A lip lift raises the lip — which can turn a mild gummy smile into a pronounced one. The honest gate, the smile-photo test, and what actually treats gum show.
This is the article that occasionally talks a reader out of surgery — which is exactly why it exists. If you show gum when you smile, read it before any consultation, anywhere.
A lip lift raises the resting position of the upper lip and, with it, where the lip sits during animation. If your smile already exposes a band of gum above the teeth, lifting the lip's baseline can enlarge that band — the operation doing precisely its job, on the wrong candidate. It doesn't happen to everyone with gum show, but the risk scales with how much you show and how mobile your lip is.
Take two photos: face fully relaxed, and your biggest genuine smile. Measure the gum band above your upper incisors in the smile photo. Under ~2 mm: generally compatible with a conservative lift. 2–4 mm: caution zone — candidacy depends on lip mobility and how much lift you actually need; millimetres get extra conservative. Beyond ~4 mm: a lip lift is usually the wrong operation for you, however long your philtrum — and an honest assessment says so.
Assessment for a lip lift in this practice always includes your smile, not just your resting face — because the operation's success is judged in both. If the honest read is "your philtrum is long but your smile can't afford a lift," you'll hear it, along with where the better tool lives. That sentence costs a booking sometimes; it's still the only version worth publishing.
