Quick overview
How long does it take?
60 minutes
What type of anaesthetic is used?
Local anaesthetic or “twilight” (conscious sedation)
Pre-admission tests
Nil required, outpatient procedure
Do I have to stay over at the hospital?
Not required. Daycase surgery
Surgical Drains
Not required.
Incisions & scarring
Within natural lines of skin creases in upper lid and crow’s feet wrinkles
Garments
Steri- strips for seven days
Cost
From £2700 for surgery, anaesthesia, facility fee and follow up
How long before I can…
What is an upper blepharoplasty?

Some upper eyelids lose definition and comfortable function because of an excess of skin and muscle within the eyelid (intrinsic excess), which drops down like a set of ‘Venetian blinds’ over the upper eyelid shelf. In other upper eyelids, there is no skin/muscle excess, just an intrinsic laxity where the skin and muscle drops down over the eyelash line like ‘a loose pair of socks around the ankles’! The solution to this is not the removal of excess skin/muscle, but the elevation, definition, and stability of the restoration of the upper eyelid crease. Indeed, removal of skin/muscle in this situation would create difficulty in eyelid closure – an adverse event to avoid!
Ageing creates a loss of eyelid definition. However, not all loss of eyelid definition is from ageing. The analysis of the upper eyelids matters. A youthful volume above the eyelid crease is a beautiful feature, whereas an excess of tissue below the eyelid crease leads to a loss of comfort and definition in the upper eyelid. Some loss of definition might be related to ethnicity – an Oriental upper eyelid can be re-crafted to feel less heavy by surgery to make a double fold – which creates an upper eyelid shelf that is more associated with a Caucasian upper lid. The upper eyelid blepharoplasty can therefore be used in a very bespoke way to create the desired upper eyelid shape and volume.
Jonathan knows the human face and the detailed impact of the function and shape of the eyelids on your confidence in appearance. Working with you, your photographs from throughout the years, and observing your natural face in conversation, animation, and in different light, he will restore and rejuvenate for you in a bespoke manner. Jonathan will combine his master craftsmanship of surgery with the artistic principles of light and shadow, definition and shape, to deliver comfortable eyelid function with natural beautiful and youthful appearance.
Time in planning, time in preparation, and time to develop the relationship between patient and surgeon, and with the members of the team, to deliver best care and confident results. Blepharoplasty delivered at the age of 40 is not the same, and does not have the same aims, as blepharoplasty delivered at the age of 75. The principles are timeless, but the indications, aims, alternatives for procedures, and expectations of outcome are bespoke.
We will undertake a comprehensive ‘analysis phase’ based on two or three pre-surgical consultations (as many as required), looking at the structure of the face and eyelids together – today and in comparison to photographs from the past (if available). We will study your skin, offering advice on affordable daily skin health prescribed products that work. Our aesthetician, Karen, will be on hand to mentor and advise your skincare for the best of skin health from season to season. This approach is particularly valuable for the “dark circles” which are a common feature of southern Mediterranean, African, and Asian skin types.
Prepare and repair! Our Lifestyle Medicine physician and consultant anaesthetist, Shyamala, will advise you on how best to prepare for your surgery, and the simple strategies you can incorporate into daily life to facilitate healing in the repair phase of recovery.
Verified Patient (Doctify)
Benefits
Why consider upper blepharoplasty (upper eyelid lift) surgery?

Both men and women consider upper eyelid lift surgery for many different reasons. It may be to correct an hereditary feature, or familial traits that they have become self-conscious about. They hear comments about “looking tired”, “are you unhappy?” that do not reflect their inner confidence and vitality.
The range of surgical and non-surgical techniques that are currently available offer a perplexing minefield of choices. Jonathan and his team will guide you through the options with clarity. What is your desired outcome? What recovery time is available to you? How do you approach matters of cost, and how do you perceive matters of risk? There are many horror stories about both surgical outcomes and non-surgical therapies. Which are true? What is the balance of risk, reward, recovery time and cost? All these questions will be answered by Jonathan with clarity, in plain and simple language, and backed up with a written report.
