Kissable lips are always desirable – especially just before Valentine’s Day! If you’ve been considering lip augmentation, you still have time to fit in treatments before the upcoming holiday. At Berlet Plastic Surgery, our job is to help you achieve results you can really fall in love with. Find out about your options in this post.
What Is Lip Augmentation?
Any cosmetic procedure that enhances, changes, or alters the shape and appearance of your lips technically qualifies as lip augmentation. But augmentation comes in many forms, all the way from temporary dermal fillers to more permanent surgical procedures to draw more of the inner lip forward.
Generally speaking, surgical alteration of the lips isn’t common. Instead, the vast majority of patients opt for temporary (yet effective) dermal fillers, like Restylane and Juvederm. Treatment with injectables like these is quick, less invasive, and produces remarkable results in a much shorter period of time.
What are Dermal Fillers?
Dermal fillers are FDA-approved cosmetic injectable medications specifically designed for use in aesthetics. This includes collagen injections, hyaluronic acid injections, and fat injections taken from your own body, too.
Most modern lip augmentation formulas contain hyaluronic acid, rather than fat or collagen. This is a naturally-occurring substance found in human tissue; it maintains moisture balance, keeping skin smooth, even, and plump. In lip augmentation, hyaluronic acid’s natural ability to plump tissue adds volume and balance.
Dermal fillers containing hyaluronic acid are preferred over other options, like collagen, fat, or silicone. Because HA is a naturally-occurring substance, the body more easily adjusts to its presence in tissue. This lowers your risk for allergies, dermatitis, swelling, and bruising after treatment.
Best of all, some researchers believe HA has the ability to boost collagen production within the body, too. Occasional injections may slow or even remove common signs of aging, like fine lines and wrinkles or loss of elasticity around the lips.
Is Lip Augmentation Right for Me?
To determine if lip augmentation is right for you, consider why you want to get dermal fillers to begin with. Make sure that you are 100% ready to alter your appearance. If you’re not, this may not be the right solution. You should also have realistic expectations of the outcome. While fuller lips will change your appearance slightly, the rest of you will still look and be the same person.
In addition, dermal fillers containing hyaluronic acid are very low risk. They’re appropriate for nearly all reasonably healthy patients who want to add volume, plump the lips, or even erase fine lines just above the lip line. In just a few short days, you can have kissable, gorgeous, Instagram-worthy lips – with almost no downtime!
What Can I Expect from Lip Augmentation Procedure?
Lip augmentation techniques that involve dermal fillers are typically performed in your doctor’s office. These procedures are quick and require little to no downtime. The only exception is a fat injection, which requires liposuction of a small area of the body. In this case, your doctor will remove the fat from another part of your body before the injection can take place.
Before your surgeon injects the filler, a topical or local numbing cream is applied to make sure you are as comfortable as possible. Holding ice to the lips before the injection also helps to numb the area. This can also help with bruising and swelling that may occur after the procedure.
Your surgeon will then carefully mark the target areas. Finally, very fine needles inject the substance into your lips.
Ask a Top Plastic Surgeon in New Jersey
You don’t have to struggle with issues like a thin upper lip, uneven lips, or a lack of volume at the sides of the mouth anymore. In as little as one or two sessions, you can regain confidence in your own smile! Book your consultation with Berlet Plastic Surgery now.