“You see it on TV and all over the media and we really want to prevent it… it just doesn’t look good.”
Cliff Clark, MD
Dr. Cliff Clark, a board certified plastic surgeon from Orlando, Florida is talking about a condition known on the street as filler face. Filler face is what can happen when someone goes too far with injectable fillers in the face or in the lips. “Either too much has been injected or maybe too much in the wrong place,” explains Clark. “Sometimes it’s no longer time for filler and the patient needs to progress to a surgical or laser procedure.”
By Clifford P. Clark, MD
and Carolynn Grimes
ThePlasticSurgeryChannel.com
It’s All About Proportion in the Lips
If your practitioner doesn’t have a good sense of proportion and facial aesthetics, you can very easily become filler face with the lips. “The upper lip should be 1/3—the lower lip should be 2/3, and if that proportion is off you can see it very quickly. Our mind is such a complex computer and it’s very sensitive to things being out of proportion,“ says Clark.
If a little is good, a lot is not necessarily better…
Remember that line, “If a little is good, a lot is not necessarily better!” The parenthesis lines, medically known as the nasolabial folds, are another commonly over-filled location. Clark says, “Unfortunately, when the tissue descends, if you try to fill that area, the center of your face can look too full or too fat and you look out of balance.”
How do we avoid the over-filled look?
- First and foremost, choose the appropriate practitioner, someone who has training with injectables.
- A board certified plastic surgeon or dermatologist is a good choice because they have a good sense of facial aesthetics and facial anatomy.
- If you feel you want or need more, Dr. Clark recommends going slow by doing more in stages through the course of several different sessions.
Safety first
Clark notes, “With every good thing we tend to dive in with both feet. It’s been one of the true great advancements in cosmetic enhancement; adding volume to the face has really allowed us to get a more natural result. However, people have taken it to extremes. We need to be very careful, but more important than that, we need to be safe.”