I take a keen interest in beauty trends, including the more invasive types of treatments out there like injectables. For about ten years, lip fillers have been trending big time. But that plumped up look–first popularized by Kylie Jenner–may be on its way out. Celebs like Blac Chyna and Amy Schumer have recently had filler removed, and they’re not the only ones. Yahoo Life interviewed plastic surgeons, nurse injectors, and influencers who talked about how complications from fillers and changing trends are leading people to dissolve their filler.
The long shadow of the Jenndashians: Kylie Jenner has set plenty of trends in her time. From blue hair and chokers to matte lipstick and face-snatching contour, Jenner’s “King Kylie” era changed the way many young people approached style and beauty throughout the mid-2010s.
But the height of her influence, one could argue, came by way of her filled lips and accompanying pout products. “Kylie with all her Kylie Lip Kits and the filler, that was the look back then. It was crazy,” Jade Mitchell-Clyde, a 24-year-old Los Angeles-based content creator, reflects on for Yahoo Life. But recently, Mitchell-Clyde and a horde of other former filler fans have been having their injectables — lip and otherwise — removed.Overfilling leaves the filler with nowhere to go: Ginille Brown, a cosmetic nurse practitioner based in Los Angeles, says overfilling could also contribute to the rise in migration discourse online. “When you’re just trying to force product into a space, and doing it way too quickly, and the lip hasn’t had time to expand, the [filler] goes above the border of the lip,” says Brown. “I have patients who have paper-thin lips, and they want really full lips, and I have to tell them that even if I were to put six syringes of filler in you, your anatomy is not going to allow it.”
This trend is big on TikTok: The #lipfillerdissolved, and #lipfillerremoval hashtags alone have nearly 28 million and 10 million views, respectively, and there was a 57% increase in filler reversals from 2020 to 2021, according to a 2022 trend report by the Aesthetic Society.
Kylie Jenner was deeply influential in the lip filler craze of the early 2010s. I remember being in college and seeing Kylie with suddenly massive lips. It changed how I did my makeup, right down to the lip colors I chose. People don’t want to give the Jenndashian clan credit, but they do know how to start trends. Funnily enough though, I’ve never bought anything from Kylie’s makeup line.
While the TikTok interest in filler removal is big, I’m not sure it foretells an equally large shift in the number of people getting fillers in the first place. I think people will just start using fillers in more subtle ways and getting smaller amounts. Even one of the influencers in the Yahoo article admits that after getting her lip filler dissolved, she went back for more, just a much smaller quantity.
I got half a syringe of lip filler for the first time last year. My face is very asymmetrical and I just wanted my lips to look more even and balanced. The results are subtle, and I still look like myself, just enhanced by a couple of millimeters. A good injector, like the one I had, will not pressure you into getting more than you need. She actually stopped injecting before we had used the full vial because, as she put it, “you have room, but not that much.”
I love my lip injections and I’ll keep getting half a syringe once a year. I also believe that we shouldn’t shame people for getting injectables of any kind, even if we may disagree with their choices. But it sure is a weird time in beauty. Between fillers going out of style and the buccal fat removal craze from earlier this year, it seems like the trends are shifting back to an aesthetic of thinness, even in our faces. At least that’s the undercurrent I’m picking up on.
photos via Instagram and credit: Avalon.red
Thank goodness. This duck lips trend was becoming ridiculous. My stepmom got some lip injections and it was perfect, just a slight amount that took care of the wrinkles at her lip lines. It was so subtle you didn’t realize it unless you were really studying her face and really familiar with it in the first place.
My sister is a stunning woman. Literally the kind of person who you would turn on the street to look at again. All natural, but like all of us, has her hang-ups about things she wishes were different. Her lips are a perfect little bow shape, but she has always wished they were fuller, so lipstick would show up more, etc. So, a couple of years ago, one time she got a small amount of filler injected in her lower lip. I think she generally liked the way it looked, and I was supportive of her doing what she needed to feel confident in her very public professional role, but it was honestly so distracting that her lip did not move naturally when she talked. She never did it again, and once she herself had chosen that it was not for her, we had a more in-depth conversation, and I really tried to reassure her, lady, you’re beautiful because of all the things that are just the way they are on you, not *in spite* of the way they are.
Love yourselves, ladies. You’re more pleasant to look at than you realize.
beautiful. sometimes we need those journeys to realize that.
I’m an old girl and I’ve never gone for super full lips, but a tiny amount around the edges is divine. Just keeps those little lines away…..just a tiny bit.
This! A tiny bit around the top lip makes a difference for me! Still panful as hell!
Absolutely! I had a small amount done and it was beautifully done and if you looked at me you couldn’t immediately see it.
Yes it is! I’m 61 and just got mine done. Just a bit. Hurt like the dickens and a bit ducky during the swollen time. But I love it. Just enough.
