We all have things we don't like about ourselves or wish we could make changes too. One of those things for me? My thin lips, look I know I don't have nothing there, but they drop at the sides quickly and definitely lack oomph. I love the shape, I have in my opinion, a great cupids bow, but I wish they packed a little more punch. Back in the day when I used to model, makeup artists were forever over drawing my lips to make them fuller and I much preferred them when they did that. Which lead me into my first experience with fillers. It was 10 years ago, so I can't even remember where I got them done, but it was a legitimate place. They filled the outer area of my lips and placed a small amount in my bottom lip too and was told I would love the result when the swelling went down. But I HATED IT, they filled my upper lip far too much so it stuck out like a duck and looked so un natural. The bottom lip is meant to be fuller so this just looked ridiculous. Lucky I metabolise fillers reasonably fast (this is a natural process your body does) and they eventually subsided to their normal lack lustre size. Safe to say my Donald Duck experience scared me from ever trying filler again.
As some of you would know from my Instagram and Snapchat, I have gone and given fillers a second shot. What changed my mind you wonder? It came about through talking to Caci Clinic about another procedure, Botox in my Masseter (jaw line) muscle. I'm a big jaw clencher and teeth grinder and I hate it. It gives me headaches and is not great for my teeth, so when I found out that Botox was being used to weaken those muscles I knew I had to check it out.
It was when I went and saw Karen a cosmetic nurse specialist at High St Caci Clinic that I got talking about my lips and how I had always disliked their fullness but loved their shape. Karen said that she imagined they tried to flip my lips to create the fullness on the outside, she said that often gave the trout pout look. Karen managed my expectations and said iff I added little more fullness to the middle of my lips and a tiny bit on the outside that it would give a natural fullness to my lips but wouldn't change that much how they dropped at the sides, I couldn't achieve that without going BIG. I was really nervous, but I really trusted Karen on this. Caci Clinic have been treating people for years and she said in the last ten years, the industry has come a long way in realising where the best place to put fillers is to achieve the desired shape or fullness. Their really is a knack to knowing where to place it with how it will alter the shape. So I bite the bullet and booked in to have some filler placed in my lips at the same time as my Botox treatment.
Now I wanted this to look as natural as having your lips filled can be. I didn't want massive lips, as that's just too drastic for my liking and I have to say I'm thrilled with the results. They are fuller in the middle, but I don't think I look like your typical women who wants filler for a huge change aka Kylie Jenner lips. Not to say there is anything wrong with that, it's just not my vibe.
Was it painful? It's not painless but totally manageable, you get numbed and ice is applied throughout to numb the injection sites further and to help with swelling. The injections took about 10 minutes and with deep breaths it was fine. Karen is a pro and she did warn me that she thought one side may bruise, they can't see where the blood vessels are but they can tell if they hit one. She was right, I did have a massive black bruise on one side of my face for about 5 days which I had to do a lot of covering up on. It looked like I had been socked in the mouth. But other than that I had the very normal post procedure results which is swelling. I was told most people love their swollen lips from day 2 and always come back asking for a little more. I see what she means, the plumpness swelling gives you is awesome, but you can never quite replicate that natural swell with filler so you just need to move on from that idea. I think it took about 10 days for it to really settle down and show the true results and In my opinion I think it's such a nice change, the perfect "little bit extra". I like that my bottom lip is a little bigger than the top now, as before they were pretty similar in size.
The Botox in my jaw has really helped ease my clenching, I don't get as many headaches and my teeth aren't as sore from clenching down on them. Plus this didn't hurt to have in the slightest, I barely felt it at all! As an added bonus after a few months you can notice your face start to slim where the muscle weakens. I can slightly notice that has started to happen but photos aren't really doing it justice. It's just one of those things where you know your face so well that you can see it before anyone else can ( you can slightly see it in the above before and after picture of my lips, the outer part of my jawline looks slimmer). I will update on that in a few more months if you can really see the difference. But if you have the same issue as me, then I really recommend going to talk to Caci Clinic about it, as it has dramatically improved that issue for me.
