I'm Rachel Hunter, and this time I'm on a journey through the Americas to discover more secrets to health, well-being and long-lasting beauty. Natural make-up. That is so crazy great! Beautiful. Oh my God, that's somebody's face. (CAMERA CLICKS) This time I'm in Florida, and everywhere I look there's gorgeous people and stunning beaches. I love being in Miami because I always feel like I'm on vacation. There's this beautiful, abundant energy of sexiness. But it's here I come face-to-face with one of my biggest fears ` plastic surgery. We can very nicely fix problem areas like this. Why not look a little bit how I feel? I'd make the incision way back here. If I want to feel and look great into my 80s, what should I be doing right now? You have the turkey bands here. Hang on a second! Copyright Able 2017 (LIVELY MUSIC) Miami is known as one of the vainest cities in America, and no wonder ` the people here are as hot as the beaches. But it's not all down to fresh air and good Latino genes. Like LA, where I live, the locals are big fans of plastic surgery. As far as my body goes, at times I'm really conscious. Sometimes there's parts of it that I wish were a lot tighter. So there's always been that question - should I have work done or shouldn't I have work done? But in Miami, they're very, very body-conscious, so plastic surgery is a lot more common at any age. Especially down here, like, I think the majority of women probably have had some sort of` even just Botox. They've had something done. Would you ever do it? I would do it. I've had my little touch here and there ` Botox. Just regular. Yeah, yeah. You know, to keep up. You wake up one morning, you say, 'You know what, I kinda wanna get rid of these, I wanna do that...' And you go ahead and do it. I mean, me, personally, I would love to do a six-pack. No, you don't! You've got` Look at you! Are you kidding? (BOTH LAUGH) In Florida, they're not afraid to intervene with what nature has given them. So I'm fascinated to find out what a leading plastic surgeon here would do with me. At the MIAMI Institute for Age Management & Intervention I might find out. So here they deal with the whole body, and also the inner. We have energy-based rejuvenation, cosmetic and reconstructive dentistry, plastic surgery, cellular therapies, sexual health, medical skincare, wellness medicine, IV therapy, weight management, hair restoration... Yeah, the list kinda goes on so I think I'll have one of everything. (CHUCKLES) I'm meeting Dr Scott Ennis. He's taken a 3D image of my face... (GASPS) ...and I'm a little afraid of what he might say. What something like a little liposuction or a little mini facelift can do is bring that back up, getting rid of all of the fat under here. That's what gives that nice, crisp jawline back there. Would you fill this in with filler? It is. It's one of the nice tricks you can use. So, maybe somebody's not quite ready for a facelift yet, one of the things we can do is to put a little filler right into this area. It's called the mental notch. So this down here is starting to get creepy` crepey. Creepy and crepey. Is that included in the mini lift? Yes. So it's really the bottom third of the face and neck is what that addresses. Your cheek pad sits right here. 15 or 20 years ago, if you look back at your photos, it probably sat a little higher. We wanna take the volume you had when you were 20 years old and put it back where it used to be. What we want to do is raise that back up. We wanna lift the cheek pad back up. But what does he recommend for my body? The love handle areas are something that you, kind of, everybody wants to slim down more so than ever now. Liposuction very nicely fixes things like that. We can very nicely fix problem areas like this. OK. So there's clearly some procedures that can work for me. I just don't think I'm ready to have my face cut open quite yet. But 40 minutes up the road, plenty of people are. In Fort Lauderdale, a local plastic surgeon has senior citizens literally queueing up for surgery. Hi! Hello. Don't you guys look gorgeous? So do you. Thank you very much. I'm Rachel. I'm Jan, Rachel. Hi. So are you all here to have surgery, have appoint` Like, what are you doing here? I had breast implants in 1976. What were they made of back then? Was it silicon? I think it's like a rubber ball. (SCOFFS, LAUGHS) And it's time to renew them. So you want to still be flirting and active and sexually active and...? Absolutely, absolutely. You're amazing. (LAUGHS) And now what are you here for? My face. Your face? My first time was in 1998 ` Dr Perez. Then after that I did my breasts ` he did. (CHUCKLES) Then after that he did my arms. Right. And now I'm gonna do a little touch. Christine, how old are you? 73. 