Deep-plane facelifts may have had their share of buzzy news in 2025, but so too has a less invasive facial surgery. If you’ve noticed a sudden influx of before-and-after photos where people’s undereye bags seem to pull a remarkable disappearing act, you can thank the rising popularity of lower blepharoplasty.
Blepharoplasty, the medical term for eyelid surgery, involves removing excess skin, muscle, and fat surrounding the eyelids. The two most common goals of upper blepharoplasty are addressing eye-specific signs of aging, like drooping or sagging skin, or surgically readjusting eyelids that impair the patient’s line of vision (a condition known as ptosis).
While upper blephs are not a new meal on the cosmetic surgery menu—we’ve all seen a celebrity or 10 whose upper lids seem magically lifted toward their brows—lower blephs are a different ball game. They can take years, even decades, off a face, giving the patient a more youthful, effortlessly well-rested appearance.
The sharp rise in lower blepharoplasty
Jimmy Sung, a board-certified plastic surgeon in New York City, first began noticing the rising popularity of lower blepharoplasties in 2023. “Now, even though the overall plastic surgery cases have been going down nationwide for the past two years,” he told the Daily Beast, “the request for lower blephs continues.”
“There certainly is an uptick,” agreed Douglas Monasebian, a board-certified plastic surgeon in New York City. He points to the American Society of Plastic Surgeons’ 2024 report, which showed blepharoplasty to be one of the top five cosmetic plastic surgery procedures of the year for the third year in a row. (The other four are liposuction, breast augmentation, abdominoplasty, and breast lift, in that order.)
The demographic asking for lower blephs is also skewing much younger now. Before, a bleph was likely geared towards someone older, but both doctors note that the average age of a lower bleph patient is more likely to be much younger: in their 40s. Some lower bleph patients are even in their thirties, though Monasebian says when this happens, it’s mostly for genetic or hereditary reasons.
The transformative power of lower blephs
Part of the reason for the burgeoning popularity and accessibility of lower blephs could be new surgical techniques. “The most modern procedure is called transconjunctival fat transposition,” explained Dr. Sung. This technique goes through the conjunctiva, or the pink, mucous-y part of your skin you see when you pull your eyelid down. By cutting through this area, there’s no visible scar because the scar is on the inside of your skin.
The fat transposition part, Dr. Sung explains, releases the existing ligament that holds the skin to the bone. While many dramatic before-and-after photos look like surgeons might pry in and remove fat from the undereye bag, this technique opens up the bottom of the eyelid into the cheek, creating a smooth line.
It’s not a perfect example, but listening to Dr. Sung’s explanation reminded me of the physics of a panty line. Sometimes there’s not even a lot of material there, but the line itself makes it look bulky. If you wore long johns, you’d still be wearing underwear—and still have all the fat in your under-eye—it would just move the line down to a less visible place. “Take a shopping bag, take a pair of scissors, and cut through it,” said Dr. Sung. “You cannot contain anything in that bag anymore. Anything will just go straight down right into the cheek.”
This technique means that post-surgery, you’re looking at about a week of “social downtime,” says Sung. You might have swelling around the eyes the first two or three days and have some secretion coming out of your eyes, he adds, but after 72 hours, you should be through the worst of it. Both doctors say that the surgery should take around an hour and run you anywhere from $5,000 to $10,000, and that insurance usually won’t cover it for cosmetic reasons.
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