Lip enhancement for younger patients
Lip enhancement is a popular treatment for young patients as it can produce a full & soft lift. Often young patient’s lips look small, because there is not much volume, but also because the strong muscle in the lips pulls them inwards.
To enhance the lip we use a dermal filler that has some strength that will help hold the shape and often add a ‘sprinkle of tox’ just to relax the muscle of the lip a little. The filler needs to integrate into the tissues so that the initial lumpiness softens out over the first few weeks.
Lip enhancement for older patients
Older patients need a different approach. The bone supporting the teeth recedes with age and the lip rolls in without this support. The lip also loses volume.
If we add too much volume to the lip without being aware of the area under the nose that is dropping back it is very easy to produce the dreaded ‘duck lip‘. Thus we need a much more subtle approach, and sometimes also need to look at the area under the nose first.
How long do lip enhancements last?
In general 9 months, but it can be less if your body metabolises it quickly and longer if you are a slow ‘metaboliser’. The choice of filler is important in getting optimal results.
What causes lip lines?
This is a combination of issues. The skin loses elastin and collagen (more so in smokers) and so the wrinkles form more easily. There is a loss of support in both bone and overlying tissue underneath the skin and the red part of the lip. By addressing the lines only with filler it can over volumise that part of the lip giving a monkey lip appearance.
To do it subtly I have learned a technique that uses Japanese needles which are extremely fine and are so short they do not get through the full thickness of the skin. Thus minute amounts of a very soft lip filler mixed with tox can be injected into the skin itself. This results in a very natural-looking softening of the lip lines.