Once I first decided to get lip fillers, I wasn’t necessarily sure of what I did want, but I definitely knew what I didn’t want. If you happen to’ve scrolled your FYP on TikTok recently, you’ve probably witnessed rundowns on a few of your favorite celebs and their less-than-ideal filler results — that’s exactly what I aimed to avoid.
Luckily, I’ve been capable of just do that. But only due to my incredible dermatologist Dr. Michelle Henry, MD. I tapped her and Los Angeles favorite, Dr. Kimberly Lee, Board Certified Facial Plastic Surgeon, to dish on the most important mistakes made while getting lip fillers — and, most significantly, avoid them.
Ask Yourself, Are You an Ideal Candidate?
“The most important mistake people make is bringing a photograph of a celeb and hoping their lips will look the identical,” Dr. Lee says. “Everyone’s lip anatomy is different, and the lips must be balanced with the remainder of their faces.” It’s why Dr. Henry all the time leads with a conservative approach. “The nose, the lips, the chin, all of them work in concert,” she insists.
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The lip itself also serves as a guide. “If someone has a extremely, really, really thin lip, there’s only a lot you may do,” Dr. Henry reiterates. “If the lips are really sure down, it could not accommodate as much filler — at the least not quickly. We’d must go really slowly.” Moreover, a fuller lip can often accommodate more filler and really needs more fuller to end in a visible difference. “A extremely small lip I can get away with half a syringe to see a change,” she continues. “But in a fuller lip, in the event that they wanna see a difference, sometimes I would like a full syringe and could have them come back in two weeks to layer it. The body accommodates it higher and more naturally once we do it slowly.”
Go for The “Right” Look
In keeping with Dr. Lee, the lower lip should all the time be larger than the upper lip, so it’s necessary to keep up that proportion to avoid scrutiny from curious eyes — some extent that Dr. Henry drives home. “If I take a look at someone and the very first thing I take into consideration are lips, then it’s disrupting the harmony of the face,” Dr. Henry says. “You must say, ‘Have a look at this beautiful face.’ You must say, ‘Oh, beautiful lips, beautiful eyes, beautiful lips.’ If you happen to say, ‘My goodness, these are some, these are really, really large, or like hyper-sculpted lips,’ then that doesn’t look natural.”
But size isn’t the one method to tell that lips could also be overfilled. Dr. Henry says the lips shouldn’t be so full that you could’t see a few of the lines within the skin. “Sometimes lips can get so full that they’re just shining and you may’t see that natural variation within the skin since it’s like a full balloon — you may’t see any of the natural folds,” she says.
We don’t want really wrinkly lips, right? But when a lip is de facto overfilled, it may have an eerily smooth appearance which we don’t see in natural, unfilled, lips.
Courtesy of Blake Newby
Think Outside The Aesthetics
A harsh duck lip isn’t the one risk you run once you overfill — it may also include hostile health effects.
“The most important danger of overfilling the lip is that we will compromise vasculature (by accident injecting into blood vessels and causing necrosis), a vascular occlusion,” Dr. Henry says. “We are able to actually block it because we put in a lot filler that it compresses those vessels and could lead on to compromised blood flow. That’s the worst end result.”
A buzzy term currently taking up social media is filler migration. “Filler migration can sometimes occur since the fillers are moldable for about 14 days, sometimes longer, after the injection,” adds Dr. Lee. And while she insists that this is typically a great thing if something needs just a little tweaking, it also implies that the filler can migrate unintentionally.
“For instance, when you go get a facial right after the injection, the filler will migrate to other unintended locations and settle there after 2-3 weeks,” she says. “But sometimes the migration isn’t all the time obvious because there’s swelling after the injections are done. Remember, fillers are hydrophilic — meaning they attract water, which implies you see swelling.”
Know How (and When) To Dissolve
The excellent news is: dissolving lip filler when you’re displeased is a reasonably straightforward process…but that doesn’t necessarily mean it’ll solve your entire problems.
“If a hyaluronic acid-based filler is used, the dissolvent is injected [in]to the realm, and the filler dissolves inside 24-48 hours,” Dr. Lee shares. “Nonetheless, the challenges are that because we don’t know exactly where the filler is, it will likely be injected in differing depths to come back into contact with the filler to dissolve it.”
She explains that one other challenge is that doctors can’t control how much filler goes to be dissolved, so Dr. Lee all the time prepares patients to expect that each one of the filler might go away. “Most patients don’t realize that the dissolvent is costlier than the filler though,” she further explains. “But when a non-hyaluronic acid filler is used, you’re out of luck because the dissolvent is restricted for this and other options will must be discussed.”
Embrace Your Latest Look
In the times following your fillers, you may expect a small little bit of swelling and bruising — but make no mistake, it’s nothing just a little gloss (like my favorite one by Ami Colé) and ice (do that chic cryo freeze tool) can’t fix. Note, that is the rationale experts suggest giving yourself a two-week grace period post-filler before any big event.
Moreover, I used to be sure to up my water intake to enhance blood flow, something I’ve found incredibly helpful in speeding up the healing process. In brief, don’t be alarmed if initially your pout is just a little juicier than expected. Once all the pieces settles, hopefully, you’ll be as obsessed together with your results as I’m.
