Eyelid surgery was up 19 percent last year, the only real mover in the top five and the most popular facial surgery of 2025.
The actual reason people book
“I think the most common reason patients come in is because people are telling them that they look tired, when they’re actually feeling just fine and feel like they have energy. A lot of them feel younger than their actual age, but the eyelids are not helping them send this message out.”
“They look in the mirror and they look at photos, and they can identify the areas that they don’t like. Sometimes they can’t really identify exactly which procedures they need, and of course that’s why we’re there.”
Why the eyes and not something else
“Although these patients may actually require more work for facial aging, including facelifts, the first thing anybody looks at when they see somebody is their eyes. I think that’s what gives us an overall feeling about the patient, and it is the first thing that we will form an opinion on.”
Which lid
“I think the lower eyelids are a lot more common, with people complaining about their lower eyelid bags, and these are maybe slightly younger patients. The older patients are definitely concerned about their upper eyelids, the hooding, and even the visual impairment it’s causing.”
Visual impairment. At a certain point this stops being cosmetic.
Recovery
“The recovery for eyelid surgery is actually quite easy. In my experience with patients, we usually don’t have any pain, but there will be swelling, and there could be bruising around the eyes. If there’s bruising, it can take one to two weeks for the bruising to go down.”
“The upper lid does have a visible scar, which heals quite quickly, and the sutures are absorbable. The lower eyelid surgery does not have any visible scars.”
“Most patients return to work after a week using a little bit of makeup to cover any bruising if necessary. Some patients actually return to work earlier and use thick-rimmed glasses to kind of hide the surgical aspect.”
Why it keeps growing
“The procedures to fix these complaints are usually short, can be performed under local anesthesia or even IV sedation, and have short recovery times. Patients can return to work fast and they heal fast as well, so they see an overall transformation and are quite happy with the results. This is of course noticed by people around them very quickly, and that’s how word of mouth spreads.”
Short, predictable, quickly visible to other people. That combination is why the number moved.
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Source: ASPS 2025 Procedural Statistics Report. Commentary from Dr. Agullo’s 2026-09-07 dictation.