---
title: "How Dr Ben Talei’s Work Has Influenced My Deep Plane Facelift Approach"
url: https://drturner.com.au/blogs/deep-plane-facelift-techniques-ben-talei/
date: 2026-06-15
modified: 2026-07-27
author: "Dr Scott J Turner"
description: "Dr Scott J Turner | Specialist Plastic Surgeon (FRACS) Key Takeaways This article sets out the deep plane facelift principles that shape Dr Turner's approach: planning the lift vector before..."
categories:
  - "Facelift"
image: https://drturner.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/blogplaceholder-img.svg
word_count: 2479
---

# How Dr Ben Talei’s Work Has Influenced My Deep Plane Facelift Approach

*[Dr Scott J Turner](https://drturner.com.au/dr-scott-turner-sydney-plastic-surgeon/) | Specialist Plastic Surgeon (FRACS)*

> **Key Takeaways** This article sets out the deep plane facelift principles that shape Dr Turner's approach: planning the lift vector before operating, a more lateral entry point, lifting less skin, and supporting the neck deeply at the mastoid. The thread running through all of it is repositioning the deeper facial layers as a unit rather than tightening skin. What determines a deep plane result is the detail of the dissection, not the name attached to it. Each plan is matched to the individual face at consultation.
The deep plane facelift is not new, and if you are reading this you likely already know how it differs from an SMAS lift. What has changed is the detail. Over the past five years a body of published work has put precise, measurable data behind the finer points: where to enter the deep plane, how much skin to lift, which direction to pull, and how to hold the neck.

I have brought several of those refinements into my own practice. If you want the operation itself set out step by step, the [deep plane facelift](https://drturner.com.au/procedures/face/deep-plane-facelift/) page covers it, with the [Brisbane deep plane facelift](https://drturner.com.au/locations/brisbane/deep-plane-facelift/) page for Queensland patients, and the broader [facelift](https://drturner.com.au/procedures/face/facelift/) overview places it next to the other techniques I use.

My technique has been shaped by the work of many facelift surgeons internationally, and I will write about others in time. Among them is Dr Ben Talei, a facelift surgeon in Beverly Hills who has published a steady run of papers on deep plane technique since 2021. I have followed his published work and seen him present at conferences. Where the anatomy and the evidence are sound, I have adopted what he has shown.

**To be clear about what this article is and is not:** it reflects my own reading of published work by a surgeon I have never worked with. No affiliation, endorsement or professional relationship is implied in either direction, and adopting a published principle is not the same as performing an identical operation. What follows is which principles I apply, and where my own assessment departs from them.

## The One Idea Underneath All of It

If there is a single thread running through the last five years of deep plane work, it is this: the gains have come from release, not from pulling harder.

Free the retaining ligaments properly and the deeper tissue can be repositioned and held at depth, with the strain kept off the skin. Almost every refinement below is a different answer to the same two questions. How completely do you release, and once the tissue is free, which direction do you move it.

## Reading the Vector Before Lifting

The direction of the lift sounds like a small thing. It is one of the most important decisions in the whole operation.

Talei and colleagues did something most surgeons had not: they measured the actual direction each layer was moved during surgery, across a series of their own cases, and published the numbers. The deeper layers wanted to travel close to vertical. The skin sat on a gentler angle. The lesson underneath the data was that there is no single correct direction. It follows each patient's own pattern of descent.

Two further findings shaped how I assess a face. Primary facelifts tend to lift in fairly consistent directions; revision facelifts do not, because old scar tissue pulls unevenly, so each suspension point is angled on its own rather than to a template. And the two sides of a face rarely match, so I plan left and right separately rather than mirroring one onto the other.

So before I lift, I read the face in front of me. Where descent is mostly vertical, the [Vertical Restore](https://drturner.com.au/procedures/face/vertical-facelift/) planning I offer lifts tissue against the direction it has fallen, rather than back toward the ears. That single choice is the difference between a face that looks rested and a face that looks pulled.

## A More Lateral Entry, and Lifting Less Skin

For a long time the assumption was that a bigger facelift meant raising more skin. Talei has been part of a group of surgeons challenging that.

