Georgia Louise is one of Hollywood’s top aestheticians, and is a go to for a host of A-listers. She’s also refreshingly honest about aging, and how she’s navigated her own journey. Here, she reveals why she had an upper lid blepharoplasty at 45.
There are very few phrases I hate more than “aging gracefully.” For me, it’s all about aging beautifully. I’ve been an aesthetician and facialist for over 27 years. I study skin. I’ve made it my mission to preserve my clients’ natural beauty, and keep them looking as fresh and youthful as possible. Some of the biggest names in Hollywood come to me to look their best—including Anne Hathaway and Jennifer Aniston. I’m proud of how good they look after seeing me, and I work just as hard on my own skin as I do theirs—because I’m my own best advertisement.
But there are some things even the most sophisticated skin treatments can’t fix. And after I started to get a fat build up on my eyelids, I decided to get plastic surgery to remove it—then live document everything about the procedure and my recovery on social media. Why? Because it felt disingenuous not to be open. I can do a lot to help people look their most beautiful, but when it goes beyond my expertise why not tell the truth? I believe in the importance of sharing knowledge, and giving women all the information they need to make the decisions they want.
To be completely honest, for a long time I never wanted to do cosmetic surgery. But the negative way I was feeling about myself had built up over a few years. It started during the pandemic, when I began to put myself out there more on Instagram. At the end of a day I’d look back at videos I’d posted and think, “crap, my eyes are really puffy today.” I know many people have the same thoughts, but I’m an aesthetician and it bothered me. My mom always used to tell me that my eyes were my best feature, and it was driving me more and more crazy that they no longer were.
At the same time, I was also going through a separation and divorce, I was relocating my business headquarters from California to New York, I was becoming a single mom for the first time, and I was dealing with thyroid disease and type one diabetes. I felt as haggard as I was convinced I looked.
I remember one day thinking, “That’s it, I’m done.” But I still didn’t start with the surgery route. I called my endocrinologist first, who said it could be Bulging Eye Syndrome caused by the Hashimoto’s disease I suffered from. So I got my tools out of the freezer and would massage my eyes every day. But nothing was changing. Then I spoke to my friend Miranda, better known as the Beauty Broker, who is a cosmetic guru to the stars. She took one look at my eyes and told me, “That’s not a puffy eye. That’s fat, my friend.” I laughed out loud. I’d recently lost 30 pounds (my thyroid issues had made me pile on weight that I’d finally lost through exercise and nutrition), but there I was, likely growing fat around my eyes.
So given the nature of who I am and the people that I know—I see the best work obviously because I treat celebrities, and even though I can’t tell you who’s had what’s done, I know who’s had what’s done and it’s fantastic work and they look terrific—I’m like, “I need to go and consult with all these people.” So I did.
And after doing a ton of research and consultations, I landed on a reputable plastic surgeon based in New York City. After talking it through he recommended a partial upper lid blepharoplasty. In plain terms, the procedure removes excess fat build up in the upper eye area—though I affectionately call it my eyelid liposuction. He explained that a partial blepharoplasty would involve him opening up the skin on my eyelid a quarter of the way, plucking out the fat, and then stitching me up again. He cautioned against doing fat removal across the full eyelid, as it could give me too hollow a look and look too overdone, which I didn’t want. I also didn’t want to look like I was trying to get back to my twenties or thirties—I just wanted to wind back five years, to how I looked pre separation, pre becoming a single mom and pre some of the worst of my health issues.
Seeing him took away any doubts I had, so I paid my deposit (yes, I paid $7,500 in total for this) and two weeks later—March 2025—I was marching into his office for my surgery.
On the day of the appointment, I said to my doctor, “Look, I’m a single mom with two children. I have a full-time business. I don’t have time for downtime. So I’m going to be really open to everyone and let them know that I’m doing it because I need to get back to my office within two hours.” So I declined all the Valium (which would have been great but that’s the thing about running my own business—I just had to get back to work right away).
“I passionately believe that the stigma around surgery has to change.”
Not taking the Valium had a few other advantages too: I got to be really present during the surgery, something—as an aesthetician—I’m really fascinated by. So, after he numbed me, I could hear his electric knife whirring to life, and then slithering into my skin. Yes, it sounds gory, but I’m not in the least bit squeamish, I love this stuff—and I asked if I could see what he was doing. Someone gave me a mirror, and I got to watch as my surgeon started to remove the fat from my eyelids. When I saw what I can only describe as a worm of fat get tweezed out, I started to laugh. I have two sons, and one of them has a leopard gecko as a pet which we have to feed big juicy wax worms. What I saw the doctor taking out of my eyelid with his tweezers was like one of my son’s gecko’s wax worms. I even asked the doctor if I could feel it. I found the whole process so interesting.
One of things my doctor also told me was that the fat he was removing from my eyelid was yellow, indicating that it was new fat. And in that moment I felt vindicated—I hadn’t been imagining things. I really had been producing excess fat in my eyelids, and it was something no amount of my own facial treatments could have reversed or rectified. The only way to treat it had been via surgery, and fast surgery at that. Within 45 minutes it was done, and I was out of there and back to work, face full of stitches but delighted.
That was when I decided I wasn’t just going to be open with my clients in the salon about what I had done, but on my social media too. Why? Because I passionately believe that the stigma around surgery has to change. There’s such a taboo about having cosmetic surgery—that somehow women are fakes because they have it. It’s such crap. Surgery is a tool, and if you want to feel good about yourself and you can make it work, then go ahead and do it. Having cosmetic surgery doesn’t mean that I’m not any more natural than I was. I just look like a better version because I have my eyes back. I haven’t changed myself. I was able to fix a problem that was bugging me. So I am thrilled. I’m happy to sing it to the high heavens and tell my clients that it was a terrific experience and gave me my confidence back. I went through a tough time, and so to do one thing to turn my confidence around, it was my eyes and I’m delighted that I did it.