Jonathan’s team has been at the forefront of developing the “twilight technique” of facial surgery, where patients are kept as comfortable and pain-free as can be – throughout the surgery, but without being completely asleep. This allows for a relaxed patient with the ability to open and close the eyes, or smile, with dynamic facial movement during the surgery for bespoke surgical technique. The ‘twilight technique’ also allows rapid recovery, minimal bruising and swelling, and no post-anaesthetic downtime.
We are at the forefront of measuring our results from blepharoplasty surgery. We will ask you to fill out some short pre-operative questionnaires, and then again at set times after the surgery. The ‘QPROM’ questionnaires were developed in the United States and have been recommended by the UK Royal Colleges of Surgeons to be adopted to measure results in aesthetic surgery. Jonathan’s consecutive facelift results are audited independently and ‘blindly’ on a quarterly basis, and are presented in peer review and professional appraisal.
FAQ’s
1. Discretionary free-of-charge video-call
Jonathan will enjoy introducing himself to you in a free video-call to discuss your request. It would be very useful if you could send us some selfie photographs (to medsec@jonathanbritto.com; held securely as part of your medical record), which will help inform the conversation.
2. Face-to-face consultation
If you would like to receive a detailed written analysis, with a quote for treatment, Jonathan will meet you in clinic for a face-to-face appointment. You are welcome to bring a friend or family member for support. The medical history and physical analysis in the privacy of the consulting room is an essential part of making the treatment plan. After this meeting you will receive a detailed plan and a written quote, together with a suite of information about our ‘twilight’ surgeries, relevant comments from prior patients, and some insights about the psychology and holistic care that is part of our commitment to you.
3. Face-to-face or remote catch up…
Jonathan recommends that you open a “procedure diary” on your phone, into which you can drop any questions that occur to you throughout the day, and after receiving the clinic letter and information from your face-to-face consultation.
This third conversation is to answer any questions you have, and to allow Jonathan to ask you about any reflections he has had to refine your care.
…. Step 4…..
In truth, our door is always open, and Jonathan will be very happy to see you face-to-face or remotely if you have further questions about your requested procedure.
Consultation fees: £295 is charged prior to Step 2
Data Security:
Please be aware we use a data security software to encrypt any correspondence that we send you which includes your personal data. These emails may fall into your junk folder, so following your consultations please keep a regular check on this folder.
If you wish to receive unencrypted, ‘open’ email to your inbox – please can be requested via an online, ‘one click’ consent form.
Every surgical procedure carries inherent risk, and risk events may happen despite every person in the team performing without error. In the ‘analysis phase’, Jonathan will discuss matters of risk for each type of procedure, backed up with a concise and clearly written document of risk. Jonathan is proud to run a practice that is low risk for patients, and, when a risk event rarely occurs, to provide a comprehensive open – door service to resolve matters.
There is impact of all of this on the aims and indications of the proposed secondary upper blepharoplasty, on the alternatives available, and on the risks and responsibilities and expectations of outcome – all of which are comprehensively discussed.
Upper blepharoplasty provides both functional benefit in comfort, and appearance benefit in contour. One of the simplest of the aesthetic surgical techniques, it is also one of the most difficult to get right for patients, to give confidence, youthful contour, and hidden scars. It can be undertaken under local anaesthesia as an outpatient procedure or combined with more extensive facial surgeries. Upper blepharoplasty provides very good value, consistently happy patients, and very consistently supportive reviews
A whole face can be changed very effectively but with great subtlety with an upper blepharoplasty surgery. Equally appreciated by men and women, very much technically determined by ethnicity and gender, the upper blepharoplasty is a deceptively simple but challengingly complex operation. It is a delight to achieve consistently happy outcomes for our patients who often go on to develop a long-term relationship with my team in my practice
Jonathan Britto