LIP SERVICE
So many people are, concerned about the appearance of their mouth and understandably so. This area is where ageing rears its ugly head in a significant way: the lips shrink with age and the borders of the mouth, which function very much like a frame, tend to lose definition. The corners of the mouth, meanwhile, turn downwards, giving the face a sad appearance and further contributing to the marionette lines (oral commissures) that run down to the chin. My preferred method for restoring the integrity of the mouth is to inject a filler material like collagen right along the borders of the lips. A lot of women are afraid that this technique will give them lips that are too plumped – no doubt fearing that First Wives’Club syndrome -but I assure them that if done properly using only small amounts of a filler material, this will not be the case. A great side benefit of this technique is that the corners of the lips are lifted, bringing back that youthful smile. I’d even say that you could easily bring the lips back to their appearance from twenty years ago!Another common complaint revolves around the annoying ‘lipstick bleed’ lines (formally known as perioral lines) that hover directly above and below the lips. I always tell my patients that although I could fill in these tiny lines with a filler – and this approach would solve the problem for a lot of patients – the perfectionist in me feels that this is akin to painting only a portion of a room. To truly improve this area I would suggest we fill in the borders of the lips as well. This technique will act as a foundation for the filler that is already injected in the upper and lower lip lines, helping it to not be broken down as quickly.Almost daily, patients enter my office clutching a photo of the lips of their dreams. I probably have enough of these photos in my office to fill another whole book! More often than not, these fantasy lips are full and luscious – Angelina Jolie is she standard-bearer for this phenomenon. Again, I try to convey to the patient that while the lips can be enhanced, the end result still has to be appropriate for their face. Nothing is worse than seeing the lips entering a room ten seconds before the person does.First, I suggest that we subtly inject the outline of the lips. Quite often this measure gives enough of a change and the patient can choose to stop there. But, if they decide that they do indeed want something fuller, I achieve it by filling in the entire lip with the chosen filler. My goal is to have the patient leave my office with lips that look like they were born with them. An interesting footnote is the question of which lip should be fuller: top or bottom? The upper lip is often in greater need of plumping since it tends to lose the most volume, but I like the bottom lip to be slightly larger so that it forms a nice platform on which the top lip can rest.*62\82\8*
