A lower eyelid lift usually involves bags under the eyes, caused by the bulging fat around the eye socket. When the light shines from above, you will see dark circles created by the shadow, accentuating the so-called tear trough. The bulging can vary due to air pressure (flying, mountaineering) and fluid retention (salt intake). A lower eyelid lift removes and moves some of this fatty tissue.

In other cases, the bags are the result of excess skin. You can grab the piece of skin, and it forms some folds. In pigmented skin, the excess may also give a dark discolouration caused by pigment accumulation. The skin of the lower eyelids is also very thin, which can cause the dark red colour of the underlying muscle to shine through. In the case of excess skin, only skin is removed during the lower eyelid lift.

Long-term excess skin with creasing of the lower eyelid can cause so-called festoons on the edge of the eye socket. These festoons are difficult to treat. An eyelid lift cannot always remove them completely. In some cases, additional treatment with sclerosing fluid injections is required. Bulky, long-term festoons, usually at an advanced age, can be removed with a (barely) visible scar on the edge of the eye socket. The before and after photographs of eyelid lifts show examples of various (lower) eyelid lifts.

Finally, lower eyelids may also age due to the sagging of the face and (the outside of) the eyebrows. In those cases, the lower eyelid improvement may be a beneficial side effect of the facelift and/or brow lift, as can be observed in some clients in the photo album.