In a large multi-surgeon review he contributed to, covering close to four thousand cases across the authors' combined series, the deep plane is entered more laterally, and only the skin needed to reach that entry point is lifted. The real work happens underneath, on the deeper layer.

Why does it matter how much skin comes up? Skin carries its own blood supply through small vessels running up into it from the tissue beneath. Lift a large sheet of skin off the face and you divide many of those connections, which is what drives prolonged swelling, discolouration, fine surface vessels and slower healing. Raise less skin and more of that supply stays intact. In the authors' series, the limited approach was associated with low rates of those skin problems without giving up the depth of correction underneath.

This is the basis of the preservation approach I use. I lift only as much skin as I need to reach the deeper layer, enter it laterally, and keep the connection between skin, SMAS and underlying fat where I can. The structural change is the same. The skin is left better supplied, which is the whole point.

## Holding the Neck Deeper

The neck is where facelifts are won or lost, and it is where one of the more useful contributions sits.

The angle of the jaw, where the jawline turns down toward the neck, is held by where you anchor the neck muscle. Traditionally that muscle is stitched onto the surface of the firm tissue behind the ear, near the bony prominence below the earlobe. That is a surface hold, and a surface hold can stretch and loosen over time.

The mastoid crevasse technique uses a deeper pocket in that region as the fixation point instead. Anchoring into the deeper pocket turns the bone and the jaw angle into a kind of pulley, giving a more stable, three-dimensional hold and a crisper line where jaw meets neck. Opening that pocket can also ease pressure on the tail of the salivary gland nearby, which in my experience helps slim the back of the jawline. In his published series of 79 patients, the jaw angle sat an average of around 8 millimetres deeper with crevasse fixation than with the older surface method.

When a neck needs that kind of lasting hold, this is the fixation I use. A neck held only at the surface can soften again as the stitches settle. A well-built neck is a large part of what makes a facelift still read as solid years later rather than months.

## The Platysma and Neck Bands

Under the skin of the neck sits a broad, thin sheet of muscle called the platysma. With age its front edges can stand out as two vertical bands, and how those are managed matters as much as the lift above them.

The older instinct was to cinch the bands tightly together down the midline, like lacing a corset. Talei makes a careful point about this: pull the midline too tight and you lock the neck in place, working against the vertical lift you are trying to create everywhere else. He favours suspending the platysma laterally, into the deeper anchor near the ear, so it acts like a hammock lifting the whole floor of the neck rather than a drawstring bunching the middle.

There are traps on both sides. Tighten the centre without supporting the sides and the neck can cord or band beneath the chin, one of the clearest giveaways that work has been done. Reduce the centre too aggressively and you can hollow it. I work the sides first, support the platysma laterally, and treat the midline conservatively, because an over-tightened neck is far harder to undo than an under-treated one.

## The Judgement Calls Under the Chin

A clean neckline is not only about lifting and the muscle. Deeper still there are decisions: the salivary gland under the jaw, the paired digastric muscle running under the chin, and the position of the hyoid, the small bone that sets how sharp a neck can ever be.

The published work on the deep neck is mostly about restraint. Where the gland or muscle band is the real driver of fullness, partial reduction can help, with firm limits: never remove more than about half of either, protect salivary function, and accept that a low-sitting hyoid is an anatomical fact no technique fully overcomes.

That is the approach I take. I assess gland, muscle and bone position on each patient rather than running one routine. I only reduce a gland or muscle band where the anatomy is the real cause of fullness, because these steps sit close to important nerves and vessels and carry real risk. And if a low hyoid is going to cap how sharp your neck can become, I would rather tell you that at consultation than promise something the anatomy cannot give.

## Planning the Male Face

Men's faces are not scaled-up versions of women's. The skin is thicker, the tissue denser, the blood supply higher, and there is often more fullness deep under the chin. The hairline, sideburns and beard line limit where an incision can sit without showing or shifting the beard, and male ageing tends to be more about structural descent than lost volume. I plan men accordingly: the incision designed to the male hairline, the deeper work weighted toward releasing and lifting rather than filling. The richer blood supply also raises bleeding risk in the first day or two, so I watch for that more closely.

