Biggs Face Lift Retractor, 229 mm – 5.2 cm Blade

A facelift raises a long, thin skin flap, and the retractor’s job is to hold that flap up evenly while the surgeon dissects beneath it. Width is what makes the holding even: at 5.2 cm the blade supports a broad stretch of flap at once, so the tension is distributed. A narrow blade under the same pull concentrates the load into a band, and a thin skin flap held that way kinks along the blade edge and bruises where it folds.

The edges are contoured rather than square for the same reason. Facial skin flaps are held under tension for long stretches of an operation, and any defined edge pressing into the underside leaves a mark that outlasts the procedure. This is the version without fibre optics — lighter, simpler to reprocess, and appropriate where the field is lit externally rather than through the instrument.

Specifications