How Long a Thread Lift Lasts: PDO 6 to 8 Months, Silhouette Soft and Aptos 1 to 1.5 Years

The stated ranges by material and where they come from, the eight factors that move duration for an individual, and why maintenance is planned rather than assumed.

Duration is the question asked most often about thread lifting, and it is answered inconsistently across the industry — sometimes with a range, sometimes with a single confident figure, sometimes with a number that does not correspond to the material being discussed.

The figures used at Edition are specific, they differ by material, and they are given with the reasons they vary. This page sets them out, explains what they are measuring, lists the eight factors that move duration for an individual, and covers when the change becomes visible in the first place — which is a separate question from how long it lasts and is frequently confused with it.

Decisions about further treatment are covered in their own page, as is how a material is selected in the first place.

The stated ranges

Two figures cover the three thread types used at Edition.

Both figures are given with the same qualification: how long the result is maintained can differ according to individual skin elasticity and how far ageing has progressed.

That qualification is not a disclaimer attached at the end. It is part of the finding, and the section below on the eight factors is the detail behind it.

What the figure is actually measuring

This is worth being precise about, because the question "how long does it last" contains an ambiguity that produces most of the confusion.

A thread lift has two effects. The mechanical effect is the repositioning of tissue, held by the material. The biological effect is the tissue response that develops as the material is absorbed.

The duration figures describe how long the result is maintained overall — not how long the physical material remains in the tissue, and not the moment at which the face returns exactly to its previous state.

Two consequences follow.

There is no cliff edge. The effect diminishes gradually as the material is absorbed and the face continues to change. A patient at the far end of the range does not wake up one morning with the result gone.

The face has also been ageing throughout. Part of what is being measured against is a moving baseline. This is one reason the same material can appear to last differently in two people whose tissue is changing at different rates.

Why the materials differ

The difference is a property of the materials rather than a difference in how well they lift.

PDO is polydioxanone; Silhouette Soft is poly-L-lactic acid. Different materials are absorbed over different periods, and the figures reflect that.

What the figures do not reflect is which material is better suited to a given face. PDO is selected for its holding strength and is used mainly where a facial line has collapsed. Silhouette Soft is selected for its cone structure and is used where descended tissue that still carries volume needs repositioning. Aptos is selected where a lifting effect and an improvement in the skin are both wanted.

A longer-lasting material applied to the wrong finding lasts longer without working better. Which is appropriate follows from skin elasticity, fat distribution, and the cause of the descent — the subject of the page on how a thread type is chosen.

When the change appears, and when it settles

Duration is often confused with onset, and they are different questions.

Some degree of lifting change is apparent from immediately after the procedure, because part of the effect is mechanical. What you see on the day is a repositioned face plus swelling.

Over roughly one to three months, tissue stabilises and the skin regeneration process progresses, and the change becomes more natural. This is when the result is worth assessing rather than in the first week.

Only after that does the duration clock become the relevant one. A patient assessing their result at two weeks is reading swelling; at one month, a settling result; at three months, something close to what the procedure achieved.

The eight factors that move the figure

Individual variation is not vague. Eight identifiable factors account for it.

1. Skin elasticity. A lift is held partly by the tissue's own recoil. Where that contribution is smaller, the material carries more of the load — and the material is absorbable.
2. The pace of ageing. The face continues to change. Where that change is faster, the result is being measured against a baseline that is moving away from it more quickly.
3. Lifestyle. Habits that affect the condition of the skin affect how long a correction is held.
4. Weight change. Facial volume changes with body weight, and a change in either direction alters the tissue the correction was designed around.
5. The region treated. Different regions carry different amounts of tissue and are subject to different forces from expression and gravity.
6. The condition of the skin tissue. Distinct from elasticity — thickness, quality, and how firmly the covering is bound to the tissue beneath.
7. The degree of descent. A correction that had to move tissue further is holding it against a greater tendency to return.
8. The thread type. The material property described above.

Two of these are within a patient's influence — lifestyle and weight — and the rest are findings rather than choices. That balance is worth knowing: duration is mostly a property of the tissue rather than of what the patient does afterwards.

Why a range rather than a number

A single figure would be easier to communicate and it would be less accurate, in a way that has practical consequences.

With eight factors in play, a specific figure for an individual is not knowable in advance. A range describes what is usually seen and lets a patient locate themselves within it once their own findings are known — a patient with good skin elasticity and a modest degree of descent sits differently in the range from one with reduced elasticity and a substantial correction.

There is a second reason. A promised figure converts a normal outcome into a grievance. A patient told "one year" whose result eases at ten months has been let down by the promise, not by the procedure. A patient given a range with its reasons has a framework for understanding their own result.