## The Upper Lip

One contribution sits slightly to the side of the facelift. As the face ages the skin between nose and lip lengthens, less of the lip shows, and the corners of the mouth can turn down, leaving a resting expression that looks tired when it is not. A facelift pulls sideways and does little for any of that. The same deep plane logic applies to the upper lip: releasing a deeper layer so the lip can be reshaped without bunching the skin, and so the scar at the base of the nose sits under less tension. Where a lip lift suits a face I am treating, I use that principle.

## Reading the Evidence, Not the Brand Names

A word on how I weigh all of this, because facial surgery attracts more branded names than almost any field in medicine.

There is a real difference between a technique measured and written up in a peer-reviewed journal, where other surgeons can examine the method and the results, and a trademarked procedure name built mainly for marketing. The advances above earned their place in my practice because the first kind of evidence sits behind them, not because of the names attached to them.

**That evidence has limits, and you should know them.** The figures referred to here come from other surgeons' published series, most following patients to approximately one year after surgery rather than five or ten. They describe what is achievable in selected patients, not a promise. Surgery is variable by nature, and two people with similar faces can heal quite differently.

## How This Comes Together

Across the last few years my facelift has changed in specific, traceable ways. I read the lift vector to the individual face, and to each side of it. I enter the deep plane laterally and raise less skin. I anchor the neck into a deeper, more stable point and suspend the platysma laterally rather than cinching it down the middle. I make conservative, case-by-case calls on the gland, the muscle and the bone position in the deep neck. And I plan men differently from women.

None of that guarantees a particular result. Your outcome depends on your anatomy, your skin, your health and your healing, and every one of these steps carries risks discussed in full at consultation. Anyone who promises you a fixed result from a facelift is overselling it.

## Frequently Asked Questions

**Does Dr Turner perform the same operation as Dr Ben Talei?** No. This article describes principles from published work that have influenced how Dr Turner plans and performs a facelift. Adopting a published technique is not the same as performing an identical operation, and there is no affiliation or professional relationship between the two surgeons. Every surgical plan is built around the individual patient's anatomy rather than replicating another surgeon's approach.

**What is the mastoid crevasse, and why does it matter?** It is a deeper fixation point behind the ear used to anchor the neck muscle, rather than stitching it to the surface of the firm tissue in that region. A surface hold can stretch and loosen over time; a deeper anchor is more stable and produces a crisper line where the jaw meets the neck. It is used where a neck needs that kind of lasting hold, which is assessed individually.

**Why lift less skin during a facelift?** Because skin carries its own blood supply through small vessels running up from the tissue beneath. Lifting a large sheet of skin divides many of those connections, which contributes to prolonged swelling, discolouration, visible surface vessels and slower healing. Entering the deep plane more laterally means less skin needs to be raised while the structural work underneath stays the same, leaving the skin better supplied.

**Can a facelift give me a sharp jawline regardless of my anatomy?** No. Soft tissue sits on a skeletal framework surgery does not change, and hyoid position in particular caps how sharp the angle between chin and neck can become. Where a low-set hyoid is the limiting factor, meaningful improvement is still achievable but the endpoint differs from someone with more favourable anatomy. That is a conversation worth having at consultation rather than discovering afterwards.

**How reliable is the research behind these techniques?** The refinements described here come from peer-reviewed published series, which is a meaningfully higher standard than a trademarked procedure name. But those series generally follow patients to around one year rather than five or ten, and they describe outcomes in selected patients rather than guaranteeing results. Surgery is variable, and two people with similar faces can heal quite differently.

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A facelift is a considered decision, and the process is built for that. You will need a GP referral, a minimum of two consultations with time to think in between, and a seven-day cooling-off period after deciding to proceed. Psychological screening forms part of the planning where appropriate, and it is worth confirming any surgeon's Specialist Plastic Surgeon registration on the AHPRA register before booking. Dr Scott Turner consults in Sydney and Brisbane. For clinic information and the consultation pathway, visit the [Sydney clinic](https://drturner.com.au/locations/sydney-clinic/) or [Brisbane clinic](https://drturner.com.au/locations/brisbane/), or [contact the practice](https://drturner.com.au/contact-us/) to arrange a consultation.