So I started to document it: I filmed what I looked like straight after surgery, I filmed myself doing my aftercare—I had to compress my eyes five times a day with ice for five days, and on the fifth day I had to switch to a warm compress. I asked my doctor if I could add in some of my own daily treatments, like LED light therapy and lymphatic drainage to help with recovery—he said yes—so I filmed that too. I recorded everything I did for a week, and the best bit at the end of it? I didn’t have a single bruise.
Interestingly, one of my longtime clients came in four days after I’d had my surgery, and she’d had her own eyelid blepharoplasty too a few days before. We both still had our sutures in, but she had much more bruising than I did. I believe a lot of the additional treatments I did on my own skin really helped speed up my healing, and now that I know, I’d love at some point to pass on this knowledge to my clients.
Because why should surgery have to be such a secret? It’s ok for us to get our teeth cleaned and straightened, to color our hair, get extensions, but not to do our eyes or get a facelift? I don’t buy that. Look, I’m aware that these things are expensive and not everyone can or even wants to pay or save for it. But for those who do I want to shift the narrative to one of acceptance.
Women still get far too much heat for going down this route. It was one of the reasons I almost dismissed the idea of surgery. I didn’t want to feel like a hypocrite. People want to get skin like mine, and of course they still can, but I worry that I’m going to be put in this bucket of having had surgery done so I can’t possibly be natural. The best kind of surgery can lift and tighten and remove excess fat, and help people keep their youth—and why shouldn’t that be embraced? But I can tell you that the surgery doesn’t change my skin, or anyone’s skin, or what I can do to give people their best skin.
“I caution my clients about only doing Botox at most a few times a year.”
Honestly, I’m actually far more against dermal fillers than I am for surgery. Injectibles are very different. They can migrate. There’s also research suggesting that fillers can possibly cause more lymphatic issues because you’re blocking the lymph flow in the skin.
What I’m seeing a lot in my practice is that once you start filling, it looks great the first time, maybe the second time you’re putting it into the skin. But the more you do, the worse it often can look, because as much as we all love the idea that it dissolves within one to two years, it doesn’t. Research has shown that filler can remain in the skin for years and years and years. Similarly, in my practice, I’m seeing that fillers can act as a barrier for a lot of the treatments like ultrasound and radiofrequency—meaning that they’re not working as well as you’d want. I also caution my clients about only doing Botox at most a few times a year. What I’ve seen is that when clients do it too often they get muscle wastage, and their muscles appear to get thinner and thinner and the skin drops regardless.
It’s fascinating really, because I spend my life with people’s faces. I feel their skin, see it, touch it. I know how people age. And I’m aging alongside my clients, many of whom have been with me for well over a decade. I know the ones who’ve been getting fillers for years, I know the ones that haven’t, and I can see how they all look over the course of ten years, and largely I would say that the less you do the better in the long run. I’ve also tried a lot of things myself too—I’ve done botox a couple of times in my life, when I was at a low ebb, and my forehead lines were more defined. But it’s really not a go-to for me—I prefer micro current as a lifting treatment to Botox. And I once tried lip filler, but hated it and had it dissolved within six months.
Alongside investing in a good aesthetician or dermatologist, I’d recommend people who are interested in preserving their skin set up a surgery account. Save now for your future, so when you want to do your eyes, or have a facelift, you’ve got the funds.
I’m 45 now, and I’m really happy with where I’m at in the getting older process. I’m beautifying myself. I’ve never felt better, and I truly think I look better than ever. Yes, my skin has changed, but I still love it and I work hard to maintain its elasticity. My goal is to knock menopause on its head and say screw you to it. I’m very fortunate because I have the best tools. I do my Sofwave machine—which is essentially ultrasound that contracts your skin and snatches it—and my daily LED treatments, and facial massage. I want to be a role model to show you can age beautifully no matter how old you are..
I want us to stop being defined by our body clocks. I want us to feel okay with restoring a bit of our youth, with being and looking the way we want to. And I’m hoping I’m going to look this good until I’m 65. And then we’ll go from there—and probably book that facelift.
Georgia Louise’s lessons for aging beautifullyThe one thing that keeps us youthful in life is collagen.
At 26, we just don’t make it anymore, and it’s just sitting there only for us to hit perimenopause, which depletes our collagen by 2% each year. So for you, at home, you need a run out on your 26th birthday to buy your retinol, which protects against collagen degradation. And for anyone over the age of 26, retinol retinol retinol. It’s not too late.
Protect against the sun’s UV rays.
Buy the best SPF you can afford that has zinc in it, and a vitamin C cream won’t hurt either.
Get yourself treatment with the right devices.
I’m sorry, but you can’t just rely on slapping on cream. Creams are wonderful as long as they have peptides and growth factors. But the key thing here is technology. You need devices. You need to get to the collagen cells. Microneedling is great, and always work with a professional for that. Similarly, if you see an aesthetician, think about getting baby ultrasound. And make sure to get red light LED treatments to trigger fibroblast synthesis, which can help with tissue repair and healing.
Buy your own LED light.
And do your treatments a minimum of four times a week.
Get a facial roller.
And keep it by your desk at work
Stay away from fillers.
They aren’t worth it in the long run
Only do Botox a maximum of twice a year.
Getting it too often thins out the muscles too much
The post Georgia Louise: I’m a Facialist to Hollywood’s Biggest Stars. Here’s Why I Got an Eye Lift at 45. appeared first on Glamour.
