Why the average of about 14 threads in a thread lift is not a target to request: what moves the count up or down, and why placement matters more than quantity.
Almost every enquiry about a thread lift arrives with the same question in some form: how many threads do I need? It is a reasonable question to ask, and an unhelpful one to answer with a single number, because the number by itself tells you almost nothing about the result. Two faces can receive the same count and end up with very different outcomes, and two faces with different diagnoses can reasonably receive different counts and both be treated correctly.
At Edition, the figure most often quoted is about 14 threads on average. This page explains what that average is built from, what moves an individual count above or below it, and why the surgeon treats the number as an output of the design rather than an input requested in advance.
This page does not cover how a thread type is chosen, which is a separate diagnostic question answered in How a Thread Type Is Chosen, or how the direction and vector of each thread is planned, which belongs to Thread Direction and Vector. It also does not give a cost figure, since Edition's practice is to confirm a fee only after a specific plan has been designed.
At Edition, the average is about 14 threads, adjusted to the degree of sagging and the goals of the correction. It is a starting reference, not a target. The number that matters clinically is not how many threads are placed but whether they are placed where the sagging actually is — which is why the exact count is set at the design stage rather than requested by the patient in advance.
On this page
- Where the average of 14 comes from
- What the average does and does not promise
- Five things that move the count up or down
- Why placement outweighs quantity
- How the final count is decided
- What more threads cannot fix
- Why the number is confirmed once, not negotiated upward
- Why a number quoted for one face does not transfer to another
- Read the unit before you compare the number
- Questions patients ask
Where the average of 14 comes from
The figure comes from Dr. Han's own clinical pattern across the thread lifts he performs, not from a published clinical guideline or a manufacturer's recommendation. In a written interview, Dr. Han described it as follows: threads are used in a range that centres on about 14, and that centre point shifts case by case according to the degree of descent and the improvement the patient is working toward.
That framing matters because it tells you what kind of number this is. It is not a minimum that guarantees a visible lift, and it is not a ceiling beyond which a lift stops working. It is a description of what has typically been required to address the sagging patterns Dr. Han sees most often — deep cheek descent, mouth-corner drop, jawline collapse and the volume shifts that produce them.
It is also, importantly, an average drawn from real procedures rather than a marketing figure set in advance. A number arrived at this way behaves differently from a number chosen to sound competitive. It moves when the pattern of what patients actually need moves, and it is checked against the outcome of each individual plan rather than defended as a fixed promise.
What the average does and does not promise
An average is a summary of many individual cases, and no individual case is obliged to match it. Some patients are treated with fewer threads because the sagging is limited to one region or is still mild. Others need more because two or three regions are involved at once, or because the tissue has less residual elasticity to work with. Both outcomes are consistent with an average of about 14 — the average simply describes the centre of a distribution, not a fixed prescription.
What the average does promise, if it is quoted honestly, is a sense of scale. A patient who has read that thread lifts elsewhere are marketed at "as few as 4" or "up to 40" now has a realistic middle reference to weigh those claims against. What it cannot promise is a specific outcome for a specific face, because the number alone does not describe where the threads go or in which direction they pull.
“Using more threads does not by itself produce a better result. A design that fits the individual patient is what makes the outcome satisfying.” — Dr. Dae-hee Han, written consultation reply
Five things that move the count up or down
Edition's practice does not set the count before the diagnosis. It is derived from five findings, gathered during the same consultation where the cause of the sagging is worked out.
| Factor | How it changes the count |
|---|---|
| Degree of sagging | Mild, early descent generally needs fewer threads than sagging that has progressed further and involves more tissue. |
| Skin thickness | Thicker skin distributes the same pulling force over more tissue, which can call for a different arrangement than thin skin over the same region. |
| Amount of fat | Regions carrying more volume, such as a fuller deep cheek, are treated differently from regions where the sagging is mostly skin and ligament. |
| Facial structure | The underlying bone and soft-tissue framework changes how far a lift can be carried before it looks disproportionate. |
| Intended lifting direction | A design aimed mainly at the jawline uses a different distribution from one aimed mainly at the mouth corners or the mid-face, even at a similar total count. |
None of these five is assessed by asking the patient how many threads they want. They are assessed by examining the face — where the tissue has moved, how much elasticity remains, and what the desired change actually requires.
