Hollowed temples
Temple volume recedes early, narrowing the upper face and lending it an unintended severity.
Sieveking/Plastic Surgery/Fat Transfer to Face
Fat Transfer to Face in Nashville
Your Own Tissue · Natural Volume · Lasting Restoration
Faces rarely age by wrinkling alone. The temples hollow, the cheeks deflate, shadows deepen beneath the eyes — and the face reads as tired long before it reads as old.
Harvested gently. Refined and placed in micro-droplets. Lasting where fillers are temporary.
Volume restored, not added. The patient’s own tissue. Results that simply belong.
Fat transfer to the face — also called facial fat grafting — restores volume the face has lost to time. A small amount of the patient’s own fat is harvested by gentle liposuction, carefully refined, and placed in micro-droplets through the temples, cheeks, and under-eye hollows where deflation has left its mark. Because the material is the patient’s own living tissue, the result is inherently soft and natural.
At Sieveking Plastic Surgery, fat transfer is treated as sculpture in the round rather than filling in the flat. Dr. Sieveking studies where each face has lost volume — temples, midface, under-eyes — and restores it in measured layers, whether as a stand-alone procedure or in the same operation as a facelift. He is candid about the biology: a portion of grafted fat does not survive, and every plan accounts for it.
The approach
How facial fat transfer works.
The procedure has three stages. First, a small amount of fat is harvested by gentle liposuction from an area with reserve to spare — typically the abdomen or thighs. The fat is then refined to concentrate the healthiest tissue. Finally, Dr. Sieveking places it in micro-droplets, pass by pass, layering tiny amounts where the face has hollowed so the graft integrates smoothly and takes on a reliable blood supply.
Not every transferred cell survives — a portion of grafted fat is reabsorbed in the months after surgery, and honest planning treats that as a design constraint rather than a surprise. Dr. Sieveking places volume accordingly, calibrating each area so the result settles toward the intended contour. The fat that does survive is living tissue, and it behaves like it — soft, warm, and lasting.
The philosophy is restoration, not augmentation. The aim is never a fuller face — it is the face the patient remembers, restored in quiet increments. Performed alone, fat transfer refreshes without announcing itself; combined with a facelift, it replaces the volume that lifting alone cannot, addressing both the sag and the deflation of facial aging.
Target concerns for facial fat transfer.
A restoration planned around where your face has actually changed — not a template of where faces usually do.
Deflated cheeks
The midface loses its youthful fullness, flattening the cheek and deepening the fold beside the nose.
Under-eye shadows
Hollowing beneath the eyes casts shadows that read as exhaustion regardless of how rested you are.
A tired expression
Volume loss makes the face look weary or drawn even when energy and mood say otherwise.
Fillers that fade
Temporary fillers that ask to be repeated, appointment after appointment, year after year.
Deflation with laxity
Facial aging that a lift alone cannot address, because the loss is volume as much as laxity.
Why choose this procedure
Benefits of using your own tissue.
Fat transfer restores what facial aging most often takes — volume — using the one material the body recognizes as its own, placed with surgical precision.
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Entirely your own
The volume restored is the patient’s own living tissue — nothing synthetic, nothing foreign, nothing the body needs to tolerate.
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Naturally soft results
Grafted fat moves, feels, and photographs like the surrounding face because it is living tissue, not a product injected beneath it.
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Long-lasting volume
The fat that establishes a blood supply is long-lasting — a durable restoration rather than a treatment on a repeating calendar.
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Restores, not changes
Volume returns where it once was, so patients look like themselves in earlier years rather than like different people.
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Pairs with facelift
Performed alongside a facelift, fat transfer addresses the deflation that lifting cannot — treating both dimensions of facial aging at once.
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Accredited on-site suite
Harvest, refinement, and placement happen in a single session in the practice’s accredited on-site surgical suite in Franklin.
When volume is restored with the patient’s own tissue, in measured micro-droplets, the face does not look treated — it looks rested, familiar, and quietly a few years younger.
Selected results
Elegant results, designed around the individual.
Facial fat transfer cases are included in our full results archive — each pair represents a single patient photographed at the same angle, light, and camera.
The journey from consultation to lasting result.
01
Consultation
Mapping where volume has gone
Consultation begins with an unhurried study of the face — where the temples have hollowed, how the cheeks have deflated, where shadows have settled beneath the eyes. Dr. Sieveking reviews photographs from earlier years when patients have them, because the goal is restoration, not reinvention. He explains what fat transfer can achieve on its own, what it achieves alongside a facelift, and — candidly — that a portion of grafted fat will not survive and that the surgical plan accounts for it. Patients leave understanding both the possibilities and the biology.
02
Procedure
Harvest, refine, place
Facial fat transfer is performed as an outpatient procedure in the practice’s accredited on-site surgical suite. A small amount of fat is harvested by gentle liposuction from an area with reserve to spare — most often the abdomen or thighs — then refined to concentrate the healthiest tissue. Dr. Sieveking places the refined fat in micro-droplets, layer by layer, restoring the temples, cheeks, and under-eye hollows in measured passes. Patients return home the same day with aftercare instructions for both the donor and treated areas.
