There’s nothing better than swiping on some lipstick for an instant pop of colour, but if you’re looking to plump, define or refresh your lips then the latest lip fillers could be for you. Our expert cosmetic physician Dr. Joseph Hkeik explains the top three ways to use lip fillers to create the most natural looking lips.
Lip Augmentation
Augmentation is used to create younger looking lips, but this is where you can risk looking overdone and creating a ‘trout pout’. To avoid that look, we choose a soft filler designed for lip augmentation like Juvederm Ultra, Teosyal Kiss, Emervel Lips, and the filler needs to be placed in front of the muscle for the most natural look.
More than with reshaping or rejuvenating, we need to respect the shape of the lip and maintain a natural contour whilst augmenting the lips.
Lip Reshaping and Recontouring
Reshaping and re-contouring is used to create a new lip shape, ideal for someone who desires a new look. We sculpt the lips to create a more youthful and appealing shape (it’s a similar philosophy to contouring the cheeks or the mid face). We build the lips so we can accentuate the light and shadows, without going overboard. We use a smaller amount of volume than usual, using soft fillers such as Teosyal Kiss, Emervel Lips or Juvederm.
For example, we can inject the vermillion border to define the lips and build the philtrum to create a “Paris lip” look, then a small amount in the body of the upper and lower lips (pouty, well-defined voluptuous set of lips). This is the most popular request.
Hollywood lips: The upper lip does not taper into the corners of the mouth as sharply as with the other styles of lip forms such as the Paris, and the cupid’s bow is rounded out and not as pointy as the Paris lip.
Lip Rejuvenation & Hydration
For lips that have lost their volume we use rejuvenation. The first step is to ensure the lip is well supported, so we treat the lip border, lip volume and around the lip (marionette area and perioral lines (also called smokers line) and sometime in the NLF area to ensure the whole area around the lips is looking fresh. In another words, treating the area around the lip is as important as treating the lips, otherwise the lips would look great, but the surrounding skin will still look tired and will make the lips look obviously done. Esthelis is ideal for rejuvenation of the lips, so is Restylane and Juvederm Volbella.
Of course you can also combine all three in one treatment.
Top three lip tips:
1. As a general rule, fillers are best injected in front of the muscle to avoid the ‘duck bill’ look.
2. Less is more.
3. Always use soft filler for the lips. The softest of a soft filler will give a more subtle, rejuvenated effect, while the thickest of a soft filler will give a more augmented, reshaped look.
Costs and Downtime:
Cost range from approximately $450 to 680 depending on the volume used at the session.
For pain management you can use numbing cream, dental block or both. The downtime is 24 hours of swelling, some bruising may occur for two days (sometimes more) and a cold sore may get reactivated.
Before the procedure we advise to stop blood thinners such as fish oil, and start arnica four days prior to your procedure to help minimise swelling, bruising and pain. You can use Famvir if worried about cold sore activation.
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