73?! I don't wanna get old. I just don't. I'm glad she's having it done because I'll be enjoying it later, you know? Yes, you will. (LAUGHS) (LAUGHS) Would you have plastic surgery done? I thought` I thought about it. I said maybe like my eyelids a little bit, like they're drooping a little bit, so I'm thinking about it. Right now I just came to be a chauffeur. One morning I said, 'Do you know, Louis, why don't you do your eyes?' (LAUGHS) And here. (GUFFAWS) Stop! And look here. See? What fears do you have with plastic surgery? I have no fear. The recuperation period you expect. Yeah. But it's nothing to be afraid of. Nobody wants to own up to plastic surgery in my generation. No. I don't understand why. Like, they all go, 'Oh, I dunno. I just woke up like this. This happened.' Whereas you guys are more like, 'Yeah, bring it on, whatever. Have it all done.' (LAUGHS) These women sure have some courage, so who is the man they put so much trust in? Dr Perez, you have a lot of surgeries on older women, like right into their 70s. Well, my oldest facelift patient was 89. (SCOFFS) But she was a very young 89, and believe it or not she had a 65-year-old boyfriend who she was fooling, and he had no idea. That's amazing. I actually did her third facelift. She had already had two before me. And you wouldn't know it to see her. You wouldn't know her true age. Are they trying to... look younger to try and attract the opposite sex? Oh, certainly. We've got a lot of cougars in south Florida, no doubt about it. We do have a very unique subset of seniors here. They're very active, they've very healthy, they're very vigorous, so you've got a whole lot of women competing for men, so they want to improve their appearance both physically and also in terms of their energy level and their youthful spirit and enthusiasm. Yeah. I mean, it's competitive at my age. I can't even imagine what it is at their age at, you know, 80, 90. Seniors have everything done from head to toe. Facial rejuvenations. I do a lot of eyelid surgery, face and neck rejuvenation. The seniors don't like the hanging turkey neck or the turkey bands. 40-year-olds don't like it either. Yeah. In fact, men. That's one of the most common things we do in men, is the turkeys and also the eyes, the eyelids. I joke that we do three procedures in plastic surgery ` we make big things smaller, we make small things bigger and we pick up what falls down. (LAUGHS) So what surgery are you doing this week? We've got a couple of surgeries that we'd love for you to participate and come and watch. Wow. OK. The facelift that we're gonna do tomorrow is Carol. She is a very active and vigorous person. I call her a thrill seeker. In her mid-70s also, and, obviously, she wants to have an appearance that's a little more compatible with her vigorous lifestyle. Amazing. OK. Tomorrow I'll be observing Carol have a facelift ` the kind of surgery that gives me nightmares. Carol, what made you decide to have plastic surgery? I'm 73 but I don't feel 73. I'm very active. I do a lot of travelling. I dive. I jog. I exercise, and I thought, you know, 'Why not look like I feel?' I have some wrinkles that I'd like to just get rid of. That may just... Just pull all that back and together and all the rest of it. I don't know if I'll ever be ready for a facelift myself, but I'm prepared to take a long hard look at it before I decide,... I'll show you the turkey bands. Here's one gobble. ...even if it means getting a bit closer than I can stand. OK. You're pulling it back. Are you cutting it? 1 (LIVELY MUSIC) I'm in Florida where people still wanna look young, hot and beautiful well into their 70s. And with cosmetic surgery more affordable these days, they'll do what many of us won't ` go under the knife. George Bernard Shaw said, 'Life is not about finding yourself. It's about creating yourself.' But he probably wasn't thinking of the elderly of Florida at the time. Before Dr Perez puts his scalpel to work on the seniors, I can't resist the chance of a quick consultation. I'm a sucker for punishment, I know. Where you're starting to see the ageing changes is really more on the lower eyelids. Yeah. You do have a little bit of that puffiness. On the lower lid I make an incision right underneath the eyelashes, open up the skin, take a little bit of that... Oh, well. You're asleep at the time so you don't have to worry about it. It's usually the jowls that start to sag a little bit. The idea is just to freshen it up with a little bit of a lift like that, just to clean up the angle of your jaw and open up that crease with a mini facelift or a mid-facelift with a short incision right by the ear. Now in your case, you do have a little bit of fat to the neck here, and a little bit of laxity. Mm-hm. And, basically, what I would do is open up underneath the chin and I will tighten up the muscle bands. (MUMBLES INDISTINCTLY) Go ahead and do that again. You see you have the turkey bands here. I mean, luckily mine haven't popped out yet. Well, you can start to see them in part because, I hate to break it to you... Hang on a second! (LAUGHS) So it's not an extreme change where we're trying to change your appearance, we're just trying to freshen your face. OK. Well, I guess by the end of today I'll know if I could ever go through with any of that. I'm about to observe Dr Perez operating on two 73-year-old patients who want to look as young as they feel. Don't wanna touch you cos I don't wanna infect you in any way before` I'm fine, I'm just fine. Are you excited? Yes, I am. Yes. I wanna do it and get it done now. Nervous at all? No. Well, I'm gonna be in there... OK. Just don't pass out. No, no, no, no. Good morning, Carol. Good morning. How are you? You say hi to the guest of honour? I'm gonna do a little prep now. OK. And I'm gonna do a little doodling