Watch-out Sephora!
The newest lip-filler techniques are able to mimic the best tools in your makeup bag: They can make lips look plumper, more defined, and even permanently glossy, all without the addition of any cosmetics. (Unless you want to apply makeup to your enhanced pout, which you can obviously do as well.)
Below, discover all the ways in which injectables are currently being used to replicate the effects of lip liner, lip gloss, highlighter, and contour.
INSTEAD OF LIP LINER
“As we age, the line (technically called the Vermillion Border) around our lips becomes less crisp,” says Sarah Sidiqi, a cosmetic-injector in Phildelphia. “A little filler helps keep the lip-border defined.” Sidiqi uses tiny dosages (aka microdroplets) of hyaluronic acid around the lips’ border to make them look more defined, similar to the effect you get with a lip pencil. It only takes a small amount of product, “and your lipstick won’t bleed for the next 6-months,” she says.
INSTEAD OF LIP GLOSS
“Babies and kids have plump, moist lips because they produce a lot of hyaluronic acid naturally,” says Nicole Ciasullo, clinical injector in Philadelphia, PA. Over time however, that production slows and lips get thinner and drier. Once this starts occurring, small amounts of hyaluronic acid dermal-iller injected superficially — just below the lips’ surface — helps bind water to the mucous membranes and restore that youthful lip plumpness and smoothness. The result isn’t going to be like perma-lipgloss, but you will notice a healthy sheen.
INSTEAD OF LIP HIGHLIGHTER
The Cupid’s Bow and Philtral comns (philtral columns are those two ‘legs’ that run from the tip of the lips toward the nostrils) tends to flatten with age. But the right filler in the right spots can restore the shape. “I put a small amount of a more viscous hyaluronic acid filler, like Restylane L, at the peaks of the Cupid’s bow and along the philtral columns” says Lauren Zallie, cosmetic nurse-injector about About Face Skin Care also located in Philadelphia, PA. (Just think about where you might apply highlighter.) Defining the Cupid’s bow can also make filled lips look more natural. “If you only fill the lips without enhancing the Cupid’s bow, you could end up with an upper lip that goes unnaturally straight across and sticks out, like a duck,” says Zallie.
INSTEAD OF LIP CONTOURING MAKEUP
“To make lips look pillowy, you want more filler in the center of the lips than on the sides,” says Sidiqi. It creates the same kind of effect as dabbing lipgloss onto the bottom of the lower lip. “I often put a little filler in the chin as well to bring the lower-lip forward without having to overfill the lips,” she says.
