Getting the perfect lips is no easy feat. There is a certain amount of precision involved, and this is certainly not the case of: more is better. Too much and you end up looking like a trout, too little and the effect is negligible. When it comes to natural-looking lips, one size does not fit all, and bigger — like Kylie big — isn’t always better. Like good Botox, lip injections should work to balance the entire face, he explains, because according to Dr Low Chai Ling, founder of SW1 Clinic, “the science of attractiveness is to make everything proportional.”
Here, the rules of lip injections that will separate good lip fillers from the bad ones.
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Take It Slow
Take It Slow
According to Dr Low, the key to making lips bigger is to do it gradually. Dr Low recommends spacing out injection appointments and not doing everything in one session so it’s done once a week, twice a week, once a month. “This works to gradually expand the area, rather than protrude forward, i.e. duck lips” she says. “I find that my patients who are able to commit to a few sessions of lip rejuvenation with me tend to get the best results.”
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Keep It (Relatively) Real
Respect the anatomy of the lip. “You cannot make someone’s lips look completely different,” says Dr. Low. While she admits that you can certainly enhance certain features while downplaying others, there are limitations to this. And if you want an overall natural look, you should customise the lip injections according to each client’s lip shape. Besides the lips, it is vital to take into account the overall facial shape and proportions. “Size is all relative” she says “A plump set of lips may match one face but look hideous on another”.
Dr Low says she loves it when patients ask for her to make their lips beautiful but sometimes has to turn away patients who ask for their lips to look like someone else. “When I know that the end result will not be compelling, I usually turn them away” she explains.
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More than Lips
This might seem counter-intuitive but “to make the lips look natural, you sometimes have extend the lip fillers beyond the lips, and take care of skin issues that lie behind the lips such as fine lines and creases. You may also have to ‘feather out’ your lip filler effects to plump the surrounding skin to avoid giving the face a “cartoonish” look.
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Different strokes for different folks
There isn’t a ‘one size fits all’ filler. Anyone wh is touting only one brand of filler is only limiting their results. From Juvederm to Restylane, Dr Low says that in her experience, they all have their pros and cons and deliver slightly different results. When she wants to shape the lips, she may turn to Juvederm, but when she wants to hydrate the lips and fill lines without adding volume, she may prefer to opt for Revitalift Lips.
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Sweat the Technique
The most surprising thing that I found out: the brand of filler is not as important as how the product is administered. It’s all about technique. How you deliver the fillers contribute to 90% of the end result. You could be using the ‘best’ filler but when it is not well-distributed, you could end up with strange looking lips, disproportionate lips or even lumps.
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