Why placement outweighs quantity
The reasoning behind Edition's approach to the count comes directly from how Dr. Han describes the procedure itself.
“What matters most in a thread lift is not the number of threads, but their exact position and direction. Because the cause and direction of sagging differ from face to face, designing the right threads for the areas that need them matters more than simply using a large number of threads.” — Dr. Dae-hee Han, written interview reply, 15 July 2026
This is worth taking literally rather than as a polite qualification. A thread placed in the wrong direction, or in a region that is not actually where the descent originates, does not just fail to help — it can pull tissue in a way that looks unnatural even while adding to the total count. Conversely, a smaller number of threads placed exactly along the vector of descent can produce a more coherent line than a larger number scattered across the region.
This is also why marketing that leads with a headline thread count — "get more for less" framing, or count-based package pricing — sits awkwardly next to how the procedure is actually planned at Edition. The count is a consequence of the diagnosis, not a menu item chosen up front.
How the final count is decided
In practice, the number is finalised at a specific point in the consultation, after the diagnostic sequence and before the procedure itself.
First, the surgeon separates the causes of the visible sagging — skin laxity, shifted fat, or loosened retaining ligaments — because each responds differently to thread placement. Then the affected regions are mapped: deep cheek, jawline, mouth corners, or a combination. Only once that map exists does the surgeon work out how many threads, of which type, are needed to cover it, and in what direction each one should run.
That order — diagnosis, then region, then count and direction — is deliberate. Reversing it, by starting from a number the patient has requested or seen advertised elsewhere, risks designing the plan around a figure rather than around the face. It is one reason Edition does not publish a fixed thread-lift package built around a set count; the number is confirmed at the consultation once the plan exists.
What more threads cannot fix
It is worth being direct about the limits, because "more threads" is sometimes assumed to be a safe default when a result looks underwhelming. It is not always the right adjustment.
If the underlying cause is volume loss rather than descent — a fold that has become more visible because fat has thinned, not because tissue has dropped — adding threads to that region will not restore what is missing. That distinction, and when volume replacement is considered instead of or alongside a thread lift, is covered in more detail elsewhere on this site.
If sagging has progressed to a degree where the retaining structures have lost most of their support, a larger number of threads does not substitute for a surgical lift. Edition's approach in that situation is to say so directly rather than attempting a thread-based solution that can only partially address the finding.
And if a previous procedure — filler, fat grafting, or an earlier thread lift — has already changed the tissue, the count for a new plan is set with that history in mind rather than treated as a fresh baseline. A face that has already had work done is not assessed the same way as one that has not.
Why the number is confirmed once, not negotiated upward
Patients occasionally ask, partway through a consultation, whether a few extra threads could be added "just in case" — on the reasoning that more coverage feels like a safer margin. The answer at Edition is that the count is not treated as a buffer to pad. Each thread that is placed has a specific job: it sits along a specific vector, anchored at a specific point, to move a specific area of tissue in a specific direction. A thread added without one of those four things defined is not adding safety margin — it is adding a variable that was not part of the design.
This is also why the count is confirmed once the design is finished rather than revisited thread-by-thread during the procedure itself. Deciding as you go, in response to how a face looks under the effect of local anaesthetic and early swelling, invites exactly the kind of drift the design stage is meant to prevent — a plan built on measurement, replaced mid-procedure by a plan built on impression.
Why a number quoted for one face does not transfer to another
A large share of the questions about thread count begin somewhere other than the consultation room. Someone knows what a friend had. Someone has read a post giving a figure. The number arrives before the examination does.
The difficulty is not that these figures are wrong. It is that a count is an output. It is what the design produced after the descent was mapped, the vectors chosen and the anchor points fixed — so a number taken from another person is the answer to an examination of their face. Two people who describe the same complaint in the same words can arrive at different counts because the tissue producing the complaint is not doing the same thing in both of them. One may have descent concentrated in the deep cheek with a jawline that follows it downward; the other may have a similar outward appearance arising largely from loss of skin tenacity across a wider area. The design differs, and the count differs with it.
