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I jokingly call it the Brandt Happy Meal.
Upper blepharoplasty plus laser resurfacing.
Why?
Because for the right patient, it is one of the highest-impact, highest-value combinations I offer.
Upper blepharoplasty removes excess upper-eyelid skin and improves the shape around the eyes.
Laser resurfacing treats something completely different: the quality of the skin itself.
Texture.
Fine lines.
Sun damage.
Pigmentation.
Crepey skin.
Put the two together and you are treating both shape and surface during essentially the same recovery period.
That is why I like the combination so much.
Upper blepharoplasty removes excess skin from the upper eyelid.
For some patients, that skin makes the eyes look heavy or tired. In others, it can hang over the natural eyelid crease and sometimes even interfere with vision.
A properly planned upper blepharoplasty opens the eye area without trying to change who you are.
The goal is not to create a different eye.
It is to reveal more of the eye you already have.
Modern studies consistently show high patient satisfaction after upper blepharoplasty, including improvements in appearance and quality of life. [1,2]
But surgery has an important limitation.
Blepharoplasty removes excess skin. It does not necessarily improve the quality of the skin that remains.
That is where laser comes in.
Laser resurfacing treats the surface and deeper layers of the skin.
Depending on the treatment chosen, we can use fractional CO2 resurfacing to improve fine lines, uneven texture, sun damage and other signs of skin aging.
At FORM, we use the Alma Hybrid platform, which allows us to customize resurfacing intensity and, when appropriate, combine fractional CO2 treatment with a 1570-nm non-ablative fractional treatment.
The important point is not the device name.
It is what we are trying to treat.
Upper blepharoplasty can remove that fold of extra eyelid skin.
Laser can then improve the wrinkles, texture and quality of the surrounding skin.
The two treatments are complementary rather than redundant.
You absolutely can.
For some patients, upper blepharoplasty alone is exactly what they need.
But imagine someone who has both significant upper-eyelid hooding and sun-damaged, crepey facial skin.
Removing the eyelid skin may improve the eyes dramatically.
But the surrounding skin is still the same age.
The texture is still there.
The fine lines are still there.
The pigmentation is still there.
That can sometimes create a mismatch: a cleaner, more open eyelid sitting within skin that still shows substantial photoaging.
Adding resurfacing allows us to address more of the picture at once.
Because laser cannot remove true excess eyelid skin.
This is another place where patients can spend a lot of money trying to make a non-surgical treatment perform surgery's job.
Laser can tighten and remodel skin to a degree.
But if there is a meaningful fold of redundant upper-eyelid skin, resurfacing it harder and harder is not the same as removing it.
When the problem is excess skin, upper blepharoplasty is usually the more direct treatment.
When the problem is skin quality, laser is often the better tool.
When both problems exist, combining them makes sense.
The first reason is simple:
One recovery.
An upper blepharoplasty causes swelling and some bruising around the eyes.
A meaningful laser resurfacing treatment causes redness, swelling and several days of visible healing.
If we perform them separately, you go through two treatment days and two recovery periods.
If we perform them together, much of that downtime overlaps.
In my practice, I usually tell patients to plan on just under two weeks before they want to be fully back in the social swing of things.
Some patients look presentable sooner.
Others need a little longer.
But around 10 to 14 days is a useful planning window for this combination.
You are not completely healed at two weeks.
Laser redness can persist to some degree, and eyelid swelling continues to refine.
But for many patients, that is the point where they are back at work, back at dinner and no longer feeling that recovery is running their schedule.
Usually much less than patients expect.
Upper blepharoplasty itself is generally not a particularly painful operation.
Patients more commonly describe tightness, swelling or tenderness.
The laser tends to create more of a hot or sunburn-like sensation, particularly during the early recovery period.
That discomfort usually improves quickly.
So while I would never tell a patient that a surgical procedure is painless, this is generally not a combination associated with prolonged severe pain.
For many patients, the bigger issue is simply being willing to look swollen and red for a week or so.
There is an anatomical reason as well.
One of the concerns when combining laser resurfacing with some facial surgeries is blood supply.
For example, a traditional facelift can involve lifting broad areas of facial skin away from the tissues underneath. That temporarily changes how blood reaches those skin flaps.
Aggressively lasering that same undermined skin can add another injury to tissue whose blood supply has already been altered.
Modern techniques can combine facelift and laser safely, but the laser settings and treatment zones need to be planned carefully. A 2026 systematic review found that treating undermined facelift skin with the same laser intensity as untouched skin was associated with more skin-healing problems. [3]
Upper blepharoplasty is different.
We are removing a carefully measured strip of eyelid skin.
We are not creating a broad facial skin flap.
That means combining an upper blepharoplasty with full-face or periocular resurfacing does not create the same widespread blood-supply concern that exists when aggressive laser is performed over extensively undermined facelift skin.
