineral foundation to help hide healing scars.
Akin to a restaurant without its name on the door, the San Francisco clinic of Timothy Marten, MD, is hidden in a historic landmark building. Marten doesn't use social media or even show before-and-after photos on his website. 'I've operated by word of mouth, and I'd rather put the energy that some people put into social media into better care of my patients,' he says. Like the other surgeons in this story, Marten only operates a few times a week, doing what he describes as 'meticulous, couture operations.' Surgeries can take up to eight hours and include anything from a face, neck, lip, or forehead lift to fat grafting. About 40 percent of his patients come from out of town (minimum recovery time is nine days), and in rare cases, he travels out of the country to perform surgeries. High-profile patients are given pseudonyms, and all patient photos are stored a free-standing photo server, protecting against cyber threats.
Wait list: Six months to one year.
Special amenities: Hyperbaric oxygen chambers; a suggested pre-surgery nutrition plan (both available on request).
As one would expect in Beverly Hills, the patients of Jason Diamond, MD, are often people you see onscreen. 'I've had many people back on camera in 10 days,' he says (he advises them to wait at least six weeks, but they don't listen). A few years ago, the age of Diamond's facelift patients started trending down into the mid-40s. 'A lot of young actors or people who are making a living with their face come in. They can't even afford to have a few years of looking a little bit saggy,' he says. In response, he created the Diamond 40, a mini deep plane facelift. 'If you name a facelift technique, I do a version of it.' He's performed surgery overseas in palaces with operating rooms, and at every time of day for paparazzi-fearing patients. 'I always assure them, 'Even if we do it in the morning, no one's going to see you because of all of the systems we have in place,'' he says. 'Still, I have some people who say, 'No, I want it at night.''
Wait list: 18 months.
Special amenities: Siloed hallways for maximum privacy; 24-hour nursing for the first day.
Ninety-five percent of patients seeing St. Louis-based L. Mike Nayak, MD, come from out of town. 'We've had plenty of internationally recognizable people, and nobody has known,' he says. 'Our whole practice model has evolved to make it as easy as possible for patients to come in, spend their 10 days in St. Louis, and go home.' Patients connect with his warm bedside manner and his bespoke, or 'omakase,' approach to facial rejuvenation, which can include a facelift, fat grafting, rhinoplasty, or other refinements. On any given day, there can be up to three doctors from other practices around the world observing his techniques. More than one patient has told Nayak, 'If you didn't do it, I wouldn't get a facelift.' One of his most memorable patients was grieving the loss of her child. 'I was wearing it on my face,' she told him five days after surgery. 'I looked at myself in the mirror, and I saw my old face, without all the heartbreak on it.' The entire Nayak office cried.
A version of this story appears in the Summer 2025 issue of ELLE.
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