00:00I'm a little anxious about the numbing and the needles but I know that they kind of come
00:05hand in hand so I think I'll be able to get through it.
00:11I'm Lizzie and I'm getting lip filler today.
00:13So I've always been not overly self-conscious but I've been like aware that my lips are
00:18pretty thin.
00:19I'm a wellness editor, I think that getting lip filler intersects with what I do in terms
00:24of self-confidence.
00:25I think that when you feel your best, your mental health is also at your best.
00:29I think they're kind of interchangeable.
00:31I like the way I look, I like my hair, I like my face but I just think that getting
00:35lip
00:36filler will make me feel even better about that and it's something I've always wanted.
00:41Lip filler was actually what scared me the most because I had done everything else but that
00:45was the last thing I left to do to myself but I loved it, that's when I really got into
00:49doing it for others.
00:51Hi, I'm Dr. Palip, founder and medical director here at Spring Street Dermatology.
00:55A lip filler, I don't think people really got comfortable with it except for the last
01:00five years.
01:01A lot of young people are coming in.
01:03I think the biggest fear people had is that you're going to look crazy, like you're going
01:08to look like a duck-filled platypus or you're going to have big, big lips and now people
01:12are realizing it doesn't have to be that way.
01:14We can work with your natural curves and just augment and give subtle volume and plumpness
01:20in our lips at its best.
01:21So Elizabeth, we wanted to go over what we want to achieve today, what kind of look we're
01:26going for.
01:27As I know, it's your first time doing filler so we're going to go for a natural augmentation
01:32of your natural characteristics already.
01:34You have a great border to the outside of your lip so I'm looking to go into the body
01:38and that's going to give you more volume and pull this up and then bring you a little
01:43more out at the bottom here.
01:45And then when you put lipstick on, it just feels a little bit better.
01:48That sounds great.
01:49Perfect.
01:51First the patient comes in, my medical assistant cleans them off really well, make sure all
01:57makeup is off, lipstick, chapstick, anything that might be on the patient's lips.
02:01So very, very clean.
02:02For numbing, we use a BLT.
02:05What that stands for is benzocaine, lidocaine and tetracaine in order of increasing concentration
02:11to decreasing concentration.
02:13The lips is a mucosal surface so it absorbs the numbing much quicker than your skin does.
02:19So we don't like to have the patient numbing longer than about 15 minutes.
02:28We gently wipe off the numbing cream and I let them know that the filler that I'm using
02:34has lidocaine in it also, so as we're doing the procedure, they're going to get even more
02:39and more numb.
02:40So not to be concerned by that.
02:42Next is time to inject.
02:56In the injection process, there's a couple of different techniques that we can use.
03:01The injection technique all depends on the patient's lips and where we want to fill and how we want
03:07to fill.
03:21After each injection, I massage just to get out any lumps and bumps.
03:25I also pinch in certain places to make sure the filler doesn't carry over to those areas.
03:30The filler that we're doing on Elizabeth today is Volbella.
03:34It is an allergan filler.
03:35I actually have those on my lips also for subtle augmentation and typically you can get
03:41up to a year with that filler.
03:43Even though we're using one syringe, the number of pokes that we do depends on the feedback
03:48from the patient during the procedure, so I constantly have an open dialogue with the patient as we're
03:54doing it.
03:54I have her look in the mirror and confirm that she likes how it's going so far and that kind
03:59of determines what I'm doing along the process.
04:07Lip filler typically takes anywhere between 20 to 25 minutes for the injecting part.
04:14And that's it and hopefully you put your lipstick on and you're ready to go.
04:21Elizabeth, tell me what you think.
04:23Oh my gosh, I love them.
04:26When you smile, you don't lose your upper lip, which is really nice and lipsticks should
04:30be more fun now.
04:31Yeah.
04:31They still look super natural, which is what I wanted.
04:34Yes, exactly.
04:35When I first saw myself, I immediately felt happy.
04:38They looked so natural.
04:40It actually did not hurt at all.
04:42I'm very thankful for the numbing cream.
04:44They didn't look enormous.
04:45They still looked like my lips, just a little bit more enhanced.
04:49Elizabeth looks great.
04:51We were just going for a subtle augmentation and taking baby steps, she can always build
04:56on those lips.
04:56The swelling can take anywhere from two days to two weeks to fully go down.
05:02And everybody's different, but the average is usually three to five days for most people.
05:07Emotionally, I feel pretty great.
05:09I think they look really amazing and I already feel better about myself.
05:14I can't wait to show all my friends and take selfies and just enjoy them.
05:22Thank you for watching Refinery29.
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