Among all the facial wrinkles that make a woman want to go to a cosmetologist, purse-string wrinkles around the mouth, especially above the upper lip, occupy an honorable third place - after wrinkles under the eyes and between the eyebrows.
The area around the mouth is arranged quite cleverly, and the wrinkles are different in design. Let's see what happens on the upper lip and what to do about it.
You can read about “puppet” wrinkles going from the corners of the mouth downwards here >> If the theory of how wrinkles are created is not interesting, you can immediately move on to eliminating them >>
What are the wrinkles above the upper lip called?
Vertical wrinkles above the upper lip are called purse-string wrinkles - they are the most often complained about to a cosmetologist.
Pouches have long gone out of use, many have no idea what it is or what it looks like, but the name remains. There is also a horizontal wrinkle between the lip and nose - it is not called at all, it is incorrect because it is much less common. We'll talk about her some other time.
Recommendations from cosmetologists and prevention
Prevention of aging and properly selected professional and home skin care can slow down the aging process of the skin and avoid the early appearance of deep wrinkles.
Care for the skin around the mouth must be individualized and take into account exactly your skin needs. Home care is based on the principle of “cleansing - toning - active care”, and includes cleansers, creams (thicker textures in winter, lighter textures in summer), active serums.
Another effective remedy against skin aging is professional care and microcurrent therapy from Biologique Recherche. The concept of facial care from the French brand Biologique Recherche includes more than 90 active products and concentrates to solve any skin problem.
The application of each product and other products - masks, serums, fluids and creams - is accompanied by specially developed massage techniques and microcurrent therapy, which help the products penetrate deeper into the skin, and therefore achieve more expressive results.
Causes of purse-string wrinkles
There are only two reasons:
- Overactivity of the orbicularis oris muscle
- Age-related tissue atrophy of the upper lip
What does it mean?
Overzealous helper - orbicularis oris muscle
The orbicularis oris muscle is responsible for closing the lips and makes up the bulk of their volume. It forms a ring around the mouth, located in the thickness of the upper and lower lips.
Its usual mode of operation is a slight tone that prevents the lips from spontaneously sagging.
Any muscle shortens when tense, and the orbicularis oris muscle is no exception. If you tense it, it will become shorter, reducing the circumference of your mouth. Where should the lips go? They first compress more tightly, and then protrude forward - they make a “tube”. With this new reduced size of the mouth, the skin of the lips remains redundant, and it is forced to gather into folds (as happens when tying a pouch).
We rarely do this - if we need to blow on something, whistle, when kissing. But some people have a naturally overactive orbicularis oris muscle, and they involuntarily clench their upper lip slightly when speaking or smiling. Moreover, the person himself does not notice this until he sees it in random photographs or videos.
The result of constant “folding” of the upper lip is the breakdown of the skin framework. These are visible purse-string wrinkles.
Those who smoke are a different story. To hold a cigarette, they specifically strain the orbicularis oris muscle, otherwise the cigarette will fall out. The result is the same - constant folding of the skin of the upper lip and breakdown of collagen fibers. Therefore, such wrinkles are also called smoker's wrinkles .
In people with such increased facial stress on the upper lip, vertical wrinkles may appear quite early.
Age-related atrophy of the soft tissues of the lips
- Although the framework of skin fibers breaks as a result of the action of a particular facial muscle, whether or not it breaks depends on the strength of the framework. While the skin is young, it has enough strength and elasticity to withstand the stress of constant lip folding. But sooner or later everything changes, and a moment comes when the strength of the collagen fiber framework becomes insufficient, and it breaks under load. Those. Aging skin breaks down more easily .
- With age, the volume of the soft tissues of the lip decreases due to atrophy of the subcutaneous fat layer.
Yes, even the lips have fat. In youth, this thin layer of fat serves as a shock absorber between the skin and the lip muscles. When it disappears, the orbicularis oris muscle begins to act directly on the skin of the lips with an already known result. But that's not all. - When the fat layer in the lip disappears, the skin area does not decrease, and the skin remains a little excess. The lip deflates a little. This leads to the formation of microfolds of the skin, which quickly turn into regular wrinkles. This process affects even those who have never had hyperactive orbicularis oris muscle. Such calm girls often do not notice that the lip has begun to change until the lipstick spreading into them begins to show wrinkles.