I’m planning on doing that very soon here too. I’ve never gotten anything done but I have thin lips like my dad and aunts and I see what my future holds in my aunts especially. I’ve always been insecure about them but I’ve seen my cousins with thin lips go way over board and look ridiculous to the point where I can’t even hear what they are saying when we are talking because I’m so distracted by their insane duck lips. I just want to get a lip flip or something to give me back a little more of the surface I once had which isn’t much in the first place but also I see the start of tiny wrinkles on my top lip. I have never wanted giant lips though because then it just wouldn’t be me AND everyone would be able to tell.
You can always get more…..but don’t. You just want to avoid that collapsing lip line without blowing anything up.
I don’t blame or shame anyone, but it saddens me to see perfectly good looking girls altering their faces because of impossible standards.
I just don’t understand why people strive to look like everyone else. At some point in the last 15 years, women decided they should all be duck-lipped and hollow-cheeked, with pancake makeup and centipede lashes. Is it empowering to be indistinguishable from 100,000 other women—and to pay lots of money for the privilege? It sure seems like the cosmetic and plastic surgery industry is the only entity that actually benefits from this toxicity.
THIS.
It’s all about body commodification and fueling the billion dollar beauty industry (aimed primarily at women).
The industry can’t make money if we are all satisfied with ourselves, remember that folks.
They will always keep creating new trends and trying to make you dissatisfied with something so that you go out and spend some more money on an unnecessary product/procedure.
I’d rather have my natural self vs. medical procedures to follow fashion.
I wonder what the next big fashion style will be?
We had the hippie look, then the natural look, the Supermodels, the heroin chic super skinny look, then KK hit and it went to big lips, big butts.
The problem, and yes I am calling it a problem, is that many people are following TRENDS. Your face and body are timeless and classic. They never go out of style. The things I have wanted to change, I’ve been wanting since I was a teen, because it was something I didn’t like about me, regardless of the “beauty standards” (which let’s be honest here are for white women). Hell if I’m gonna get a bigger a$$ or suck fat out of it because that’s the in thing. That’s ridiculous. I’m one of those don’t eff with the face people when it comes to major changes. Lips four times the original size is a major change imo and totally unsurprising that filler would migrate. If the changes that are being made make your perfectly fine pre procedure self unrecognizable, I think that’s a problem.
YES!! I love this. I have figured out what silhouettes of clothing work for me, what makeup and hairstyles look good on me, and generally how I feel best in presenting myself, and I just…keep doing that.
I learned in the 90’s that brow trends can stay over there, I’m not overplucking (once was enough and thank goodness they grew back!) or microblading/”filling in” Angry Baby brows. I’m not wearing extensions on my lashes. I’m not overlining my lips, taking out my natural fat, or any of it. I’m not wearing things that don’t look good on/to me because they’re “stylish.”
It makes no sense to me to try to follow “trends” that can’t be obtained via superficial means (and even most of those are not for me!)
I have half a vial once a year and I love it. I used to have my lips done for fun, as in half a vial once every 3-5 yrs. It seemed to me like changing my haircut, something I do when I get bored. Now I do it because my lips are starting to age-shrink. What I find hideous is overdone anything. If you go on a MUA’s insta, at least in my city, every girl has duck lips. Natural beauty is never boring, but these girls have the same lips, want the same makeup and dress the same. They’re like sheep.
”People don’t want to give the Jenndashian clan credit but they do know how to start trends.”
What does this mean? Literally everyone acknowledges the massive influence the Kardashians have had on women’s bodies, faces and beauty standards, and none of it is good.
Everyone’s natural lip volume is different and can only hold so much product. Similar to filling a glass with water; too much and water spills over the rim. Same idea with lip filler.
Depending on the brand, filler products can range from soft and pliable to very firm. In order to achieve a full-lip look, a firmer product is often used in place of a softer one, Firm filler is made for areas of the face that can handle more volume (jawline, cheeks etc.). When the upper/lower vermillion boarders of the lip are stretch beyond their capacity, this is what causes filler to migrate.
If the right filler product is used in the lips, migration generally is a non-issue.
Kylie made her fortune on inflated lips. She won’t be giving up hers anytime soon.
I’ve seen a trend towards surgically shortening lips which became overfilled, then “flappy.”
Sumodo1, Yikes!
I don’t understand how an ethical esthetician (?) could do this. My friend gets lip filler and her injector will turn her away from the appointment if she thinks it hasn’t dissolved enough, she pretty much only goes once a year.
I haven’t toyed with filler because of my sketchy immune system I’m too scared of a reaction but I’d love a tiny bit in my chin which is receding like my mom’s with age! I do try and comfort myself that naturally shaped lips will be due to be the beauty ideal again soon.