Lip Lifts

Q: Dr. Eppley, I have been made aware of the upper subnasal lip lift, and its ability to make the upper lift shorter. I know that this is a commonly performed procedure. However, as far as I understand, it mainly performed on women who desire increased upper lip pout. In my case, I am looking for a decrease in the distance between the base of the nose and the upper vermillion. My aim here, however, is to minimise the amount of visible pout of the upper lip. To that end, Dr. Eppley, are there any techniques forming part of the lip lift that you aware of that can minimise upper lip pout whilst reducing the philtral length as upper lip pout is not attractive male trait? This aim seems to have been achieved with stunning effect in the attached images. In both of these images (one being your own of course), the philtral distance was reduced, with very little change to the overall shape of the upper lip itself (of course some upper lip fullness is visible but it is not very noticeable and doesn’t detract from the overall result in any way).

A: While there are more women than men that get lip lifts, men do get them as well.  It is inevitable that there is some change in the upper lip pout with any subnasal lip lift. The key is what percent of the total vertical lip distance is removed that determines how much the lip pout is changed. As long as the vertical lip distance is not reduced more than 25% the change to the central lip pout is minimal.

Dr. Barry Eppley

Indianapolis, Indiana