Whether your lips have always been thinner and less shapely than you want or have become smaller over time, lip injections can give you the fuller, poutier lips you desire.
As one of the most common non-surgical cosmetic services offered at Athena Plastic Surgery in Stuart, FL, lip fillers can reshape your mouth and restore balance and symmetry to your face while providing younger-looking, voluminous lips.
Achieving your desired results from lip injectables requires knowing the basics of the treatment and accurately conveying your expectations. Understanding the evolution of lip fillers from producing overfilled duck lips to a plump, shapely mouth is the first step.
What Are Lip Fillers?
Lip fillers are dermal fillers that add volume and smooth lines in the lips and around the mouth. While dermal fillers use either hyaluronic acid or a bio-stimulating ingredient to reduce the appearance of lines and wrinkles and re-contour the face, lip fillers are almost exclusively hyaluronic acid-based.
What Is Hyaluronic Acid?
Hyaluronic acid (HA) is more than the latest beauty buzzword. It’s a naturally occurring humectant found throughout the body, notably in the joints, eyes, and skin. As a humectant, HA attracts and binds to water, holding up to 1,000 times its weight in water.
As a result, HA injectables add a plump, hydrated look to treated lips, achieving a fuller appearance. Since HA lip injections build on HA already in the body, patients rarely experience adverse side effects.
Additionally, the treatments are temporary and reversible, so patients who change their minds about their lip filler can either dissolve it or let the body naturally metabolize it.
What Can Lip Injections Accomplish?
Lip injections provide different benefits based on your overall goals. While some patients seek plump, pillowy lips, others desire sharper contour, better symmetry, or a boost of volume. Often, over time, lips thin and lose their differentiation from the surrounding skin of the mouth, causing lipstick to blur and fine vertical lines to appear.
Lip filler can restore the lips’ edges, smooth vertical lines, and create more volume and differentiation. Patients can even treat chronically chapped lips with the hydrating effects of HA. We customize all lip filler treatments based on your anatomy, concerns, and needs.
Which Lip Filler Is Best?
With so many types of filler on the market, there is no one-size-fits-all solution to reshaping and volumizing your lips. In addition, the lips and mouth area are delicate, with fragile skin that requires a skilled injector to achieve the best results.
We offer three different HA-based brands of fillers, each with products formulated especially for the lips.
Restylane
Restylane’s versatile formula and the brand’s lip-focused filler, Restylane Silk, use a smooth, thin consistency to reduce lines and add fullness to the lips. While we often prefer Restylane for volume enhancement and lifting the mouth’s corners, Restylane Silk is ideal for treating wrinkles and fine vertical lines on and around the lips.
Juvéderm
Juvéderm also offers a comprehensive line of dermal filler products, with Juvéderm Ultra XC designed explicitly for lip injections and use around the mouth. The filler has a soft consistency and provides many benefits in augmenting the lips.
Juvéderm Ultra XC can add volume and definition while improving contours and reducing lines around the lips.
Belotero
Belotero is a newer dermal filler that’s particularly beneficial in treating thinning and aging lips. Belotero’s gel includes cohesive, elastic properties that allow for even injections and ideal spreading, so it can treat superficial fine lines while also plumping the lips.
How Long Do Lip Injections Last?
One of our patients’ most frequent questions about their treatment is, “How long do lip injections last.” The type of filler used, your lifestyle, and the administration technique all affect the longevity of your lip filler.
Most patients enjoy their results for six to twelve months. Areas that experience the most movement, such as the mouth, will require treatments more often than with fillers in other areas.
However, younger patients and those who are physically active and have a high metabolism tend to require lip injections more frequently. In addition, those whose treatments use more filler will see their results last longer than those with smaller amounts injected.
How Long Do Lip Injections Take?
Typically, the longest part of your lip filler appointment is determining your goals and the best way to achieve them. First, we consider your facial balance and profile, take measurements of your face, and assess your lips and mouth to ensure your results meet your expectations.
The injection process only takes a few minutes, and most patients resume their everyday activities immediately. However, we advise patients to avoid intense physical activities for 48 hours after treatment.
In addition, patients should prepare for their lip injections by refraining from aspirin, ibuprofen, fish oil, and other blood thinners in the days before their injections.
When Will I See the Results?
Lip filler treatments offer immediate results, with tissue expansion occurring as we place the injections. However, you will experience some swelling from your injections that typically resolves within 24-48 hours.
If this is your first lip filler treatment, we may underfill your lips first, as it’s easier to add more filler than dissolve the filler in overfilled lips. You can return after two weeks to add more if you choose.
Discover the Difference that Comes with Fuller, More Shapely Lips
Your mouth is critical to the overall balance of your facial contours. As your lips thin, it can cause you to appear older prematurely. By restoring the shape and volume of your lips, the skilled team at Athena Plastic Surgery can recover your youthful appearance.
Learn the benefits of lip injections by calling us at (772) 266-5003 or schedule an appointment online with our Stuart, FL, office today.