What happens as the effect diminishes

The process is gradual, and knowing its shape helps in reading your own result.

As the material is absorbed, the mechanical component of the correction reduces, and tissue settles progressively towards where its own structures hold it. Meanwhile the face has continued its ordinary changes.

What patients typically notice is not a return to the starting point but a gradual softening of the correction — the improvement becoming less pronounced rather than disappearing.

How much of the change persists after the material has gone varies. The tissue response produced during absorption is part of the effect, and it is not simply switched off when the material is no longer present. This is genuinely individual, and it is one of the things assessed if and when you return.

How to read your own result against the range

Because the figures are ranges rather than dates, patients are left with the practical question of how to tell whether their own result is behaving normally. Three observations do most of the work.

Compare against three months, not against the day of the procedure. The result at three months is the one the procedure actually produced — before that you are looking at swelling and settling. A comparison made against how you looked immediately afterwards will always suggest the effect is fading, because part of what you were seeing then was not the result.

Watch the rate, not the state. A correction easing gradually across months is doing what an absorbable material does. A correction that changes noticeably over a week or two is not following that pattern, and is worth mentioning.

Account for what else has changed. Weight change is the factor patients most often overlook when assessing a result. A face that has lost or gained weight since the procedure is a different face, and the correction is being read against a baseline that has moved for reasons unrelated to the threads.

A photograph taken at around three months, in the same light and from the same angle as the ones taken before the procedure, is more useful than any of this. Memory is a poor instrument for measuring gradual change, and the comparison people make in a mirror is against yesterday rather than against where they started.

Why maintenance is planned rather than assumed

The obvious inference from a duration figure is that a repeat procedure should be booked at the end of it. That is not how it is approached at Edition, and the reason is worth stating.

Whether anything further is done is decided from the state of the tissue at the time rather than from a schedule. A face at the far end of its range with a result still holding well does not need a repeat because a figure has elapsed. A face that has changed more quickly may be assessed sooner.

Progress is reviewed at around one month after the procedure, when the lifting effect and the state of recovery are checked and any further management is discussed. Beyond that, the decision is made by examination — the subject of the page on retouch without a fixed schedule.

Where threads are still present from a previous procedure, that is part of what is assessed, and it is covered in the page on threads already in place.

Figures worth being sceptical of

Three claims about duration circulate and are worth treating carefully.

A single number with no range. With eight sources of variation, a precise figure quoted in advance is describing an average as though it were a prediction.

Figures that do not match the material. Duration follows from what the material is. A figure attached to PDO that is substantially longer than the 6 to 8 months stated here is not describing PDO.

A number given before an examination. Half of the eight factors are findings from examining your face. A figure produced without those is produced without the information it depends on.

A face treated with two materials does not have one duration

The ranges are stated per material, and a plan does not always use one material throughout. Where different threads have been selected for different regions — which happens whenever the findings differ across the face — the result does not have a single endpoint.

What follows from that is worth expecting rather than discovering. The regions return at different times. A face where PDO threads were used in one area and Silhouette Soft or Aptos in another will see the first area soften while the second is still holding, so the change is experienced as a gradual and slightly uneven return rather than as a single moment when the lift ends.

This is not a fault in the design. It follows from selecting the material to suit the finding rather than applying one material across a whole face for the sake of a tidy timeline. But it does change how the result should be read: comparing the whole face against a single figure will produce the impression that the lift ended early, when what actually happened is that one part of it reached the end of its own range first.

Where a plan uses more than one material, it is worth asking at the consultation which regions carry which — so that the timeline you are measuring against is the one that applies.

Where you started affects how long it seems to last

One further factor sits outside the eight, because it is about perception rather than about the material.

The same absorption produces a different experience depending on the finding it was correcting. Where a lift addressed descent that had recently begun, the correction restored most of what had been lost, and the gradual return from that position is a small proportional change from a good starting point. Where the same lift addressed descent that had been progressing for considerably longer, it recovered a smaller share of a larger movement — so the return, though no faster in absolute terms, arrives at a more noticeable place.

The practical effect is that two people whose threads behaved identically can describe quite different durations, and both descriptions are accurate accounts of what they saw.

It is another reason the stated ranges are ranges, and another reason a figure quoted by someone else carries less information than it appears to.

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). Three rhinoplasty papers published in SCIE-indexed international journals. More than 4,500 nose surgeries — Dr. Han’s career total from 2017 to 2025, counted from medical records. Eighteen years in practice since medical licensure in 2009; thirteen years as a board-certified plastic surgeon. He carries out consultation, surgery 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 fees are given after an in-person consultation.