THE POWER OF THE POUT: HOW LIPS REFLECT WHO YOU ARE AND WHAT YOU CAN DO TO ENHANCE THEM

Waitresses who wear red lipstick earn more in tips—50% more. It’s proven.   So lips are not just just soft, floppy openings for food intake and talking.  Oh no—your lips are beautiful, complicated organs that play a role in physical attraction, verbal and non-verbal communication, and they are the most enhanced feature of the face using cosmetics, injections, and even surgery. Every year, over 900 million tubes of lipstick are sold globally and women spend hundreds of millions of dollars on lipstick, lip liner, and cosmetic procedures that instantly plump the lips.  Money well spent?  Well, lips are biologically important features that attract attention and even mates and, when enhanced, make you feel better and look younger, no matter what your age. Believe it or not, the shape and size of your lips can also be used to tell what outlook you have on life, your character and personality traits.

POUTS OF PAST

In Victorian times, thin, pursed lip were the order of the day¹.  Women said “prunes” instead of “cheese” to get the desired look. In ancient times, lip size and shape depended on geography:  the emphasis in Egypt was on big eyes and straight noses; in Greece it was on symmetry rather than size, and in India lips were like “rosebuds”—small but luscious. In Ming Dynasty China, lips were but pin-prick projections.  Similarly in Italy, the ideal was nearly to have no lips!  Despite his name, Filippo Lippi portrayed this in his lipless subjects on canvas.  The aesthetically ideal lip finally became more voluminous over the subsequent couple of hundred years, till it culminated in the full-lipped Gibson Girl—the personification of feminine aesthetically ideal form in the late 19^th and early 20^th centuries.  After that, the ideal lip deflated again until the middle of the century. Then, in 1950s America, the bottom lip was exaggerated as the preferred proportion.  By the 1970s, the “trout pout” was in! 

Thankfully, this petered out later on and was replaced in the 80s by thinner lips and an emphasis on the teeth.  Julia Roberts popularised the big, broad smile in the 1990s with her voluptuous lips.  Since 2000, the trend has been toward bigger, fuller lips.  Is this because lip filler injections are so accessible these days? Is it because influencers who tout products online have bigger pouts?  Or is it because women choose to knowingly augment the features that are cues to youth and reproductive health, thereby increasing attractiveness? 

IT’S THE LOOK

There’s no doubt famous influencers like Kylie Jenner have popularised full, voluptuous lips.  And as a result, treatments like lip enhancement and lip filler injections have sky-rocketed over the last few years.  Filler injections using hyaluronic acid are the second most popular cosmetic procedure after botulinum toxin treatments.  The “look” younger women sometimes want is to make the lips a defining feature of their face. But that’s certainly not the case for many other women. 

In fact, some women who are interested in anti-aging and enhancement treatments are hesitant about doing anything to their lips for fear of making them look too obvious.  Studies show that even small changes in the lips—as little as 1mm—can be picked up by observers as having been modified³.  So when you don’t want anyone to know you’ve had work done, make sure your practitioner knows you want a subtle job, and that they have the skill and experience to deliver.  A good practitioner will tailor a lip enhancement treatment for you, providing less or more based on your own aesthetic and outlook.  Bear in mind too, your lips are a reflection of your personality.  Your lips speak of who you are, so you might not want to deviate too much from your genetic norm. 

LIP READING

You can determine someone’s personality and mental traits by simply feeling the bumps and contours of their skull with your fingers.  It’s known as phrenology.  Actually, phrenology was dismissed years ago as a pseudoscience and debunked more recently using advanced MRI scanning of the skull and personality profiling⁴.  Chinese face reading, on the other hand, has been practiced for thousands of years and is still prominent today as a form of physiognomy—reading the face or parts of the face in order to detect underlying conditions or personality traits.