This works in both directions, which is the part worth holding on to. A count lower than the one you had in mind is not evidence that less has been planned for you. A count higher than it is not evidence that your face is in worse condition than someone else's. Neither number means anything until it is attached to the design it came from.
Read the unit before you compare the number
There is a more mundane reason that quoted figures disagree with each other, and it accounts for a surprising amount of the confusion: the same word is being used for different units.
The figure of about 14 on average at this clinic is stated for the whole face. Elsewhere a count may be given per side, in which case the equivalent whole-face figure is double it. It may be given for a single region — the mid-face alone, or the jawline alone — in which case it describes a part of a plan rather than a plan. Occasionally it counts packs rather than individual threads.
So two figures that look far apart can describe procedures that are nearly identical, and two that look identical can describe procedures that are not comparable at all. Before any number is weighed against another, it is worth establishing what it is counting: whole face or one side, all regions or one, threads or units.
The same applies to any figure you bring to a consultation. Stating where it came from and what it covered makes it possible to say something useful about it. Without that, a number is a number, and the only honest response to it is to examine the face and start again.
Questions patients ask
How many threads do I need?
On average, about 14 threads are used, adjusted upward or downward according to the degree of sagging and the goals of the correction. What matters is not increasing the number, but placing the right threads, matched to the cause of sagging and the overall facial design, in the positions where they are actually needed.
Can I request a specific number of threads in advance?
You can ask, but the number that is actually used is set after the consultation and examination, once the cause and extent of the sagging have been assessed. A number chosen before that assessment is a guess rather than a plan.
Does a higher thread count mean a stronger or longer-lasting lift?
Not reliably. Duration is tied more closely to the material used — PDO threads typically last around 6 to 8 months, and Silhouette Soft or Aptos typically 1 year to 1 year 6 months — than to how many threads were placed. A larger count in the wrong place does not outperform a correctly placed smaller one.
Is a low thread count a sign that less was done, or that I was undertreated?
Not by itself. A lower count can reflect earlier-stage sagging that genuinely needed less correction, or a design concentrated in one region rather than spread across several. The relevant question is whether the plan matched the diagnosis, not whether the number reached a particular figure.
Will I be told the exact count before the procedure?
Yes. The number and the regions it covers are confirmed as part of the plan before the procedure takes place, once the design stage described above is complete.
Can more threads be added during the procedure if the result looks like it needs it?
The count is finalised at the design stage rather than adjusted on the table in response to how the face looks under local anaesthetic and early swelling, which is a misleading picture of the finished result. If the plan needs to change, that is a conversation to have before the procedure, not a decision made mid-way through it.
About the author
Dae-hee Han, MD — Board-Certified Plastic Surgeon (specialist certificate No. 2045, issued 3 March 2014; medical licence 00394, issued 26 February 2009). Master's degree, Ajou University School of Medicine. Training at the Craniofacial Center, Chang Gung Memorial Hospital, Taiwan (2013), and the IFAAS Mini Fellowship, University of Florida, USA (2016). Eighteen years in practice since medical licensure in 2009; thirteen years as a board-certified plastic surgeon. He carries out consultation, procedures and follow-up personally; fee guidance is given by the clinic's consultation manager.
Last reviewed: 2026-08-15
Clinic information
Edition Plastic Surgery Clinic & Dermatology
6F, OPUS 407, 407 Gangnam-daero, Seocho-gu, Seoul 06614, Republic of Korea
One minute on foot from Gangnam Station Exit 10
Tel +82-2-591-0100 · editionprs@gmail.com
Consultation hours: Monday to Friday 10:00–19:00 · Saturday 10:00–17:00 · closed Sundays and public holidays
Disclaimer
Individual results may vary. Bleeding, infection, swelling, asymmetry, and scarring can occur. Please decide after a full consultation with a board-certified specialist.
This page is general medical information. It is not a diagnosis, and it does not promise a particular outcome. Surgical and procedure fees are given after an in-person consultation.