Izzy Anaya was tired of looking tired.
The skin above her hooded eyelids had begun to sag and wrinkle. She looked permanently exhausted and much older than her 43 years.
The Manhattan mom of two tried to combat the sagging by regularly getting botox and filler injections in her forehead. She hoped the popular toxins would lift her brow line and tighten the skin. But the treatments just weren’t doing the trick.
So late last year, she called a plastic surgeon, plunked down more than $10,000 and asked them to fix the problem — once and for all.
“I had eyelid surgery and I feel like my face lost 10 years ago removing this small piece of skin over my eyes,” Anaya, a stay-at-home mom and lifestyle content creator, told The Post about the buzzy surgery.
Blepharoplasty, a new viral antiaging procedure, is a facial rejuvenation procedure through which specialists remove excess skin and fat that can develop both above and below the eyelid as a person ages.
It’s a process A-listers like supermodel Giselle Bündchen, 42, and Golden Globe winners Matt Damon, 52, and Jennifer Coolidge, 61, have been rumored to have been submitted.
About an hour after she went under the knife, Anaya’s doctor, Jordan Turner of Manhattan Plastic Surgery on the Upper East Side, sent her home with Tylenol and a recommendation for 48 hours of bed rest, during which she felt minimal pain.
“It was a 20-minute process and it got rid of all my wrinkles. It lifted my face without having to do a facelift,” Anaya said, adding that she no longer needs to wear eye makeup. “It’s amazing.”
In 2020, blepharoplasty, also known as “blepharoplasty” or “blepharoplasty,” ranked as one of the top five cosmetic procedures in the US, per American Society of Plastic Surgeons.
The site too listed the surgery as one of the most popular stings among patients 45 and older in a 2022 report.
A separate April 2022 study through the global health business consultancy Maximizing Market Research found that the popularity of blepharoplasty in the market is expected to grow from its current national value of $4.3 million to $7.9 million by 2029.
And on TikTok, its eponymous hashtag has garnered more than 377.1 million views from people considering the cut — which has grown in popularity among both women and men since the pandemic.
“Interest in surgery has increased since then because people were wearing masks [over their mouths and noses]which draws more attention to the eye area,” said Eleanore Kim, an ophthalmic plastic surgeon at NYU Langone Eye Center.
“People were also on Zoom and using virtual meeting spaces,” she added, “so they were looking at themselves a lot more often and wanted the blepharoplasty to rejuvenate the skin.”
But the benefits of surgery are not strictly rooted in vanity.
Kim tells The Post that removing excess flesh around the eyes can prevent people with hooded eyes from suffering peripheral vision loss due to the protrusion. In cases where the droopy eyelid causes significant visual obstruction, the cost of the surgery is typically covered by insurance.
And while there are some risks that come with the surgery — such as chronic dry eye and partial blindness — Kim said it’s a “tried and true” operation with plenty of perks.
For Paul Connell, clearer vision came as a bonus of his October 2022 blepharoplasty with plastic surgeon Mark Karolak in Wall Township, New Jersey.
“I can see better without those heavy turtle shells over my eyes,” Connell, 48, of Edgewater, New Jersey, said with a laugh. He chose not to disclose how much he paid for the procedure.
As an electrical contractor and recurring guest star on “Real Housewives of New Jersey,” Connell, boyfriend of Dolores Catania, 52, submitted to the process to ease the intense weight that had begun to weigh on his eyes.
“Whether I was lying down, driving or watching TV, my eyes were always heavy and looked really puffy,” she said.
“But when I had the surgery it was like a weight was lifted off my face,” Connell continued, adding that the surgery also boosted his confidence both on and off camera. “I have a fresher look, which I appreciate now that I’m over 40.”
And Barak Rotem, 48, who traveled from Texas to Tijuana, Mexico for blepharoplasty on both his upper and lower eyelids in 2020, agreed that the surgeries, which together cost him just over $4,000, contributed in maintaining the fresh aspect of his face. .
“I don’t want to age naturally,” Rotem, an interior designer and fitness trainer in Houston, told The Post. “When people see me 1702734080they think I’m 35. Everyone should do that.”
And to the haters who might argue that eyelid surgery is a superficial waste of time and money, Anaya said, “Don’t be mad just because you can’t afford it.”
“If you had the cash, you’d have eyelid surgery.”
