Whether you credit the surge of cosmetic doctors showcasing their work on social media, the recent emergence of smarter injectable fillers, or the overall Jennerfication of our global beauty standards, one thing is clear: #BigLips have officially arrived. What’s behind our collective obsession? “Full, beautiful lips can make the face look more youthful, and even improve the application and appearance of makeup,” says Karyn Grossman, a cosmetic dermatologist with offices in Santa Monica and New York City. And then there’s the simple fact that pillowy lips — in selfies and IRL — are just plain sexy.
In less obvious news, however, Grossman recently alerted us to a hidden downside of maximizing the mouth. “When you repeatedly enlarge the lips — pumping them up as big as possible — the filler can act as a tissue expander, permanently stretching the skin, and causing the lips to sag and deflate when the filler eventually degrades, leaving you in worse shape than when you started,” she explains. Since this isn’t a textbook risk or complication — like, say, swelling, bruising, or a rogue lump — doctors rarely discuss the potential long-term pitfall with patients, she adds. Should you be left with loose lips as a result of habitual overinflation, the only remedy is lip reduction surgery — that is, trimming away the excess skin, which can leave significant scars.
When it comes to lips, how big is too big? That depends on one’s individual anatomy, Grossman says, but a good dermatologist or surgeon — one with a keen eye and sense of restraint — will be able to assess the potential space in your lips, and fill accordingly. Which is a blessing, really, since it seems our own ability to judge clearly has been impaired by the overwhelming ubiquity of fuller-than-full pouts. “I have a lot of millennials who come in for lip injections and say they want to ‘look natural,’ but then they show me pictures of lips that are way overfilled,” Grossman says. “They see so much of this on social media, it starts to look normal — and makes their own perfectly adequate lips seem too small in comparison.”
To be fair, millennials aren’t the only ones drinking the Kool-Aid. The most over-injected lips Grossman has ever seen were perched on the otherwise unadorned face of a 65-year-old businesswoman. After another doctor recommended she get lip injections every four months, this patient visited Grossman for her quarterly fill-up. “I told her that, aesthetically speaking, I thought her lips were big enough, and she might even consider reducing them, but beyond that, I didn’t feel I could safely inject them without compromising blood flow to the region,” she says. “Her lips were so tight and firm — injecting would have gone against my better medical judgment. Trends and misinformation can be very powerful.”
But don’t misunderstand: Grossman, like most of her peers, is a fan of lip augmentation. “It’s one of my favorite procedures, and it tends to be very satisfying for patients,” she says, especially since the launch of the latest lip-specific injectable hyaluronic acid gel, Volbella, which “does a great job of boosting lips without adding too much volume, crisping the edges, and smoothing out fine lines,” she notes.
Bottom line? Done right, generous lips can be a thing of beauty. But it’s crucial that you find a board-certified injector who’s willing to discuss all the risks — and reality-check your lip #goals when necessary.
Read up on more cosmetic surgery news:
Americans Spent $16 Billion on Plastic Surgery in 2016Chrissy Teigen Talks Plastic Surgery and Her Becca X Chrissy Glow Face PaletteThe Exact Reason Your Lip Injections Look Fake, Study Finds
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