That is one reason these procedures fit together particularly well.
Published studies have specifically shown that fractional CO2 resurfacing can be performed safely at the same time as upper blepharoplasty in appropriately selected patients. [4,5]
Yes, when appropriate.
In fact, this is one of the areas where the combination can be particularly powerful.
Blepharoplasty removes redundant upper-eyelid skin, but patients may still have fine lines or crepey skin around the eye.
Fractional laser resurfacing can treat that skin quality.
A study combining fractional CO2 resurfacing with upper blepharoplasty found improvement in upper-eyelid wrinkles without serious complications in the study group. [4]
More recent work has also continued to examine combined upper-eyelid surgery and fractional CO2 resurfacing without showing significant long-term worsening of the ocular surface in appropriately selected patients. [5]
The key is appropriate settings and appropriate patient selection.
The eyelid is not the cheek.
We treat it accordingly.
The eyes are where people look.
They are central to facial expression.
Heavy upper eyelids can make someone look tired even when they feel completely rested.
At the same time, skin texture and pigmentation strongly influence how we perceive age.
That means this combination treats two areas with a disproportionate effect on appearance:
the eyes and the skin.
You can make a relatively focused surgical change around the eyelids and then improve the quality of a much larger area of facial skin.
The overall change can therefore feel larger than the individual procedures might suggest.
I would not say that there is one best procedure for everyone.
Someone with significant jowling and neck laxity may get much more value from a facelift.
Someone with very good skin but heavy eyelids may only need a blepharoplasty.
But for a patient with upper-eyelid hooding and visible skin aging, I think this is one of the best combinations we offer in terms of the amount of visible change relative to the recovery involved.
You are treating two different components of facial aging.
You are doing it during one treatment period.
And both treatments can have long-lasting effects.
That is what I mean when I talk about value.
Not cheap.
Impactful.
The two parts age differently.
Upper blepharoplasty removes skin permanently.
Of course, the face continues to age, so you can develop more laxity over time. But the skin that was removed does not grow back.
Laser resurfacing also creates a real change in the skin.
Fractional ablative laser treatment stimulates healing and dermal remodelling and has established evidence for improving photoaging, texture and wrinkles. [6]
But laser does not stop the aging process either.
Sun exposure, genetics, smoking and normal aging continue.
That is why sunscreen and good skincare still matter afterward.
The goal is not to freeze your face at one age.
It is to make a meaningful improvement and then age forward from a better starting point.
The patient I think of has two problems:
upper-eyelid hooding and facial skin aging.
Maybe the eyes look heavier than they used to.
At the same time, the skin has developed fine lines, sun damage, uneven pigmentation or a crepey texture.
That patient can potentially get a lot out of one treatment session.
But not everyone should have both.
Patients with certain skin types, active skin disease, significant dry-eye issues, poor healing risk or other medical considerations may need a modified plan.
And if the heaviness around the eye is actually coming from a low eyebrow rather than eyelid skin, an upper blepharoplasty may not solve the real problem.
Diagnosis still comes first.
The first several days are the obvious recovery period.
There is swelling around the eyelids.
There may be bruising.
The lasered skin is red and begins healing.
With resurfacing, the skin may feel tight, warm and dry as it re-epithelializes.
By approximately one week, eyelid sutures are usually ready to come out and much of the early laser healing has occurred.
During the second week, swelling and bruising continue to improve and the skin looks progressively more normal.
For most patients, I recommend planning for roughly 10 to 14 days of social downtime.
That doesn't mean every trace of treatment has disappeared by then.
It means most patients can get back into normal life without feeling as though they need to explain their face.
There is a tendency in aesthetics to keep adding treatments.
A little filler.
Another device.
Another peel.
Another syringe.
Sometimes the more effective answer is simpler.
If excess upper-eyelid skin is the problem, remove it.
If skin quality is the problem, resurface it.
Treat the right layer with the right tool.
At FORM Face + Body in Toronto, that is the thinking behind what I jokingly call the Brandt Happy Meal.
Upper blepharoplasty plus laser resurfacing.
One addresses anatomy.
The other addresses skin quality.
One recovery period.
Relatively little pain.
About two weeks before most patients are back in the swing of things.
And a result that can continue to make a difference for years.
For the right patient, it is a lot of impact without turning facial rejuvenation into a complicated collection of treatments.
Sometimes the highest-value plan isn't doing more things. It is combining the right things.
Upper blepharoplasty and laser resurfacing are medical procedures with potential risks, including bleeding, infection, scarring, pigment change, prolonged redness, dry-eye symptoms and delayed healing. Recovery and treatment intensity vary between patients. Individual assessment is required to determine whether either or both procedures are appropriate. This article is educational and is not a substitute for personal medical advice.