So, since purse-string wrinkles on the lips arise primarily from the constant “folding” effect of the orbicularis oris muscle on the skin of the lips, you can fight this in three ways:
- slow down the orbicularis oris muscle
- increase the strength of the lip skin
- return the lip to its previous volume so that the folds straighten out (with age-related atrophy of soft tissues)
Contraindications
Contraindications depend on the method of rejuvenation and the drug that will be used. A general list of conditions under which injection cosmetology techniques cannot be performed:
- pregnancy and postpartum period;
- epilepsy and mental disorders;
- oncological diseases;
- skin diseases (psoriasis, eczema, herpes);
- allergy to components of administered drugs and lidocaine;
- injuries in the mouth.
The most detailed information about contraindications can be obtained during a consultation with a cosmetologist. It is recommended to refrain from manipulation during menstruation.
How to remove wrinkles around the lips yourself
Gymnastics and exercises for wrinkles above the upper lip
I don’t want to upset or disappoint anyone, but... what is the mechanism for the formation of purse-string wrinkles over the upper lip? First of all, this is constant work of the orbicularis oris muscle.
During gymnastics, what can you do with your upper lip? Just squeeze and unclench it. You can imagine the result yourself - deepening of wrinkles around the lips. Let's remember smokers - they do lip gymnastics all the time, the result is “smoker's wrinkles”. Soon, apparently, we will have to introduce the term “gymnast wrinkles”
Lip taping for wrinkles
Tapping is an interesting technique and, in principle, can help. But numerous offers on the Internet to tape lips to eliminate wrinkles look a little strange. To be effective, tapes must be worn constantly during active articulation, i.e. when we talk. People don’t often talk to themselves alone; usually they still need an interlocutor
How many people can walk around with their upper lip taped while communicating with other people?? Unless you work in telephone calls, this is a case of “the cure is worse than the disease.”
Creams and serums against purse-string wrinkles
Any good, properly selected cosmetics will benefit the upper layers of the skin, including the skin of the upper lip. Therefore, it is advisable to use creams after 30–35 years. How effective all this is is another question, but even if you can increase the strength of the skin by 5-10%, it is worth trying. Suddenly these percentages are just not enough.
Just don’t look for special creams for the upper lip and expect miracles from them. The power of cosmetics lies in its small but cumulative effect. This is daily systematic work year after year, otherwise there is no point.
Unfortunately, there will be no miracles - you won’t be able to remove wrinkles that have already appeared on your own. Let's move on to methods that actually work.
More invasive techniques
If the wrinkles are deep enough, there are many of them, and a more radical solution to the problem is important, more serious, invasive correction methods may be required. For them, it is necessary to carefully select a clinic and specialists; the methods have certain limitations and a rehabilitation period.
Lipofilling is the filling of wrinkles and folds of skin in a problem area with one’s own fat tissue, taken from another area and specially prepared. The technique helps eliminate wrinkles, add volume to the lips, and rejuvenate them.
Thread skin lifting helps get rid of nasolabial folds and marionette wrinkles. It is used for a comprehensive solution to facial problems.
The SMAS lift uses targeted ultrasound to tighten connective tissue and muscles, helping to reduce the deepest lines around the mouth. Marionette lines
Correction of purse-string wrinkles around the lips by a cosmetologist
What can modern cosmetology offer us?
- Botox
- Filers
- Mesothreads
- Biorevitalization and mesotherapy
- Peelings
- Lasers and other devices
Botox and Dysport against wrinkles above the upper lip
This is what acts on the main cause of purse-string wrinkles - hyperactivity of the orbicularis oris muscle. To relax this muscle and prevent it from folding the skin of the upper lip and wrinkles, we inject Botox into the lips.
Of all lip injections, this is the easiest, fastest, most effective and inexpensive. In general, this is a favorite procedure, including for myself. There are few injections (2 or 4), not deep - there are no bruises.
Yes, there are some nuances that the cosmetologist should discuss with you in detail, but the effect for the majority is excellent. The lip barely relaxes, and the folding of the skin stops. If there haven’t been wrinkles yet, they won’t exist. If they are already there, then of course they will not disappear instantly - the skin needs some time to build up a normal collagen framework in places of fractures, but this will definitely happen. After all, the skin is alive, it repairs itself, you just need to stop breaking it all the time. The shallower the wrinkles are at the time you start using Botox, the faster they will disappear, so it makes sense to start the method earlier.
For shallow purse-string wrinkles above the upper lip, Botox or Dysport alone is often enough to get rid of them.
You can see how Botox is done on the lips here >>
Possible problems with Botox and Dysport on the lips
Temporary difficulties when using botulinum toxins can arise from excessive relaxation of the lip. Our microdoses, of course, do not reach the point where the lip becomes completely suspended. But there may be some uncertainty - “are the lips in place” in the first weeks. This can interfere with people in “speech” professions. It’s better for them to get Botox on their lips for the first time before going on vacation to understand how they feel and decide how comfortable they can work. 2-3 weeks is usually enough for adaptation. According to our many years of observation, approximately 15% of patients who have tried Botox in the upper lip once do not want to repeat the experience - they feel uncomfortable. The rest either do not feel discomfort at all, or stop noticing new sensations after a few days.