03
Recovery
A week of settling
Expect roughly a week of swelling and bruising — at the treated areas of the face and at the donor site as well. Most patients return to work and normal routines within about a week, timing social commitments for after the early swelling has eased. Strenuous exercise is deferred a little longer, until Dr. Sieveking clears it. The face looks fuller than the final result at first; that early exaggeration is swelling and entirely expected, and it subsides steadily.
04
Results
The contour that remains
The restored contour emerges as swelling resolves over the first weeks. In the months that follow, a portion of the grafted fat is reabsorbed — an expected part of the biology, already accounted for in the surgical plan — while the fat that has established a blood supply remains as living tissue. What settles in is long-lasting: soft, mobile, and native to the face, a restoration measured in years rather than in appointments on a filler calendar.
Why Sieveking
Meet Dr. Sieveking
Volume restoration in experienced hands.
Stanford-trained. Triple board-certified (including The American Board of Wound Management, ABWM) plastic and reconstructive surgeon.
Fat transfer is unforgiving of imprecision — it succeeds droplet by droplet, in the judgment of where each one belongs. Dr. Sieveking brings Stanford training in plastic and reconstructive surgery, triple board certification, and an international fellowship under Ivo Pitanguy in Brazil to a procedure that is equal parts biology and sculpture.
The practice’s structure serves patients weighing their options. Fat transfer and injectable fillers are both offered under one roof — surgical restoration by Dr. Sieveking, injectable refinement through the medical aesthetics team under his direction — so the recommendation follows the face, not the menu. When a facelift is also indicated, both can be planned as one operation.
More than twenty-five years of practice in Nashville have settled the philosophy: restore conservatively, explain the biology honestly, and let results speak quietly. From consultation through surgery in the accredited on-site suite and every follow-up visit, patients remain at one address, with one team, under one standard of care.
Investment
Cost of facial fat transfer.
The cost of facial fat transfer depends on the areas being restored, whether it is performed alone or combined with a facelift, and the anesthesia the plan requires. Because every face has lost volume differently, pricing is reviewed transparently at consultation — including exactly what the quoted fee covers from surgery through follow-up.
For patients comparing fat transfer with years of repeated filler appointments, the arithmetic of a longer-lasting restoration is often part of the conversation. The practice works with PatientFi and CareCredit for financing, and HSA and FSA funds are accepted where eligible, so the investment can be planned rather than improvised.
Questions, answered.
The questions most prospective patients ask before booking a consultation.
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Fat transfer to the face — also called facial fat grafting — restores lost facial volume using the patient’s own fat. A small amount is harvested by gentle liposuction, refined, and placed in micro-droplets where aging has hollowed the temples, cheeks, or under-eye area. At Sieveking Plastic Surgery in Franklin, TN, the procedure is performed by Dr. Nicholas Sieveking, a Stanford-trained, triple board-certified (including The American Board of Wound Management, ABWM) plastic surgeon.
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The grafted fat that establishes a blood supply in the months after surgery becomes living tissue in its new location, and that surviving portion is long-lasting — measured in years rather than months. This is the meaningful difference from temporary fillers, which are gradually absorbed and must be repeated. The face continues to age naturally, but the restored volume ages with it rather than disappearing on a schedule.
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No — and an honest practice says so plainly. A portion of grafted fat is reabsorbed by the body in the first months after facial fat transfer; this is expected biology, not a complication, and the surgical plan accounts for it from the start. The fat that does establish a blood supply remains as soft, living tissue, which is why the settled result looks and feels natural.
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They answer different questions. Fillers are convenient, adjustable, and temporary — well suited to smaller refinements. Fat transfer is a surgical procedure that restores broader volume with the patient’s own tissue and is long-lasting in what survives. Patients weighing the two can compare both options in one consultation at Sieveking Plastic Surgery, where surgical fat transfer and physician-directed injectables are offered under the same roof.
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Plan on roughly a week of swelling and bruising, both in the treated areas of the face and at the donor site where fat was harvested. Most patients return to work and normal routines within about a week, deferring strenuous exercise until cleared. Early on the face appears fuller than the final result — that exaggeration is swelling, and it subsides steadily over the following weeks.
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Yes, and the pairing is common because the two procedures address different dimensions of facial aging. A facelift repositions tissue that has descended; fat transfer restores volume that has been lost. Performed together in a single operation, they treat both the laxity and the deflation of the aging face. Fat transfer is also frequently performed on its own for patients whose primary change is volume loss.
More in Plastic Surgery.
Facial Sculpting
Begin your journey
Restore natural facial volume at Sieveking Plastic Surgery in Franklin, TN.
A face that looks tired is often a face that has quietly lost volume — and volume, unlike time, can be returned. A consultation with Dr. Sieveking begins with an unhurried study of where your face has changed and an honest conversation about what fat transfer can and cannot do. From that first meeting through surgery in the accredited on-site surgical suite and every follow-up visit, care stays under one roof at 1200 Old Hillsboro Road, with one team.
1200 Old Hillsboro Road, B2 · Franklin, Tennessee
Mon–Thu 9–4:30 · Fri by appointment