As it turns out, the state, size, shape and proportions of your lips tells a lot about you⁵. Now take a look in the mirror to see if you think it’s true.  If you’ve full, soft, voluptuous lips you are selfless and caring.  The drama queens who seek attention have a full upper lip. If your lower lip is more prominent, you’re the adventurous, energetic and restless type.  Thin lips are worn by those who are self-sufficient, somewhat introverted.  Take a look at your Cupid’s bow.  If yours is sharp and well-defined, you’re the creative, sociable type who is impulsive yet successful.  A Cupid’s bow that is rounded means you are sensitive, caring, and compassionate.  Do you have prominent ridges above your top lip?  If it’s flat there, you’re reliable, hard-working, effective and generous. No top lip?  It’s a trait of those who are ambitious, successful and full of energy.  Small puffy lips are a feature of those who are self-loving but also kind and caring to others. 

Don’t worry though; if you do decide to modify your lips with cosmetic procedures, it’s not likely to change your personality, except to make you happier!  And that’s not pseudoscience—studies show that such cosmetic alterations can enhance mood⁶.

THE POUT WITH PURPOSE

There are probably no other features amenable to aesthetic enhancement that are as dynamic in function and form as the lips.  The lips move, dance and contort at will.  No other feature is as expressive.  Lips are parted gently during flirtation, pursed in anger, puckered in uncertainty.  Suck them in or bite them to express indecision, turn them up to show your contentment, down to express sadness.  Despite their function, their form is intimately related to female physical attractiveness.  Highlight them with lipstick and they mesmerise.  Gwyneth Paltrow once said “beauty, to me, is about being comfortable in your own skin.  That, or a kick-ass red lipstick!”.  Lip fillers, lip plumping treatments and cosmetic treatments or surgery to enhance the lips can provide subtle, yet dramatic, effects due to their importance in aesthetics.  With aging, lips shrink.  Loss of collagen, elastin and fat cause the lips to become thin and creased.  The skin above the lips loses elasticity and underlying padding resulting in skin that sits on the underlying muscle, which makes it bunch up like an accordion. 

Lipstick eventually bleeds into lip lines, and the top lip lengthens.  When this happens, the upper lip hides the upper teeth, a noticeable feature of aging. There are several approaches to enhancing the lips and surrounding areas in modern aesthetic medicine and aesthetic surgery⁷.  Apart from artfully applied lipstick and cosmetics, treatments include plumping with fillers, implants, surgical lip lifts, relaxing injections, and skin treatments to reduce lines and tighten the skin around the lips.  Let’s take a closer look at what you can do these days, how to choose, and what to watch out for to stay safe.

INJECTION PERFECTION

The safest fillers used these days for enhancing and filling the lips are those composed of hyaluronic acid.  This natural sterile clear gel substance is molecularly identical to natural hyaluronic acid that gives shape to the eye, support to the skin, and lubrication to our joints.  The filler market is big business, and there are several large companies that have very reputable, tried and tested brands.  If you’re not sure what filler you’re getting, just ask if it can be dissolved away if you don’t like it.  Hyaluronic acid fillers can be quickly and safely reversed with a dissolving enzyme substance called hyaluronidase.

  If your doctor confirms the filler you’re considering can be removed, that’s a good thing.  Permanent fillers in the lips come with the risk of permanent problems that can be more difficult to correct. There are various techniques to get the lips you want, including defining the border of the lip, defining the Cupid’s bow and philtrum, and adding fullness to the lip itself.  You can place more in either the top or bottom lip, depending on your preference.  At the same time, fillers can be used to iron away fine lines and lift the corners of the mouth—a subtle but very rejuvenating manoeuvre.  Either numbing cream or nerve block injections are usually administered prior to lip fillers to help keep the experience pleasant. Some degree of mild swelling and occasionally bruising is normal afterwards but your practitioner may have advice, tips, and tricks to keep this at an absolute minimum.  The beauty of these non-permanent fillers is you can add to them over time, or modify the approach to filling over time depending on your preference.  Some surgeons like to use fat to fill the lips.  You can expect more swelling and downtime with this approach.  However, it may be part of a more extensive procedure anyway where you have to accept some downtime.

