Upper Lip Lift
Enhance your most sensuous facial feature
Surgical Lip Lift Surgery
The lips are a powerful feature, and many women long for theirs to be fuller, perkier, and more luscious. Injectable fillers are popular, but they are short-lived and require constant reinjection. A surgical lip lift is a permanent solution to achieve youthful, feminine lips.
What Is an Upper Lip Lift?
An upper lip lift, also called “lip shortening,” is done to reduce the length of the space between the base of the nose and the upper lip. Younger, more feminine faces have shorter upper lips, perkier mouths, and more curved lips. An upper lip lift typically complements a feminizing rhinoplasty/ septoplasty as part of facial feminization surgery.
Benefits of a Lip Lift
If you were born with what you feel is an excessive amount of upper lip space, a lip lift will shorten that space and improve your appearance. If you are feeling the effects of age and want a more youthful face, a lip lift will help restore a youthful appearance. If you are seeking to feminize your face, a surgical lip lift will give you fuller, higher lips and a shorter upper lip area for a more feminine appearance.
Will It Make You Look Younger?
An upper lip lift can take years off of your face. As we age, the face sags and the lips generally flatten and become thinner. A lip lift creates a more youthful appearance by correcting this and making the lips fuller and more “pouty.”
Feminize the Lips
The lips of genetic males tend to be flatter and thinner, with a greater length between the base of the nose and the top of the lips. Female lips are generally fuller, higher, and closer to the base of the nose. Reducing the amount of upper lip length through a lip lift pulls up the top of the mouth, which showcases the red of the lip and makes the mouth look perkier. It also balances the nose to lip ratio to one appropriate for a female.
How Long Does It Last?
Unlike lip fillers, a lip lift is permanent. If you have this procedure done in your youth to feminize your face, gravity may pull the skin down again as you age, just as it does with naturally feminine lips. If this happens, the length of your upper lip will still be shorter than before and can be corrected with a revision procedure.
Ideal Candidates
Anyone who feels that their lips are too flat and thin, or that the distance between the base of their nose and the top of their lips is too long, may be a good candidate for a surgical lip lift. You must have minimal teeth showing when your mouth is at rest to be considered for this procedure.
What Kind of Lip Lift Does Dr. Zukowski Perform?
Dr. Zukowski performs vertical lip lifts. This is done with a “gull wing” incision at the base or your nose. In the past, cosmetic surgeons made an incision at the border of the top lip – the top edge of the red, but this would cause a poorly defined lip line. With a vertical lip lift, no incision is made near your lips – the lip lift is performed by removing skin from the base of the nose, using an incision in a natural crease.
How Is It Performed?
A vertical lip lift is a simple procedure. Dr. Zukowski will make an incision at the base of your nose. He will remove a portion of excess skin and close the incision to shorten the length of your upper lip. He will also use fat graft during the procedure to further plump the red of the lip and “roll” it out to give it a nice, female pout.
Lip Lift Recovery
Lip lifts have a quick recovery time. Immediately after the procedure, you will experience some swelling and tightness in your lips. Most people can return to normal activities within a few days, and total healing generally occurs within a few months. The incision that Dr. Zukowski makes is well hidden and will fade completely within a year. It will be pink for a few months, but this can be hidden with makeup.
Whatever your reasons for seeking a lip lift, Dr. Zukowski can craft lips that help you look younger, more feminine, and irresistibly kissable.
If you have any concerns or questions about lip lift surgery near you in Chicago, please don’t hesitate to contact us.
Visit the patient gallery to see before and after transformations.