and marking. OK. By the way, did I mention that I'm gonna shave your head? (LAUGHS) What?! No, actually, I do need to shave just a little bit, but what I shave is part of the skin that I'll trim. (CLIPPERS BUZZ) So what we're doing here ` this is gonna start the temporal incision. That's gonna get the angle of the jaw. It'll even pick up a little bit of the corner of the brow, just to get the corner, give it a little bit of sharpness. And then I deliberately make the incision way back here because I wanna create the scar in a natural crease so that it's less visible. And then we'll hug around the earlobe into the hairline here, and this is the part where we'll start to elevate the jawline and then, of course, give her more neck definition. This is where I'll make the incision, and I'm gonna lift all of this dotted line here, and then we detach the skin this way, and I'll actually detach it all the way down to here because we really do want to get a good pull on the neck. I'll make that incision right there in the natural crease, and you see how these muscle bands become very prominent? And so one of the things we're gonna do ` we're gonna open here and actually tighten those muscles back together. OK. So it's your cocktail time. Just relax and let us take care of things the rest of the way. You have a beautiful dream. OK. See y'all later. All right. Bye. (UPBEAT MUSIC) I don't like blood, so who knows how long I'm gonna last? It could be five seconds but... I'll try and brave it through. All right. This is Carol. This is a rhytidectomy. No allergies. Dr Perez only operates on senior citizens that are in great physical shape, and Carol easily made the grade. So she's asleep. It's a modified general anaesthesia, and then, in addition to that, we're gonna supplement this with some local anaesthesia so when she goes home today she won't have any pain. Then I'm gonna turn her head a little bit. I wonder what Carol's thinking about. (CHUCKLES) So we made the incision, and so what we're doing here is detaching the skin and the subcutaneous tissue ` that fat from the muscle that's underneath it. So here I'm just cutting away a small wedge of skin. (SUCTION HISSES) So you can probably see from the way she strokes the suction that the plane is starting to detach very nicely from the underlying muscle. (SUCTION HISSES) I'll show you the turkey bands. Here's one gobble. Yeah. And here's the other gobble. And that` And some people who have that little bulge underneath the muscle ` we were talking about that... Like me. Yeah. You probably have a little marble-sized drop of fat right inside there. So what I'm gonna do now is suture those two bands and recreate them. Beautiful! I'm not eating chicken any more. We look like chickens inside. We look like a chicken. Chicken's off the menu now. OK. So we're done with the neck and we're gonna start on the face. The temples, wow! Yeah. You have to be very careful with that area. And so what we're gonna do is basically bring the skin back like that and cut away this extra skin here, off her jawline. Amazing. OK. You guys go in for that one. Good on you. I don't know how I feel about this yet because, you know, when you kind of come out and think about it, you're like, 'Oh my God, that's somebody's face.' That skin has been peeled off their face because they wanna match the outside to the inside, which is youth. In the future, when I own Carol's thought pattern of going, 'You wanna do it, do it,' and I grow up and think that thought, then I will be on that operating table... probably. All right, Miss Rachel, there you have it. Carol, dear. Hi. It's all over. You did great. Hi, Carol. Hi there. That was amazing. Wow. It was an interesting surgery. Carol sailed through it as most seniors do. She did beautifully. She was very stable, and, again, the goal is not to pull her so tight that we stretch out every little wrinkle in her face. The goal is really to work with what she has, not to change her. We don't want her friends and family to say, 'Gee, you look so different,' or, 'Gee, you had a facelift.' That's not really a compliment. A compliment is, 'Gee, you look fresher. Did you lose weight? Did you change your hair?' Normally I instruct the patients to refrain from exercise because these blood vessels are still fresh and, theoretically, just like a champagne bottle with a cork that's kind of half on and half off ` if they shake it too much, they can pop the cork. It turns out Dr Perez's day is only just starting. After two hours of surgery on Carol, he's prepping for his next facelift on Christina. I'm so happy. Are you excited? I'm so excited. (LAUGHS) Are you nervous? A little bit, but not,... you know. Like I said, I went through this before. Oh my God, you're amazing. It doesn't take long before Christina's in surgery and Dr Perez is back with scalpel in hand. Is Miss Rachel in the room or did we lose her? I think that's enough surgery for me today. The bandages are off. I'm so excited. And I get a royal tour of what could be my future home. Maybe I might meet a husband here. Hi, how are you? You look all so glamorous and gorgeous. 