Lips like Kylie Jenner? Doctors see more requests for augmented lips

Erica Schmidt has never had a problem with how she looks, but she’s part a growing number of young Canadian women opting for cosmetic injections and procedures to enhance her appearance.

For Schmidt, 20, it was her lips. She thought they needed some outside help to stand out, so she went to her doctor for temporary lip augmentation injections.

Two rounds of injections — and roughly $1,200 later — she thinks she’s found the look she was hoping for.

“I didn’t do this because I had a poor body image, I did it because I wanted to enhance what I already had,” she said.

A Kylie Jenner effect? 

Dr. Daniel Radin, a dermatologist in Windsor, Ont. says Schimdt is not alone in “enhancing” her lips. Over the last year, he has seen an increasing number of women come to him looking for fuller, plumper lips.

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“Before people were embarrassed to do [lip augmentation], but now it’s almost about bragging rights,” Radin said. “It’s kind of like the new handbag. People like to brag about what they had done.”

Dr. Daniel Radin, a Windsor, Ont. dermatologist, says he’s seeing an increasing number of younger women choosing to get cosmetic procedures. (CBC )

Dr. Vince Bertucci, a Toronto dermatologist and president of the Canadian Dermatologists Association, said he too sees an increase in younger women looking at getting non-invasive cosmetic procedures like lip injections. 

Their observations are backed up by numbers from the American Society for Plastic Surgeons.

Nearly 68,000 women between the ages of 20-29 had a minimally invasive procedure with soft tissue fillers — which include lip injections — in the United States in 2015, the society suggested in its most recent report on plastic surgery in the U.S.

No Canadian data

The Canadian Society of Plastic Surgeons does not track similar statistics for Canada, but a spokesperson told CBC News it recommends dividing the American figures by 10 to get a rough estimate of how many young Canadian women are turning to cosmetic procedures.

That means potentially 6,800 women between the age of 20-29 had some sort of cosmetic injection in Canada in 2015. 

The College of Physicians and Surgeons of Ontario doesn’t regulate an age for treatment, meaning its up to individual doctors to set limits on how young a patient can be to get cosmetic treatment. 

Bertucci agrees with this, saying each individual physician should be able to make the set their own guidelines on which patients they wish to treat. 

“I would hope as physicians they would take all the factors in an individual patient and make a decision based on their circumstance,” he said. “I don’t know that it needs to be regulated. I don’t see where it’s an issue where 14-year-olds or 12-year-olds are coming in.” 

For Radin he’s decided he won’t treat anyone younger than 18. He sees the increasing interest in lip augmentation, Botox and laser hair removal coming from social media and the influence of reality TV star Kylie Jenner.  

Kylie Jenner’s plump lips may be influencing the decision of more young women looking to enhance their lips, a Windsor doctor says. (Richard Shotwell/Invision/AP)

Jenner is part of the Kardashian family and has her own line of beauty products. Last year, she made headlines when teen girls began sucking the air out of shot glasses in an attempt to get their lips looking like hers.

“Everyone wants to look their best,” Radin said. “But you can get overboard. We want something that looks natural. We try to make someone look their best but we don’t want to go overboard.”

Not all teens attracted to procedure

Lily Surubariu, a 14-year-old student at Tecumseh Vista Academy high school, said she prefers keeping her natural look. But it’s a different story for her friends.

Surubariu told CBC News money was the only thing standing between her peers and lip injections.

“They think big lips make them look better,” she said. “Girls are kind of crazy, saying they need to inject their lips to make them look bigger. I say they should leave their face natural, it’s beautiful like that.”

Schmidt says Jenner’s look influenced her, but she’s not trying to copy Jenner’s style. She took her time deliberating on whether she wanted the procedure and talked to her friends about their experiences.

“I wanted to do it for myself,” Schmidt said. “I definitely did not need this, this wasn’t something like … [I felt] I need this. I just wanted to enhance my features.”