The lip lift is the procedure that Dr. Rezzadeh says “no” to most often. “Because I’ve seen the disasters,” he says—not just prominent scars, but overshortened lips, distorted nostrils, and mouths that look odd in motion. Like Dr. Nayak, he is predicting a fallout in the future: “Just walking around Beverly Hills, you can tell a lot of people under 40 have had lip lifts, and frankly, I think we’re going to be dealing with the ramifications of that in the coming years.”
Interestingly, Sean Alemi, MD, a double-board certified facial plastic surgeon in New York City, says that what he encounters far more frequently than “lip lifts gone sideways” are patients who’ve been scared away from the procedure by “fear-mongering” doctors, who insist that lip lifts unequivocally cause bad scars or a strange appearance. Conversely, on the West Coast, “there’s an astoundingly low level of fear associated with lip lifts,” according to Dr. Rezzadeh. Another paradox: While some surgeons say the fad-ification of the lip lift has led to an uptick in people requesting the procedure out of hand, without understanding its intent, others find that many patients resist the lip lift—even when it could actually benefit them—because they’ve seen such extreme examples of it online or out in the world.
So what’s the truth about lip lifts? It’s complicated. Here are nine things surgeons want you to know about the powerful procedure.
1. A lip lift does more than just shorten the upper lip. When planned and executed precisely, on the right patient, it can have a rejuvenative and beautifying effect.
Yes, the lip lift is a means of lessening the distance between the nose and the mouth—but to what end? Beyond simply perking up the top lip, the procedure can “restore the right balance to the lower face,” which, in women, tends to square off and look slightly more masculine with age, says Dr. Alemi. “By shortening the [nose-to-lip] distance sometimes just a few millimeters, the lip lift brings a soft femininity back to the mouth.” (When men request a lip lift—which my sources say is happening more frequently—“I specifically tell them that it’s a feminizing procedure,” notes Gary Linkov, MD, a double board-certified facial plastic surgeon in New York City.) In most patients, Dr. Alemi is removing only one-and-a-half to four millimeters of skin. But that tiny adjustment can pay off big, he says, “making the whole face look prettier.”
The lip lift isn’t without limitations, however. For starters, “it’s really only lifting the central region of the upper lip,” says Dr. Linkov. Patients often fail to grasp this point, he says: “They think the lift is going to affect the entire lip, including the corners, and it just doesn’t happen that way.” (Look in the mirror and picture two lines extending down from the outer rims of your nostrils to your top lip. The portion in between those imaginary lines is what gets lifted.)
Surgeons can address the corners of the mouth by performing a separate procedure called a corner lip lift. Depending on the technique used, a corner lift can unfurl the outer edges of the top lip (to expose more red) or pick up the downturned corners of a mouth. Dr. Rezzadeh finds that, in select patients, tweaking the corners during a lip lift can lead to a more natural result: This way, “you’re addressing the full lip, so it doesn’t look like the central part has been brought up, but the corners are untouched and still looking aged,” he says. (In some cases, doing a basic lip lift without addressing the corners can create an overly arched look, where the line of the upper lip sort of resembles a bell curve.) Since the corner lip lift requires making incisions on the vermillion border—where there’s really no place to hide scars—surgeons tend to offer it less frequently. In Dr. Linkov’s office, “the percentage of people who end up truly benefiting [from a corner lip lift] is maybe 5% to less than 10%,” he says. In such cases, he prefers to wait and see how the upper lip lift settles and scars before addressing the corners. Other surgeons may opt to do the two procedures together.
2. The lip lift can be bundled with other procedures or done on its own.
Surgeons commonly perform lip lifts during facelifts to enhance overall harmony—about half of Dr. Alemi’s facelift patients choose to include a lip lift—but the procedure can also be done as a standalone under local anesthesia (meaning you’re numb but awake). This can be a good option for people who’ve already had a facelift, but for whatever reason, chose not to treat the lip at the same time. The solo lip lift might also appeal to those who aren’t ready for a bigger intervention. “I definitely see patients who are a little bit on the younger side, usually in their 40s, and they’re just starting to dip their toe into the aesthetic pond,” Dr. Alemi says. “A lot of them are choosing lip lifts as an entry point.”
