FILL THOSE LIPS UP

TROUT POUT! I don't blame you if that's the first thing that comes to your mind, seeing how horrendously exaggerated they turned out on Meg Ryan and other Hollywood celebrities. But it's also true that as we age, our nose and ears grow bigger and our lips get thinner. Our waists thicken, lines appear on our bull necks . . . just tell me when to stop.

I have to confess I did it once (or maybe twice), just to see how it feels and look like. This was what happened. My regular doctor in Bangkok had some Juvedum filler left over from filling up my indented scars caused by chicken pox in my childhood (you can also smoothen your acne scars this way) and asked me if there was any other minefield I wish to fill up. So we added a very little bit to my upper lip. 

My suggestion to you is to have numbing cream on for at least an hour as the lips have a lower threshold of pain. Anyway I was pretty happy with the results as it wasn't too obvious.

This is me in Bali two weeks after the lip plumping. Do you see the little gap in my mouth at the centre? That was caused by the filler lifting up my upper lips. I also had a tiny bit injected on the end sides of both upper and lower lips as well. 

Apparently, fillers disappear faster when applied to lips than on your face as there is constant movement when you chew, or hopefully, lock lips with another. Since I had only a little injected, they disappeared two months down the road. 

Again, if you don't have lips the size of our Merlion, you would not require 1CC of filler (around 12,000 to 15,000 Baht) and you can use the rest for other parts of your face. For instance, on those very obvious naso-labial lines running from the side of your nose down to the end of your lips when you are not even smiling. 

Note on chicken pox and acne scars - you can improve on them visibly by having subcision, a method whereby a very thin needle is inserted into the scar and some twiddling (at least it feels like twiddling to me) is done to break up the scar tissue beneath. One Thai doctor who spoke to me said his preferred method is to use the needle of a Restylane (another brand of filler) syringe to release the hard, fibrous scar tissue below the depression and then inject the Restylane to fill up the indentation. 

Post note - This was another attempt at lip fillers. I basically increase my top lip by 100 per cent!