Did you know that your lips can lose volume as you age? Over time, you can lose up to 20% of lip length, 40% thickness, and 20% volume. This can alter how well your lips balance with your other facial features and impact your confidence.
Thankfully, our team can help at Lumina Vein & Aesthetics. In this blog, we’ll explain how to prevent and reverse lip thinning, and how we address your concerns using lip filler near Winter Garden, FL.
The Basics of Your Lips
Your lips are made up of skin, connective tissue, and muscle. All of these contain collagen and elastin—two proteins your body naturally makes to keep your skin and muscles smooth and flexible. Starting in our 20s, our bodies naturally decrease the amount of collagen and elastin we produce. Then in our 40s, we continue to lose about 1% of collagen and elastin production each year.
Lip Facts
- Your lips have only 3 to 4 outer layers, which is very little compared to the 15 to 16 layers of protective skin on the rest of your body.
- Your lips have a natural pink color to them because they are so thin, allowing the color of your blood vessels to show through.
- The lips have the most nerve endings compared to every other part of your body (yes, even down there).
- Your lips have no sweat glands, hair follicles, or melanin, making them more sensitive to UV damage.
As such a sensitive, delicate part of your face, the loss of collagen and elastin can have a more significant effect on the appearance of your lips. But with lip filler near Winter Garden, FL, we can undo the work of time, amplify the lips, and provide more complete facial harmony amongst your features.
What Is Filler?
Filler is a hyaluronic acid-based gel-like substance that is injected into specific areas, including your lips, to improve their fullness.
Hyaluronic acid is a natural humectant made by your body to help your skin retain moisture. When injected, it can increase the volume of the area while also providing a healthy, hydrated glow.
At Lumina, we offer filler for more than just lips. We can also treat other areas of your face, neck, and hands to address:
- Sagging skin
- Lost volume
- Fine lines & wrinkles
- Nasolabial folds
- Jowls
- Neck lines
- Crow’s feet
How to Prolong Lip Filler Results
Once you have achieved your ideal lip shape and fullness with lip filler near Winter Garden, it’s important to do everything you can to maintain your results. Here is what you can do after receiving lip filler to prolong your results and maintain your perfectly balanced lips.
Keep Your Lips Hydrated
Keeping your body and your lips hydrated is essential to ensuring you maintain your natural lip shape and volume. Many lip moisturizers help keep your lips hydrated while also protecting them from UV damage. They also are good primers to apply before lipstick or lip tint, so your products apply smoothly and evenly. While there are brand lip moisturizers you can purchase, simple lip moisturizers you may already have around your house include:
- Vaseline
- Cocoa butter
- Coconut oil
- Aloe vera
- Vitamin E
Know What Products to Avoid
Knowing what products to avoid using on your lips is important, too. When it comes to lip moisturizers, we suggest avoiding anything that includes flavoring ingredients. This can promote lip licking, which will dry out your lips faster.
Certain products will dry out your lips directly, like camphor and castor oil. And while occasional use of lipsticks and lip tints is okay, regular use can lead to decreased lip moisture.
We typically encourage you to use the products listed above, and if you do decide to wear lipstick or lip tints, then applying a lip moisturizer as a primer will help prevent dryness.
Avoid Chapped Lips
Chapped lips are a common concern, and anyone can develop them. The most common causes of chapped lips are:
- Dry or cold weather
- Certain medications
- Excessive lip licking
- Dehydration or malnutrition
To avoid chapped lips, we encourage you to occasionally exfoliate your lips using a gentle sugar scrub, then apply a lip moisturizer afterwards. This will help remove dead and dry skin and then protect the fresh, moisturized skin underneath.
How to Treat Thinning Lips
There are many methods for treating thinning and asymmetrical lips. Here are the options our expert injectors offer at Lumina.
Filler
We offer lip filler near Winter Garden, FL, to help restore volume and create more balance within your facial features. We have different types of filler for the lips, including:
Juvederm
Juvederm offers a collection of 6 hyaluronic acid-based fillers that are designed to temporarily add volume to your features. Juvederm fillers use the latest filler technology designed by Allergan Aesthetics called Vycross technology.
This technology cross-links the hyaluronic acid molecules in Juvederm fillers to produce a smoother gel injectable. Thorough testing of the Vycross technology has shown it delivers more natural-looking results that blend effortlessly with your features.
For the lips, we typically use Juvederm Volbella XC, which has delivered a 98% increase in satisfaction with lip shape and volume after just 3 months.
Restylane
As another hyaluronic acid-based lip filler in Winter Garden, FL, Restylane uses unique XpresHAn technology that allows for natural movement and expression. The filler closely mimics your body’s natural production of hyaluronic acid, which helps create more fluid movement when you make natural facial expressions.
Because it allows for natural movement, Restylane is an optimal choice for areas of the face that move a lot, like the lips. The specific formula Restylane uses for lips is Restylane Kysse, which has a 98% satisfaction rate in patients.
Restylane helped 3 in 4 patients improve the softness of their lips on top of improving the shape of their lips. Restylane also showed improvements in the lines around the lips, creating an overall youthful appearance and an improvement in 100% of patients.
Wrinkle Relaxers
On top of providing lip fillers near Winter Garden, FL, we also use wrinkle relaxers to improve the appearance of your lips. Wrinkle relaxers are typically used to address dynamic wrinkles on the face, using small and refined amounts of the botulinum toxin to temporarily relax the movement within your facial muscles and prevent or reduce wrinkles. However, our experts can also use wrinkle relaxers to minimize the appearance of a gummy smile or enhance the appearance of your lips with a lip flip. We offer 2 different types of wrinkle relaxers at Lumina.
Botox
Botox is one of the most well-known wrinkle relaxers in the world, known for treating moderate-to-severe wrinkles in both the face and neck. The FDA has also approved Botox for various medical purposes, including the treatment of migraines, muscle spasms, TMJ pain, and more.
Botox can be used to perform a lip flip—a procedure that increases the appearance of fullness in your lips without actually increasing the volume. Your provider can accomplish this by injecting the Botox into the corners and edges of your mouth. This relaxes the muscles around your upper lip, causing your lip to make a slight “flip” upwards and appear larger than before.
We can also use Botox to address a “gummy smile,” which is when your upper lips lift too much when you smile, revealing your teeth and your gums. Some patients feel self-conscious about this, so our providers can use Botox to relax the muscles in the upper lip. This allows your upper lip to still move upwards with your natural smile, but not so much that it reveals your gums.
Dysport
Another wrinkle relaxer, Dysport can treat the same concerns that Botox can. Capable of treating moderate-to-severe wrinkles, Dysport is a newer formula that provides similar results to those of Botox, with slight differences that may benefit certain patients.
Results of Dysport appear 2 to 3 days after your initial injections. In clinical studies, 95% of patients were satisfied with their results from Dysport, and 97% said that their results looked natural.
Explore Your Options
We offer many options to improve your lip shape, fullness, and volume at Lumina, but we want to help you find the right solution for your unique needs. You can either schedule a consultation with one of our expert providers, or use our complimentary virtual consultation tool if you are not yet ready to commit to an appointment.
Either way, our team is more than happy to help you explore your options and feel more confident in your reflection. Reach out and take the first step towards learning if you should get lip fillers in Winter Garden, FL.
