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Aesthetics
aestheticsjournal.com
NO MORE STIFF UPPER LIPS
Aesthetic nurse prescriber Julie Redmond on the growing popularity of lip enhancement, particularly with younger patients Lips have become one of the most prevalent aesthetic enhancement procedures over recent years, particularly among younger patients, and their popularity has continued to grow throughout 2020, despite the introduction of masks into our daily lives. We have never lived in such an image-conscious world. The pandemic has meant that our first interactions with people are usually over some form of digital media but, even before COVID-19, most of us were on social media sharing pictures of our lives. Pictures have become an important factor in our social interactions and are often how we make an initial judgement about someone, whether it’s picking a potential partner on a dating site or choosing a future employee, as nearly all job applications now require a photo. As a result of all these things, what we look like has never been more apparent to us, and this may have particularly 18
contributed to the rise in the popularity of lip fillers among the young. Another reason lip treatments are favoured by young people is because, more than any other filler treatment, they are about beauty enhancement and not just antiageing. In 2017, I made a documentary on why young people want to get lip fillers. I interviewed 10 young women who had had lip treatments and among the comments I got were, “everyone is doing it”, “it is readily available”, “I have small lips and want bigger ones”. Social media and their peers are the factors that most motivated them to have their lips done. Figures released by the British Association of Aesthetic Plastic Surgeons that year supported this growing interest, with 70% of 18 to 24-year-olds saying they would consider having a cosmetic procedure. Since then demand for lip fillers has increased exponentially and the only
Aesthetics | June 2021