1 I'm in Florida ` plastic surgery central. Just 24 hours after their operations, Carol and Christina are getting their bandages off. I'm excited for them, but kind of nervous too. (DOOR CREAKS) Look at you! I saw your skin, like, literally off your face yesterday and now you look so... bright, shiny, happy Carol who's ready to go. I feel wonderful. Wow! (UPBEAT MUSIC) So excited! WHISPERS: Oh my God. Look at your neck. Look at you. WOMAN: That OK? Yeah, yeah. MOUTHS: Oh my God. Oh, I can't wait to see! OK, Carol. There you go. Wow. Did you see all under the chin, like, the definition all along there? Yes. Very pleased. Jowls are gone. It's all so smooth! Oh, I couldn't be happier. And it's all done. He did a great job. I'm going to look as young as I feel. How exciting. That's one very happy patient. But will Christina achieve the result she's after? So I bet you're excited about the taking the bandages off? Oh yes. I can't wait. All right. Good morning. Good morning, Dr Perez. Good to see you, my dear. So you've survived the night? Oh yes, I did. You look good. Are you ready to see the... Oh yes. ...the new Christina? Yes. OK. Well let's take that bandage off and get busy. Let's go. (SUSPENSEFUL MUSIC) Off it all comes. A little bit of irritation, redness from the bandage but otherwise looks beautiful ` not a single bruise. And I think you're gonna be very impressed with this neck. There's your mirror. I love it. Yes. This is what I was dreaming about ` to fix my face. Do you love it? I love it. And I'm gonna dance tomorrow. That's amazing. I want you to come to dance with me. I'd love to. OK Thank you, Dr Perez. At 73, Christina and Carol took a big step to look younger so they can enjoy the energetic and spirited lifestyle they're after. (JAZZ MUSIC) And a place celebrating that way of life in the most glamorous fashion is The Palace at Coral Gables. Maybe I might meet a husband here. It's described as a senior living facility... Extremely opulent here. ...but it looks more like a five-star hotel. There's even health and beauty here. The pool, Jacuzzi ` daily. Gym, physical therapy, aerobics studio, beauty salon and spa, and the wellness centre. How good is it to hear that word here ` wellness centre? And I'm sure this is where I'll meet some of those cougars Dr Perez told me about. (CAMERA CLICKS) Amazing. Beautiful. There's a wonderful, cheerful group of people. I'm going to go over and see what they have to say. Hi, how are you? You look all so glamourous and gorgeous. Have a glass of champagne. Oh, thank you very much. Cheers. Salud. This is a cruise ship that never leaves port. I'm very happy here, and I met a very nice lady here. So you met here? Yes. It'll be three years tomorrow. My wife and I, Jacquie, we're newly-weds. We met online. Online?! Yes! Oh my God. You're doing better than I am! (ALL LAUGH) Really? I lost my wife and Jacqui lost her husband. I was married 43 years, but he's the love of my life. I think getting old is something we all fear but these gorgeous seniors are proof we can find happiness, and a husband, at any age. Maybe I should take a closer look around. God. This is just amazing. The theatre is actually` We have a huge screen in the theatre so we show movies, surround sound. This is where we hold our big events. This is our garden terrace. This is our library. Oh my goodness. And we have a bank of computers. This is the man cave. Here's our gym. And we have personal trainers here who give them the full rundown on all the equipment. Are they really into doing all the alternative stuff as well? They are. Well, you try to keep them very active. We have something called 'Move Your Boombsey' which is` (LAUGHS) A boombsey` Boombsey is African for... Butt. ...butt. Actually, I'm wondering if I should put my name on the waiting list. What are you favourite activities here? What do you like doing? Breathing. Breeding?! Breathing. Oh. Breeding or breathing? I love to dance but I can't find anybody without a walker. Oh. (PLAYFUL MUSIC) See, I'm not very good` See, I tend to, I tend to lead... Hm? I know you do. (SCOFFS, LAUGHS) Where are we going? Just follow. I don't know how to follow. I'm a leader. (LAUGHS) Oh! Truth is, my evening of dance is just starting. And three days after surgery, Christina and Carol are in full swing. So, Christina, Carol, how are you? Wonderful. You can see that! Amazing. How are you feeling? In heaven. (LAUGHS) In heaven? You look amazing. Both of you look gorgeous. (LIVELY MUSIC) How old are you? 92. 92! You're my oldest yet. (LAUGHS) (LIVELY MUSIC CONTINUES) It's been an amazing week in Florida. To see, basically, the process of somebody go through a facelift was very intriguing. But I'm like a bird ` I'm still sitting on the fence. I still am not completely convinced. Seeing Carol and Christina's reaction to their surgery was lovely. That's what they wanted and, as I've said before, if that's what makes you happy then that's what you should do. Part of me is very, very sad about it, then part of me's like, 'Yeah, go out there, girl! 'Look great. Look hot. You know, look young.' Then I'm like, 'Yeah, no.' I sometimes turn and look at a woman who has wrinkles on her face and I find her absolutely beautiful. But would I come to Florida for a wild and exciting life as a senior citizen? Book me in. Do you guys see Joe out there? Joe is cheating on me. Always the bridesmaid. Never the bride. Copyright Able 2017