Minimally invasive lip treatments: from alienisation to normalisation

Abstract

When it comes to judging beauty, we tend to focus first on the eyes and lips. Minimally invasive lip procedures involving hyaluronic acid dermal fillers have become extremely popular, including certain trends involving distortions of normal anatomy. These distortions, referred to as ‘alienisation’, can involve all areas of the face, but with respect to the lips, they result from ‘tenting’ procedures, which create a ‘flattened’ appearance with a ‘ledge’. The reasons for why practitioners distort their patients, and indeed themselves, broadly fall under two categories of those who ‘do see’ and those who ‘do not see’. Alienisation involves increased risks to both the physical and mental well-being of patients and therefore, practitioners have a duty of care to normalise their results. The Nonsurgical Lip Tubercle Technique (NLTT) offers a safer and more effective way to enhance lips by focusing on their natural anatomy, in particular, the lip tubercles; the results maintain the individual's lip type and normal lip function