Forty-five to ninety minutes under local anaesthesia — but the result is decided in the design minutes and the closure craft. What actually happens.
With you upright and animated, the excision is drawn along the nasal sills and columella base: the classic 'bullhorn' shape, following your nose's exact curves. Your philtrum length, tooth show and smile photos set the millimetres — typically 3–6 mm, around 25–33% of the philtrum, calibrated conservative because this step cannot be undone.
Fine local infiltration — the same class of comfort as detailed dental work. You're awake, comfortable and able to cooperate (a quiet advantage: lip position can be checked live). No general anaesthetic, no hospital night.
The drawn strip of skin — and only skin, in the standard technique — is removed with the design's exact geometry. Where anatomy indicates, the muscle layer is conservatively addressed; where it doesn't, it's respected and left — restraint at this layer protects natural animation.
Deep layers are set first to carry every gram of tension, so the skin edge meets unstretched; the surface is closed with fine sutures in the shadow line. Alar base symmetry is protected throughout — nostril distortion is the amateur signature this stage exists to prevent.
A small dressing, aftercare kit and instructions — you walk out within the hour. Sutures come out day 5–7 in clinic, before you fly. The week-by-week calendar covers the rest.
An under-lifted lip can be refined with a small secondary touch. An over-lifted lip — too short a philtrum, a toothy stare, nostril distortion — is among facial surgery's hardest problems, because the removed skin no longer exists. Every design decision here runs through that asymmetry: when in doubt, take less. Patients occasionally wish for one more millimetre at month three; nobody has ever wished for one less — and that's the record this practice intends to keep.
No surgery is risk-free, and a lip lift is surgery — short, local-anaesthetic and small-footprint, but surgery. Everything below is discussed individually against your own anatomy, photographs and health history before any decision is made. Individual results vary; none of this is a prediction of your outcome.
Expected rather than optional. Swelling peaks around day 2–3 and makes the lip look fuller and higher than its planned position; bruising hints are common at the nasal base. This is precisely why lip position is judged at month 2–3 and never in week one — the recovery calendar sets the dates.
A known chapter, not a surprise. The strip of skin just under the nose commonly feels numb or tingly in the early weeks and recalibrates as healing progresses; speech and the smile feel tight while swelling and early healing tension resolve. The stiff-smile weeks loosen progressively — temporary, and not a complication.
The procedure's one real failure mode. Every lip lift leaves a scar; design hides it in the nasal base shadow, but maturation is partly biology. It can stay pink or firm longer than the 12–18 month average, and ultraviolet light permanently darkens an immature scar — which is why SPF 50 owns year one and silicone care follows clearance. The scar page gives the full calendar, and consented healed examples are shown at assessment rather than described.
The amateur signature. The incision runs along the nostril sills, so careless geometry or a closure that pulls can narrow, widen or unbalance the alar base. That is the specific reason symmetry is protected continuously through the closure stage above — checked throughout, not inspected at the end.
A philtrum shortened too far leaves a toothy look at rest, and the removed skin no longer exists, which places over-lift among facial surgery's hardest problems. An under-lift can be refined later with a small secondary touch; that asymmetry of consequences is the whole argument for conservative millimetres, and it is the error this practice deliberately prefers to risk.
Not excluded by a small operation: bleeding, infection, delayed or imperfect wound healing, and reactions to local anaesthetic belong to surgery in general and belong here too. Smoking weighs more heavily at this site than almost anywhere else on the face — nicotine constricts exactly the blood supply this closure and this scar depend on, which is why the non-smoking gate is kept rather than negotiated.
The costliest outcome in this niche is a technically clean lift performed on anatomy that never needed one — a normal-length philtrum, tooth show already present, or a gummy smile that lifting amplifies. Candidacy is the risk-reduction step that happens before any of the surgical ones; the six gates exist to turn people away as readily as to accept them.
Written, anatomy-specific risk disclosure is part of consent here, not a leaflet produced on the morning of surgery — and it is read before a date is held, not after. If a line on this page changes your mind, the assessment has done its work: 'no surgery' is a legitimate outcome throughout this site. Suitability is confirmed by personal consultation and examination.
Photos in — your millimetres, your incision map and your written quote out.
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