30 May Why You Don’t Want Russian Lips
With the increased popularity of injectables, such as hyaluronic acid dermal fillers, we’ve started to see trends in finished results and techniques. Whilst it’s great to experiment and have fun with tweakments, it’s really important to remember that these should be considered as a medical treatment, and need to be carried out by experienced medical practitioners.
The current internet-fuelled trend of “Russian Lips’ is something that really highlights the dangers of treating patients with a (literally) one-size-fits-all mentality. For those of you who aren’t familiar with this injecting method, it involves multiple vertical injections into the lips to create extreme height and volume. The effect immediately after injecting is oversized, Bratz-doll style lips, with a lot of volume and height concentrated in the middle of the mouth.
Now, the issue is not with the appearance of Russian Doll lips. Everyone has their own aesthetic preferences.
By injecting the vermillion border in this way, the structural integrity soon fails with filler migrating over the lip’s natural border and creating that tell-tale sign of poorly injected filler.
In addition, by injecting vertically, the wet dry border (the part inside your lips where the surface changes from outer skin to inner skin) is more prone to forming bubbly lumps, which can be uncomfortable and visible.
The most dangerous aspect of this technique is the greatly increased risk of vascular occlusion, due to the anatomy of the lip and the angle of the needles. A vascular occlusion is when blood is no longer able to pass through a blood vessel because it is blocked with filler. An experienced medical injector will know how to treat this, but it is a process to be avoided!
To get the volume that is so striking with Russian Lips, a much thicker HA filler is typically required. This will be make any lumps and bumps much more obvious, and make lip movement harder and less natural.
When we see pictures of Russian Lips, it’s usually straight after injecting- when they are at their best. This is before swelling and bruising has begun. By creating so many injection points, up and down the lips, they experience a great deal of trauma. More vessels may be impacted, and there are more sites for possible infection. There is also a risk of forming scar tissue.
So, what do we recommend instead? We call it 4D Lips. Designed to create the lips to suit you, over 2 sessions in clinic. It’s a signature treatment at Renew, developed by Clinical Director, Kelly Saynor that is completely tailored to your anatomy and needs. We assess the four key anatomical areas of the mouth to offer a much more comfortable lip augmentation.
Forget about Russian Lips and discover 4D Lips!
