Surgical · lips
Lip lift
Shortening the skin between the nose and the lip, so more of the red lip shows. The answer to a problem that filler is routinely used for and routinely makes worse.
Not medical advice. This page explains what a procedure is and what is known about it. It is not a recommendation, and it says nothing about whether you are a candidate for anything. Only a licensed provider who has examined you can tell you that.
What it maps to in LooksRatio
- Upper lip lengththe distance from the nose base to the lip, on the side profile
- Upper-to-lower lip ratiohow much of the red lip is upper against lower
What it is
The subnasal or bullhorn lip lift removes a strip of skin from directly under the nose, shaped to follow the nostril sills and the columella, and closes it so the upper lip is pulled up. Variants place the incision differently: a direct lip lift sits at the lip border and is rarely used cosmetically because the scar is exposed; a corner lift raises the mouth corners only.
Typical removal is in the region of five to eight millimetres, which is a small number for a change that alters the whole middle of the face.
How it works
There are two different reasons an upper lip can look thin. It can have little red lip, or it can have too much skin above the red lip, pushing the border down and hiding it. Those look similar in a mirror and are opposite problems. Filler adds volume, which is right for the first and wrong for the second: a long philtrum injected with filler gets a heavier lip that still shows the same proportion of red, and the classic overfilled upper lip is often exactly this mistake repeated.
A lift shortens the skin instead. Vermilion show increases without any volume being added, the mouth corners lift slightly, and more upper teeth show at rest, which is usually wanted and occasionally not.
Recovery
Sutures out at about five to seven days. Swelling for one to two weeks, and a scar under the nose that is red for a couple of months before it fades. Most people are presentable at two weeks and the final scar is judged at a year.
Risks and what actually goes wrong
A visible scar under the nose is the specific risk and the one to weigh honestly: it usually settles into the nostril shadow, and when it does not it is on the front of the face. Also: widening the nostril base, distorting the nostril sills, asymmetry, and over-correction, which shows too much tooth and too much gum and is difficult to reverse.
Candidacy is where this operation is mostly won or lost. Someone who already shows plenty of tooth at rest, or who has a short philtrum to begin with, is the wrong patient for it whatever their lip proportion looks like.
Lower-commitment alternatives
Filler, where the problem really is volume. Read the lip filler page next to this one: the two procedures answer different questions and the improvement plan names which measurement is driving yours.
What LooksRatio assumes
The projection moves upper lip length 60% of the way to its reference range, capped well below the ceilings on the bone procedures for a specific reason: there is a hard limit on how much skin can come out before the scar stops hiding under the nose, and the operation is planned around that limit rather than around the target. It assumes a successful result from a licensed surgeon and models nothing about your tooth show, your philtrum length or your candidacy. It is a ceiling, not a forecast.