LASTING BEAUTY

Say you’ve already tried lip fillers, you like them, but you don’t like going back again and again for more. A less common, but viable option is to consider a silicone lip implant.  Unlike permanent fillers, these implants can be removed quite easily should that be required.  Lip implants can be placed under local anaesthesia—a cut is made in the corner of the mouth and the soft, worm-like implant is inserted under the skin of the wet part of the lip, instantly lifting out the lip making it look more voluptuous.  Usually top and bottom implants are placed at the same time, but one or the other is an option too depending on your proportions.  These lip implants come in different sizes and different lengths, and although they usually have a slightly firmer feel to them, they can look quite natural if placed by an expert in someone who’s a good candidate.  A lip lift is another surgical procedure that takes years off, making you look significantly younger or fresher.  Lip lift surgery reverses the lengthening of the top lip that occurs with aging.  Skin is removed under the nose using a bull-horn incision pattern, the lip is lifted up like a blind, and the skin is stitched neatly.  The lip lift totally transforms the proportions of the lower face in a positive way and reveals the upper teeth, a particularly youthful trait.  The scar is hidden under the nose and in the nostrils.  Even without adding volume to the lips, the lip lift can make the lips appear fuller by everting, or turning out, the pink part of the lip. 

It’s important to understand that beautiful, subtle changes to the lips are easily achievable using fillers or even surgery.  The key thing is to explain to your provider what it is you have in your mind’s eye. Of course more transformative, dramatic changes are possible too.  It’s important to discuss your expectations before you go under the needle or knife. 

REASON TO SMILE

Lip enhancement can be extremely satisfying when it’s done properly.  Modern hyaluronic acid fillers can be placed strategically to provide subtle or dramatic changes; whatever your preference.  Aesthetic providers enhance the lips by defining the border, lifting the corners, filling the central or outer parts, top and bottom, and smoothing away lines around the mouth. Botulinum toxin injections are sometimes added to relax muscles that pull the mouth edges downwards.  Lasers and other devices may be used to refresh and rejuvenate skin around the lips.  Surgical approaches to lip beauty include fat grafting, lip implants and lip lift techniques. Problems from fillers such as asymmetry, lumps, reactions or swelling can be minimised by attending reputable, experienced providers.  Serious complications such as permanent scarring or ulceration due to blockage of blood vessels with fillers are rare when correct, safe techniques are used.  Choosing an expert provider who has the knowledge and expertise to administer treatment quickly if these complications arise is important. 

Highlighted lips are the embodiment of feminine strength and confidence.  Cleopatra reddened her lips with a colourant derived from thousands of crushed beetles.  In modern times, women like Madonna, Rihanna and Amal Clooney exude confidence, and it shows—in their actions and on their red lips. Red lipstick is a powerful tool women use to display their confidence and prowess. 

As Rachel Felder says, “lipstick is a finishing touch that can lift the spirits, but, when it’s in a rich shade of red, a simple swipe of crimson is extra-empowered, emboldened, and assured, even if it’s furtively hiding any latent insecurity underneath⁸”.  Of course, nowadays, the secrets to the powerful pout don’t stop at red lipstick! 

 References

1. https://www.thecut.com/2018/10/the-complicated-psychology-behind-bee-stung-lips.html
2. https://www.bustle.com/articles/95689-the-ideal-lips-throughout-history-from-the-ming-dynasty-to-kim-kardashian
3. Determining the 2-Dimensional Threshold for Perception of Artificial-Appearing Lips.  Kim SW, Rousso DE.JAMA Facial Plast Surg. 2017 Sep 1;19(5):392-398
4. An empirical, 21st century evaluation of phrenology.Parker Jones O, Alfaro-Almagro F, Jbabdi S. Cortex. 2018 Sep;106:26-35
5. https://brightside.me/wonder-curiosities/scientists-reveal-what-the-shape-of-your-lips-says-about-you-327210/
6. Assessment of the Impact of Perioral Rejuvenation With Hyaluronic Acid Filler on Projected First Impressions and Mood Perceptions. Dayan SH, Bacos JT, Gandhi ND, Ho TT, Kalbag A. Dermatol Surg. 2019 Jan;45(1):99-107
7. Comparing the Use of Injectable Fillers for the Youthful Lip and the More Mature Lip.  Greene RM. Facial Plast Surg. 2019 Apr;35(2):134-139
8. https://www.goodhousekeeping.com/uk/fashion-beauty/a28183150/red-lipstick-meaning-history-power/