The lips are the central point of the face. Often with age lips lose their youthful volume and become deflated. This can cause us to look old and less vibrant. This is one of the reasons people consider using soft tissue fillers to augment their lips.

One big concern lip augmentation is the irregular results that we see both in Hollywood and on the streets in our towns. There are natural ratios that belong in the face and if these ratios are respected then the results are beautiful. But when these ratios are not respected, the results can look awkward. These natural ratios harken back to the Renaissance and are known as the golden ratios.

In natural lip augmentation, there are a couple of points to make.

The first point is to allow either the upper or lower part of the lip to be slightly larger than the other. It’s not great to have the lips augmented perfectly the same because this isn’t seen in nature and can give a female entertainer or stripper look to the lips. The other point is that lips don’t exist in a vacuum. By this, I mean that the areas around the lips need to be restored back to natural volume as well so that the face is balanced. Otherwise, when one sees young lips on an older face, it can be strange for our brain to process.

It’s best to restore volume to the whole face so that the lips are in balance with the rest of the face. This tends to be necessary more in older individuals than in younger individuals. Younger individuals can have isolated lip augmentation with appropriate ratios while older individuals usually do best when the areas around lips have their natural volume restored as well.