Lip filler is often the most noticeable and criticized treatments. We can all think of famous women who were natural beauties until they went down the road of too much lip filler.
But for many of us, the loss of volume in our lips as we age makes us feel unattractive and over-the-hill. Restoring our lips feels like reclaiming our femininity and beauty. The trick is to keep the lip filler looking natural.
The Hart Lip Technique is an advancement in lip filler techniques. As an injector, it gives me better landmarks for creating a youthful lip shape. It is safer than conventional techniques in that it greatly reduces the risk of injecting filler into an artery in the lip.* And it avoids unwanted results such as filler leaking outside of the lips.
Blue line marks where filler has leaked beyond lip margin
Filled lips. Note the skin elevation above the upper lip, indicating that filler has leaked outside of lip margin
This image, taken from the internet, shows what filler looks like when it has leaked outside of the margins of the lips.
The images below show the natural profile of the lips in a baby, a young girl and a woman. You can see that upper lip protrudes in front of the lower lip when we’re very young. In the woman’s profile, the degree of protrusion has almost disappeared however the contour above the upper lip is still curved (marked in the lower row of images).
Natural contours of lips at different ages: Upper lip protrudes more than lower and the skin between nose and lip curves outward at the lip.
Our model, Bev, is a beautiful example of how the Hart Lip technique restores this curve, without risk of filler leaking outside of the lips.
The profile of Bev’s lips before Hart Lip technique is flattened
Bev’s profile after Hart Lip technique shows the curve from nose to lip is restored. The upper lip protrudes compared to lower lip
Here are some other views of Bev’s lips:
Before & After
BEFORE
Blue line highlights a bulge under lower lip, called a White Line
After Hart Lip technique, upper lip is bigger and White Line is reduced
The images above show that the lips have a sharper edge. Bev’s lips weren’t very wrinkly compared to some women her age but they’re definitely smoother after the Hart Lip technique. The sharp margin means that lipstick won’t bleed outside her lip margins. Bev herself states that she now loves wearing lipstick and lip gloss.
BEFORE
AFTER
Before the filler procedure, Bev’s upper lip appears to almost roll inwards towards the teeth when she smiles.
After the procedure, the upper lip remains everted from the teeth.
Bev’s smile in the Before image was broader. She was very excited to undergo the Hart Lip procedure.
We didn’t capture quite as broad of a grin in the After image. The difference in the amount of tooth show is due to the degree of smile, not the filler, as you can see in the frontal images below.
BEFORE
AFTER
Yes, you can have pretty, natural-looking lips after a lip filler procedure. With the Hart Lip technique, you can increase the height of your lips, get sharp margins, stop lipstick from bleeding and smooth out wrinkles in the lips.
* Intra-arterial injection of filler is a rare but serious complication of filler injection. The filler can cut off the blood supply of the tissue fed by the artery, leading to tissue loss and scarring. This has never occurred in my practice in 17 years and I take precautions every time I inject filler to avoid it happening. In addition, I keep the necessary remedies in my office at all times, in case it were to occur.