It's more complicated with the lower lip. If the sagging on the upper lip is usually only a sensation of the patient himself, and nothing is visible to others, then on the lower lip there may be a visible distortion of the lip. It is usually noticeable when smiling, but sometimes also when articulating. Of course, everything goes away, as always with botulinum toxins, but you somehow have to endure several unpleasant weeks. Therefore, to eliminate purse-string wrinkles on the lower lip, Botox and Dysport are used much less frequently.
Contraindications for Botox and Dysport can be found here >>
Fillers against purse-string wrinkles around the lips
This is our second favorite method to remove wrinkles around the lips.
Hyaluronic fillers make it possible to compact the deep layers of the skin of the upper lip, creating an elastic cushion under the places of constant folding that absorbs the load on the skin. If the wrinkles already exist and are deep, the gel can be placed exactly under them - lifting the bottom of the wrinkle and making it not so deep and noticeable. But the classic filling of purse-string wrinkles with filler is rarely used, because wrinkles are too small. More often, “reinforcement” or “blanching” techniques are used, evenly placing hyaluronic acid in the upper lip.
This works especially well if the second mechanism for the formation of purse-string wrinkles above the upper lip has been added - soft tissue atrophy. Hyaluronic acid restores the lost volume of lip tissue, and the skin straightens and tightens as before. The result - reduction of wrinkles - is visible immediately.
Dense fillers for the upper lip are not very suitable, since the wrinkles here are always NOT deep, and in order to correct them, the filler must be inserted superficially. But with the superficial introduction of a dense gel, it is easy to get overcorrection - convex injection marks, or the Tyndall effect - when the gel shows a slightly bluish tint through the skin.
incorrect correction of wrinkles with filler
To avoid such “beauty”, we often use soft fillers using a special technique. Belotero Soft is ideal.
But during active facial expressions, a soft filler can become wrinkled before enough collagen has grown in the skin of the lip. Therefore, if facial expressions are very active, it is better to inject fillers in the second stage after Botox - after 2 weeks. If facial expressions are not very good, then you can inject hyaluronic acid yourself, without botulinum toxins.
Keep in mind that it is not always possible to avoid bruising with this technique, so you should not do the procedure on the eve of an important event.
There can be no sagging, so the method is suitable for eliminating wrinkles on both the upper and lower lips.
Mesothreads, Aptos-nano - we reinforce the pouch
This method is aimed at increasing the strength of the skin of the upper lip - its reinforcement . The threads are inserted parallel to the red border in the lower half of the space between it and the nose. First, the elasticity of the threads interferes with the folding of the lips, and then this is done by the collagen framework that grows on them. Usually, in one procedure, 5 threads are installed on the right and left; 1-2 threads will not have much of an effect.
The method is very effective, but it very much depends on what threads were used and what technique was used. Most of the disappointed reviews are due to the fact that they chose the WRONG threads and installed them incorrectly.
What is better - Botox or mesothread?
Like Botox and Dysport, mesothreads do not immediately eliminate visible wrinkles, but help skin cells “heal” them.
Disadvantages of threads compared to Botox:
- There are more injections (10) and they are deeper, so anesthesia is very desirable. It’s good if the cosmetologist knows how to inject ultracaine, anesthetic cream is not enough for many - the place is very sensitive.
- Bruises often.
- More expensive. The procedures are generally not expensive in cosmetology, but still.
Fractional laser resurfacing
According to patient reviews, laser resurfacing is comparable in effectiveness to surgical correction of purse-string wrinkles, while it is easily tolerated and does not carry the risk of serious complications. With fractional laser rejuvenation, the effect is on the deep layers of the skin. Moreover, unlike continuous resurfacing, the laser beam removes small microtubules of the skin only in certain areas. The result is the same as with continuous exposure, but the risk of side effects is reduced and recovery is accelerated. Modern equipment makes it possible to accurately dose the impact for the best result. After laser resurfacing:
- regeneration processes are activated in the deep layers of the skin;
- fibroblasts are activated;
- stimulates the production of your own elastin and collagen;
- metabolic processes in the skin are activated.
All these processes continue for another six months. The recommended course is 3-4 procedures, they are carried out under local anesthesia, the recovery period is 5-7 days. Laser radiation is safe for humans and does not have even remote consequences.
