Lip Lines - Short-Term Fixes
“But I never smoked!”
I know, it's unfair. The cruel truth is lip lines, or smoker's lines, may form regardless of your lifestyle; you don’t elude them through clean living.
There is a perfect storm at work around the lips involving movement and physiology. First the continual movement from pursing, talking, eating, etc, slowly chips away at the collagen, forming dynamic wrinkles. The area around the mouth doesn’t have as many active oil glands as other areas of your face, so it will tend to be drier, and drier skin is compromised skin – meaning it’s less able to respond to insult than hydrated skin. Add to that respiration which compounds the dryness problem.
Of course, if you then choose to smoke - the effects of cigarette smoke on skin is so egregious it deserves its own article – that’s a whole new storm front you’re inviting to the fray.
So, enough explaining, if you have lip lines – what can you do? Unfortunately, there’s no easy answer yet. As mentioned in Injectables – The Needling Questions, some doctors will use a combination of fillers and Botox to fill the wrinkle, and relax the muscles that form them. Usually patients are not overly excited about the results, because while the depth is reduced they can still see the lines.
Unless the lines are very deep, a finer filler, such as Cosmoderm (human collagen), needs to be used since the injection is superficial. If a denser filler, like Restylane, is injected superficially it may leave a noticeable ridge. Even with a finer filler, it’s a tricky procedure. Although the bottom of the wrinkle is the target, sometimes fillers but go into the tissues surrounding it, making the whole area rise up. The wrinkle isn’t filled so much as boosted. Some doctors decline to use fillers at all in the area above the lip, believing it ends up looking unnaturally protruded.
It can be done. What it takes is a fine filler, and a long appointment time involving a series of injections into the wrinkle, injecting a small amount at a time. Multiply that by the number of wrinkles along the lipline and you’ll understand why very few practitioners do this - the time it takes often negates any profit. Also, keep in mind collagen-based fillers such as Cosmoderm have a shorter life expectancy – you’ll be back for a top up inside of four months.
Some patients have confessed they are so chatty their fillers don’t even last three months. Although this is strictly anecdotal, it makes sense - again, it’s that constant movement – the same reason your own collagen has diminished – that is now working to metabolize the injected filler. This is a good argument for getting Botox injections along the lips as it may extend the lifespan of the filler. Of course, it depends on the cost of the filler versus the cost of Botox as to whether there’s an economic advantage in this, but you may also want to factor in the pain difference (Botox hurts less, for more on what pain to expect from lip fillers see this article).
There are other options, but they require downtime. The upside of the downtime options, is -- if successful -- the results could last for years, not months. For more on these options, and what you can do to stop lip lines from forming (or re-forming), come back to check out our next two articles.
