Love is in the air! Valentine’s Day is around the corner, and that has us at Nashville Cosmetic Surgery thinking about lips! Did you know that second to the eyes, your lips are the most important focal point on your face? Plump, shapely lips help to balance the face and are associated with beauty, youthfulness and sensuality.
We’ve assembled 4 little-known facts about your lips to help you take care of your kisser and learn more about how to improve their appearance today and for years to come so that you continue to look and feel your best.
Fact #1 – Lips haven’t always been used for kissing.
(This one is just a fun fact. Good for cocktail parties.)
“Kissing was restricted up until very recently to areas of Asia – Southeast Asia mainly and Europe until the conquests in the 1500’s,” says Dr. Vaughn Bryant, professor of Anthropology at Texas A&M University. “No one in the New World kissed, no one in Oceania kissed, the Eskimos didn’t kiss, people in sub-Saharan Africa didn’t kiss.” According to Professor Bryant, kissing started in India and spread slowly after soldiers under the command of Alexander the Great brought the custom home with them.
Now for the real info…
Fact #2 – Lips don’t sweat.
Since sweat glands also help keep the skin moisturized, that means lips tend to dry out faster than other parts of the body and need extra protection from the elements.
Fact #3 – Blood vessels give lips the pink hue.
The skin of the lips is thinner than skin elsewhere on the body, 3 to 6 layers as opposed to 16! Thinner skin means it’s easier to see the blood vessels underneath.
Fact #4 – Lips lose their plumpess with age.
Lips get their shape in part from collagen. And collagen production decreases as we age. As the body produces less of this critical protein, the lips start to lose their plumpness which causes fine lines and creases to develop. Another factor contributing to aging, dry lips is exposure to ultraviolet light from the sun.
So what’s a girl to do to keep those youthful, luscious lips?
First, protect what you have.
They say an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure and it is definitely true in this case. Just like the skin on your face, your lips can benefit from products that:
• Promote collagen production and cell turnover
• Moisturize and hydrate
• Protect from UV rays
You don’t have to spend a fortune or need to buy 3 different products to get those benefits. LipRevive is a lip treatment kit that contains a rejuvenating serum with Vitamin C and E and a gentle Retinol formulation to use at night and a moisturizing physical sunscreen combined with hyaluronic acid for daytime.
Second, enhance your lips with nonsurgical dermal fillers.
If you just weren’t blessed with full luscious lips or find your lips needing a refresher, our expert injectors at NCS can create the perfect pout using dermal filler products like Volbella, Vollure and Juvéderm to subtlety enhance and balance your face for a more refreshed look. (Curious about using dermal fillers to enhance your lips? Stay tuned for our next blog post on lip injections.)
Contact us at [phone] to learn more about the medical-grade skin care products we offer to help you look and feel your best.