The Things I'm So Glad I Didn't Skip When Prepping for My Facelift Recovery
Updated: 3 hours ago
This post contains affiliate links, which means I may earn a small commission if you buy through them. It costs you nothing extra, and everything here is something I actually bought and actually used. This post is my personal experience, not medical advice. Your surgeon's instructions always come first.
I'm not going to pretend I had recovery figured out before my facelift. I didn't. I did a lot of research, made a lot of lists, and still got surprised once I was actually home and healing.
But there were a handful of things I almost talked myself out of buying. The "do I really need this" purchases. Those turned out to be the difference between a miserable first week and a manageable one.
Here are the four I'd tell you not to skip.
I remember standing in my living room the week before surgery thinking, I have pillows, I can just stack a few.
I'm so glad I didn't talk myself into that. After a facelift you're sleeping elevated, on your back, for days. Not propped up for one comfortable nap. Elevated all night, every night, for longer than you'd think.
Stacked pillows shift. They flatten. You wake up at three in the morning sliding sideways with your face at the wrong angle, which is the last thing you want when you're swollen and sore.
A real wedge pillow holds its shape and keeps you at a consistent angle all night. It also let me rest without putting pressure anywhere near my sutures, which mattered enormously.
If you buy one thing from this entire list, buy the wedge pillow.
Nobody warns you enough about this part. For the first several days I could barely chew. Not chew carefully. Chew at all.
It genuinely felt like my jaws were wired shut. I couldn't eat toast. I couldn't have managed a sandwich. I couldn't even chew the chicken in chicken noodle soup.
Having protein drinks on hand before surgery, rather than scrambling to order them after, meant I wasn't living on broth alone. The ones I used actually taste good, which matters more than you'd think when nothing sounds appealing, and they're not thick like most protein shakes, so they were easy to get down.
This one sounds small until you're living it.
You cannot open your mouth very wide after a facelift, and a regular toothbrush is much bigger than you realize. It's not that it hurts exactly. It's that it doesn't fit.
My husband found pre-pasted disposable travel toothbrushes, and they turned out to be one of the best small purchases of the whole thing. They're tiny, there's no rinsing, and they made brushing my teeth possible instead of a project.
I'll be honest, this was the item I was most skeptical about.
Here's the thing nobody mentions. You're sleeping at roughly a 45 degree angle, on your back, which means your jaw wants to drop open all night. Between that and the breathing tube from anesthesia, your mouth goes absolutely bone dry.
Mouth tape keeps your lips closed, and I slept much more solidly with it. Small item, much bigger impact than I expected.
What actually got me through the days
Past the products, the thing that mattered most that first week was staying nourished and hydrated when eating normally was off the table.
Water sounds obvious, but when your face is swollen and drinking feels like a chore, it's easy to under-hydrate at exactly the moment your body needs it most. Drink water like it's your job.
For food, I leaned on the same few things nearly every day:
Bone broth. Warm, easy to get down, and actually nourishing rather than empty calories. It has protein and electrolytes in it. This was my first meal.
Applesauce. Soft, cool, gentle, and something I could manage even on the roughest days.
Sugar-free Jell-O. A small thing that felt like a treat when very little else did.
One more: bendy straws. It is genuinely hard to purse your lips enough to drink normally, and good bendy straws will do more for your hydration than willpower will.
The part I didn't plan for at all
Here's what I want you to take away more than any product on this list.
I badly underestimated how much I would need the people around me.
I assumed my husband and my daughter would be getting me drinks and fixing my food. It was so much more than that. Keeping track of my medications. Carrying the wedge pillow from room to room, because I couldn't lift anything and those things are heavy. Reading my text messages out loud and answering for me, because I couldn't see my phone well enough to use it.
Your doctor will likely want someone with you for the first 24 hours. Based on my experience, I'd aim for someone fully committed to being there for four days.
And here's the part almost nobody plans for: those people need to be almost as prepared as you are. They need to know what you're going to look like coming out of surgery. They need to know what's expected in the first 24 to 48 hours. They need to know how to reach your care team.
Because if they panic, you will panic. So much of this is a mental game, and the people around you are half of your mental environment.
If you're prepping for your own recovery
Don't skip the small stuff. None of these felt essential on a shopping list, and every one of them turned out to be exactly that once I was actually recovering.
I've put everything I used in my Amazon storefront so you don't have to hunt for it: SHOP MY STOREFRONT
And if you want the whole thing, I wrote it all down.
These four are my top picks, but there are sixteen products in my guide, including my number two item overall, which isn't even on this list. More than that, the guide covers everything the shopping list can't: what I bought and never touched, the questions I wish I'd asked at my consultation, what the day of surgery is actually like, how to fill the hours when you can't see well enough to read your own phone, and the day that catches almost everyone off guard. It is not the day you'd think.
There's a full section written for your caregiver rather than for you, meant to be handed straight to them. And it comes with a separate printable Comfort Kit: your consultation questions, supply list, recovery room setup, master checklist and a caregiver quick sheet.
I should be honest about one thing. I'm writing this from inside my own recovery, not from the far side of it. Everything in the guide is something I've already lived through, and I deliberately left out anything I haven't. The later weeks are still ahead of me. I'll be adding them, and anyone who has the guide gets that update free.
If you're prepping right now, I'd love to hear what's on your list. And I'm happy to answer questions about what actually helped versus what I didn't end up using.
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