Facial Fat Grafting

Facial fat grafting restores volume to the face using the patient's own fat — harvested from the abdomen or thighs and injected into areas of deflation such as the cheeks, temples, lips, tear troughs, and nasolabial folds. The technique addresses the three-dimensional volume loss that underlies facial ageing, rather than simply smoothing surface wrinkles. At Art Ethic it is available under local or general anaesthesia; local anaesthesia keeps costs lower and recovery shorter for targeted facial treatments. Fat cells bring regenerative growth factors alongside volume, typically improving skin texture and quality in the treated areas over time.

Facial fat grafting — autologous facial lipofilling — uses the patient's own adipose tissue to restore the volume that the face loses through the normal ageing process. Facial ageing is now understood to involve three components: skin surface changes (wrinkles, texture), tissue descent (gravity-driven sagging), and deep volume deflation (loss of the fat compartments that give the young face its fullness and three-dimensional projection). Surgical facelifts address descent; fillers temporarily replace volume; fat grafting addresses volume deficit with a permanent, biologically integrated solution. At Art Ethic Beauty Clinic, doc. MUDr. Martin Molitor, Ph.D., MBA performs facial fat grafting under local or general anaesthesia depending on the extent of treatment required. For localised facial volume restoration (cheekbones, tear troughs, lips, temples), local anaesthesia keeps the session shorter and recovery more straightforward. For more comprehensive facial rejuvenation — often combined with another procedure — general anaesthesia provides the most comfortable environment. The fat harvest is performed via a small-volume liposuction cannula from the abdomen, inner thigh, or flank, leaving no visible scar at the harvest site. The extracted fat is processed by centrifugation to remove non-viable cellular material and then loaded into fine injection syringes. Facial injection is performed through small entry points using blunt cannulas or fine needles, depositing the fat in microdroplets across multiple layers — periosteal, subcutaneous, and intradermal — to maximise contact with blood supply and optimise graft survival. As well as volume restoration, transferred fat contains adipose-derived stem cells and growth factors that have a biologically active effect on the overlying skin — patients typically report an improvement in skin quality, texture, and luminosity in addition to the volumising effect. This regenerative dimension is a meaningful differentiator from hyaluronic acid fillers. Partial fat reabsorption (20–40%) occurs in the weeks after the procedure, so the surgeon overfills slightly at the time of injection. Stable results are visible at three to four months. A second session can add further volume if desired. No foreign materials are used, and there are no long-term replacement considerations.