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Lip fillers are fast becoming the most popular non-surgical cosmetic treatment, so much so that each of the most desirable lip shapes now has a name:

• Hollywood Lips – full upper and lower with a more rounded upper, like Angelina

• Heart-Shaped Lips – with a well-defined Cupid’s bow, like Taylor Swift

• Pouty Lips – full and pillowy like Kylie Jenner

• Round Lips – with fullness in the centre, like Drew Barrymore

• Perfectly Proportioned Lips – Full and even, like Rihanna

If you are thinking of lip fillers for the first time, or are considering changing your practitioner, you need to be very clear on a few things:

1. What is achievable if you want to stay natural looking.
2. That your practitioner is both experienced and safe (see our blog post: 8 Questions You Must Ask Before Any Aesthetic Treatment).

So, what’s used in your lips?
Dr Harris uses Juvederm Ultra 3, which is gentle, blends in completely, doesn’t interfere with the movement of the lips and causes minimal swelling.

To give natural looking fullness, the filler is injected into the inside of the lips. By avoiding the border, any risk of a ‘ducky’ look is avoided.

Non-surgical lip lift
This is a popular treatment developed by Dr Harris to reshape and lift the lips with a line of filler ‘drawn’ just under the border of each lip (avoiding the border itself). This lip lift also shortens the philtrum, which is the gap between the nose and the mouth that tends to lengthen with age.

The artistry
While we are all influenced by images of the young and beautiful, it’s worth remembering that there are as many different kinds of lips as there are eyes or face shapes.

When it comes to ‘perfection’, the accepted ratio of upper to lower lip is one third to two thirds. However, a survey published earlier this year* surveyed 1000 people from 35 different countries and over 60% of respondents preferred a ratio of 1:1.

This highlights the fact that beauty isn’t a science and should never follow mathematical ratios. For the best and most natural results, a cosmetic doctor should know the science but use sensitivity and artistry with each and every patient.

Lip fillers for men
With increasingly numbers of men opting for lip fillers, it’s imperative that practitioners remember the difference between male and female lips.

Men tend to have flatter, more rectangular shaped lips, with less height and a less prominent Cupid’s bow, which means they should never be treated in the same way. Overfilling the vermillion border leads to a poor aesthetic result in women, but even worse in men, so should be avoided altogether if possible. 

*Journal of Cranio-Maxillofacial Surgery