Influencer 'Didn't Recognize' Herself After Dissolving 15 Years of Filler — So She Got a Facelift at 34 (Exclusive)

• Ashley Stobart, UK-based influencer, entrepreneur and co-host of the Nip Tuck podcast, is opening up about her controversial decision to get a facelift at 34.

• Stobart tells PEOPLE that during her third pregnancy she realized she had gone to far with facial fillers for more than a decade and she was in "shock" by her reflection.

• After dissolving all her facial fillers she was left with "extreme" skin sagging leading to her decision to get a facelift.

• While many plastic surgeons declined to operate on her, Stobart found one "who understood my concerns and was willing to do it."
  

At 34 years old, Ashley Stobart thought a facelift was the "best option."

The UK-based influencer and entrepreneur had been getting filler since she was 18 and it wasn't until her third pregnancy that she realized she had gone too far. "With the water retention, my face became so swollen," she tells PEOPLE. "Seeing my reflection was a shock. I realized how much filler I’d accumulated over the years and thought, 'What have you done to yourself?'"

"It was a massive wake-up call and made me decide to stop filler for good," she adds.

However, dissolving years of filler had left Stobart with what she calls "extreme" skin sagging, and at 34, she decided to bypass less invasive procedures like the "ponytail" facelift and go for a full facelift.

"I was left with a lot of loose skin, especially around my jaw and mouth — it was so bad you could pull four centimeters of it away from my face," she recalls. "A full facelift was the best option to address the extent of the sagging and give me the results I wanted."

Multiple surgeons declined to perform the procedure on Stobart due to her young age, but eventually, the influencer found one "who understood my concerns and was willing to do it."

While there is no designated age for a facelift, historically women start to think about the invasive cosmetic procedure in their late 40s and early 50s. But in the past few years, facelifts have started trending younger, with more and more women contemplating the procedure or partial "mini" lifts.

"When considering a facelift, the most important factor is your anatomy rather than your age," Lara Devgan, MD, a board-certified plastic surgery based in New York City, shared in a interview with the American Society of Plastic Surgeons earlier this year.

Devgan (who did not perform Stobart's surgey) notes that social media has also played a role in influencing a wider demographic to consider cosmetic surgeries to address skin elasticity at a younger age.

"I think we never want to get into a situation where we've created — via filters and Facetune and Photoshop – such a dysmorphic atmosphere and society that perfectly nice-looking people are feeling like they need unnecessary procedures," Devgan said.

Stobart, however, remains steadfast in her decision to go under the knife, despite early pushback she experienced from a few people close to her.

"At first, there were a few skeptics who thought I was mad, but I’m a grown woman, and this was my decision," she tells PEOPLE. "Once they saw the results, though, everyone was blown away. The compliments have been lovely."

Stobart tells PEOPLE she was "surprisingly calm" going into surgery.

"I trusted my surgeon completely, which made all the difference," she says. "Knowing I was in excellent hands eased any nerves I might have had."

She also says the recovery was "smoother" than she had anticipated.

"Thanks to my surgeon’s skill, my downtime was minimal — about two to three weeks," she says. "I was able to dive back into working on my product and podcast pretty quickly, which felt amazing.

After sharing her facelift experience on her platforms (she currently has over 83,000 Instagram followers and hosts the Nip Tuck podcast), Stobart says the response from millennial women has been "overwhelmingly supportive."

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"A lot of young women have reached out, saying they appreciate my honesty and how I’ve opened up about the realities of surgery and filler," she says. "Many listeners of the podcast have said it’s refreshing to hear someone talk so candidly about these topics without sugar-coating anything. It’s sparked some great conversations about body image, self-care, and making informed choices.

Because it has been so normalized, originally deciding to get filler was something of a no-brainer for Stobart. At her peak, she says she was having treatments monthly and calculates she was spending "several thousand pounds a year on it" on filler.

"A lot of it was discounted or free because of my work in the industry, but the value of what I was getting done definitely added up to tens of thousands annually," she explains.

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Now, Stobart has stopped using filler and instead preaches the importance of skin health through her skincare brand, Cosmetic Consult, as well as her podcast. Transparency around cosmetic prodecures is also a huge element of Stobart's platforms, as it "helps manage expectations and dispels a lot of the myths around surgery and treatments."

"People often only see the end results, not the journey or the risks involved," she says. "By being open about my experiences, I hope to help others make informed decisions and understand what’s really involved, both physically and emotionally. It’s not about discouraging anyone; it’s about making sure they go in with their eyes wide open."

Read the original article on People