I'm a generally confident person. Based on all the crazy printed clothing I wear and my bold makeup choices, it's easy to see that. You definitely have to have a certain base level of confidence to try half the things I do when it comes to fashion and beauty. Beyond that, I've accepted parts of my appearance that could be considered flawed: my crooked nose, baby-like hands, below-average height, and slightly wonky right eye. However, I've never been able to get past the size of my lips.
As I shared in my #beautyconfession, orthodontist after orthodontist used to tell my mom that I didn't need braces for my teeth. If anything, braces would make my lips look bigger. Every time we heard this, I was under the age of 14. Needless to say, I never got braces, and my mom never took me back to those orthodontists. Before my first ortho appointment, I wasn't aware of the size of my lips. There was no reason for me to be. But suddenly, I was painfully aware of how thin they were. I'd constantly look in the mirror and wonder what I would look like with bigger lips.
The thought of lip injections definitely crossed my mind several times, but my fear of needles and unnecessary pain steered me toward lipstick. Over the past couple of years, lipstick helped distract me from the shape of my lips. I treated them as a canvas, painting them with every color I could get my hands on — emerald green, pitch black, mustard yellow. You name a shade, I've most likely swiped it onto my lips. I could have gone the rest of my life like this, but the opportunity recently came up to get lip injections from New York-based dermatologist Patricia Wexler, though. (She's been doing injections for as long as I've been alive.) I started to equate having bigger lips to having more real estate for lipstick. With that in mind, I went for it.
The lip injections were done on an Allure Facebook Live for everyone to see. For the record, I didn't wear a t-shirt that read "Feministe" to make a statement about feminism and cosmetic procedures. I'm a pretty clever person, but in this case, I just thought the shirt looked good with my fluffy millennial pink skirt. I do believe women have the freedom of choice when it comes to their bodies, though. Take that as you will.
Facebook content
This content can also be viewed on the site it originates from.
I ended up getting three syringes worth of Volbella, a filler made of hyaluronic acid. (Yup, the same thing you slather all over your face. It's also a naturally occurring sugar molecule in skin.) It was just enough to give my lips a natural-looking plumpness. I like to think of the lip injections as high heels for my lips. I'm 5'1, so when I wear heels, people often don't even notice that I have them on because they make me average height. The same goes for lip injection. My lips now look average and incredible, at that. They're not too big, but they are just plumped enough that I know I didn't get my pout prodded for nothing.
Dr. Wexler gave me the go ahead to try all the lipsticks my heart desires as soon as I left the office. I ended up using a lip balm first because my lips felt incredibly dry post-filler. Usually I use the Winky Lux Flower Balm as a moisturizing base, but after the lip injections, I loved the glossy pink look of the color-changing balm on its own. As someone who could wear matte black lipstick every day, the fact that I just wrote that is shocking me.
Days after, I continued to stray away from my beloved but drying matte liquid lipsticks in favor of more moisturizing lipsticks with a satin finish like the Bite Beauty Amuse Bouche Lipsticks (specifically a bright lavender called Lavender Jam). Weirdly enough, I started gravitating towards raspberry-toned reds, too. Usually I don't like those kinds of shades because they are hard to apply and seem too basic compared to my usual aesthetic. However, the Make Up For Ever Artist Acrylip in Raspberry Red looked anything but ordinary on my plumper lips. Plus, the lip paint formula helped hydrate my thirsty AF pout and was opaque enough to cover up the bruises on my lips. Yeah, that's a thing that happened. This might have been why I didn't go for lighter shades.
Actually putting on lipstick was an adjustment, too. Before getting lip injections, I could apply lipstick in less than a minute with three simple swipes: one for each side of my top lip and the last for my entire bottom lip. Doe-foot applicators and the bullet of the lipstick perfectly fit the surface area of my thin lips. However, with bigger lips, I had more space to work with than before. One swipe only covered a section of my lips instead of the entire area. Instead, I found myself lining my lips first with the pointed tip of the lipstick before filling them in. This helped with precision and gave me a better visual of what I'm working with now.
Also, remember my wonky eye? It looks, well, less wonky now, thanks to my bigger lips. I don't know how it looks more symmetrical, but I'm not questioning it. Because of that, I don't have to put on as much mascara as usual to help it look wider and balance it out. I even feel comfortable now wearing any mascara at all. (That's a whole different story you'll have to stay tuned for.)
Slight tweaks to my beauty routine aside, I'm in love with how my lips look. I know I was beautiful before I got them done, and I'm still beautiful. If anything, getting lip injections let me experiment with makeup in a new way.
More on injectables:
