--- title: "Lip Lift Before and After: How to Assess the Result" url: https://drturner.com.au/blogs/lip-lift-before-and-after/ date: 2026-07-02 modified: 2026-07-26 author: "Dr Scott J Turner" description: "Dr Scott J Turner | Specialist Plastic Surgeon (FRACS) Key Takeaways A lip lift before-and-after shows one person's result, not a preview of your own. A fair comparison uses matched..." categories: - "Plastic Surgery" image: https://drturner.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/blogplaceholder-img.svg word_count: 1960 --- # Lip Lift Before and After: How to Assess the Result *[Dr Scott J Turner](https://drturner.com.au/dr-scott-turner-sydney-plastic-surgeon/) | Specialist Plastic Surgeon (FRACS)* > **Key Takeaways** A lip lift before-and-after shows one person's result, not a preview of your own. A fair comparison uses matched lighting, angle and expression, and shows the healed scar rather than an early photo. Realistic change is modest: a few millimetres of philtrum shortening with a little more upper lip and tooth show at rest. Dramatic differences often owe as much to camera angle, lighting and filters as to surgery. Outcomes vary between individuals, and what your own result would look like depends on your anatomy rather than on someone else's photograph. Before-and-after photos are the first thing most people look at when researching a lip lift, and it's easy to see why. They seem to promise a preview of the result. The catch is that a photograph of someone else's face tells you very little about what your own lip will look like, and a surprising amount of what reads as a surgical change is really a change in lighting, angle or expression. This guide covers how to read these images with a clear eye. For what the surgery involves and who it suits, the [lip lift surgery](https://drturner.com.au/procedures/face/lip-lift-surgery/) page has the detail, with the [Brisbane lip lift](https://drturner.com.au/locations/brisbane/lip-lift/) page covering Queensland consultations. ## What a Before-and-After Photo Can and Cannot Tell You A before-and-after does one useful thing: it shows how a particular patient looked before surgery and how they looked afterwards. On its own, that's informative. What it can't do is predict your result. Your philtrum length, how much upper lip and tooth you show to begin with, your lip volume and your skin are all different from the person in the photo, and those starting points determine what a lip lift can and can't achieve for you. A good result on someone with a long philtrum tells you almost nothing about what the same operation would do on a short one. ## What a Fair Before-and-After Should Show The photos worth trusting are the consistent, unremarkable ones. In a fair comparison, both images are taken under the same conditions: the same lighting, the same camera distance and angle, the same head position, and the same expression. Both a relaxed view and a smiling view help, because a lip lift changes how much tooth shows in each. Ideally the after photo is taken once healing is well advanced, so the scar appears as it will settle rather than concealed under fresh redness or makeup. When a set of photos meets that standard, the difference you see is far more likely to be the surgery itself. ## What the Guidelines Require It's worth knowing that before-and-after images in cosmetic surgery advertising aren't unregulated. Under the guidelines administered by AHPRA and the Medical Board, images used in advertising must be of actual patients rather than stock or idealised imagery, must be taken under consistent conditions so the comparison is fair, must not be enhanced or filtered in ways that misrepresent the outcome, and must be accompanied by a statement that results vary between individuals. Advertising that uses images to create an unreasonable expectation of benefit doesn't meet the standard. This gives you a practical benchmark when you're assessing any gallery: a practice showing filtered images, mismatched conditions or results presented as typical isn't meeting the requirements that apply to it. ## How Before-and-After Photos Can Mislead Small changes behind the camera produce large changes on the screen. Tilting the chin down or shooting from slightly above shortens the apparent length of the upper lip, and the opposite lengthens it. Softer, flatter lighting fills the shadow beneath the nose and makes the philtrum look shorter than it is. A relaxed mouth in the before image set against a smile in the after image exaggerates the gain in tooth show, which is why a smiling comparison can look considerably more dramatic than the surgery itself. And filters or editing, common on social media, can quietly reshape a lip before you ever see the raw image. None of this means a result is fabricated. It means a photograph isn't neutral evidence. ## Nasal-Base Change: The Thing Most Galleries Don't Show Here's a change that rarely gets pointed out, and it's worth training your eye for. The lip lift incision sits at the base of the nose, and lifting the lip applies tension in that area. Depending on the technique and the individual, this can widen the alar base slightly, so the nostrils sit a little further apart, and can flatten the nasal sill, the small ledge of tissue at the floor of each nostril. In some patients the nostrils change shape subtly. This is a recognised consideration of the operation rather than a complication, and reducing tension at the skin closure by anchoring the lift to deeper structure is the main thing that limits it. For reading photographs, the point is this: the nose is in the frame. Compare the width between the nostrils, the shape of the nostril openings and the definition of the nasal sill across the before and after images. If a gallery consistently crops the nose out, angles it away or shows only three-quarter views where the nasal base is hard to assess, you're not being shown one of the real trade-offs of the procedure. ## Results by Technique Not every lip lift changes the same thing, so before-and-after photos aren't all comparing like with like. A bullhorn or subnasal lift shortens the philtrum and lifts the centre of the upper lip, so those photos tend to show more upper lip and tooth at rest. A corner lip lift does something different: it lifts the downturned corners of the mouth, so those comparisons focus on the mouth corners rather than the philtrum. A direct lift, placed just above the lip border, is used less often because of where the scar sits. Check which operation you're looking at before drawing conclusions from any comparison. ## What a Still Photo Leaves Out Even an honest before-and-after has a built-in limit. It's still, and a lip is not a still object. The lip moves constantly when you talk, smile and eat, and a photograph freezes a single instant of that. Two results that look identical side by side can behave quite differently in motion, and how a lip animates matters as much to most people as how it sits at rest. A photo also can't show sensation. Numbness and tightness along the upper lip are normal for a period after a lip lift, and no gallery conveys that. You're seeing one frozen frame of a face that moves and feels. ## What a Realistic Result Looks Like A lip lift is a positional operation, not a volumising one, and realistic results reflect that. The usual change is measured in a few millimetres: a shorter distance between the nose and the lip, a little more upper lip visible, and slightly more tooth show when the face is relaxed. It's a subtle, proportionate shift rather than a dramatic new mouth. If a set of photos shows a lip that looks markedly fuller, that's the territory of volume, which comes from cosmetic injectables rather than from a lift. Knowing the difference makes it easier to spot photographs promising something the operation doesn't deliver. ## Where the Scar Sits in the Picture Many galleries leave out the scar. A lip lift leaves a permanent scar at the base of the nose, and a fair before-and-after shows it. Photos taken very early, before the scar has matured, or angled to keep it out of frame, give an incomplete picture. Because the scar is the part patients most often ask about later, it's worth looking for in any comparison. The [lip lift scar healing guide](https://drturner.com.au/blogs/lip-lift-scar-healing/) covers how it changes over the first year, and the [upper lip lift regret](https://drturner.com.au/blogs/upper-lip-lift-surgery-regrets/) guide covers the decision more broadly. ## Red Flags in an Online Gallery A few patterns are worth treating with caution: - Every after photo is a wide smile while every before is a flat, closed mouth, which inflates the apparent change - The scar is never visible in any image - The nose is consistently cropped, angled away or obscured, hiding any nasal-base change - Skin looks unusually smooth or filtered - Only a single flattering angle is ever used - Results show a markedly fuller lip, pointing to volume rather than a lift - Only fresh post-operative photos are shown, with no healed, longer-term images - No statement that results vary between individuals None of these alone proves anything. A gallery stacking several of them is showing you photography as much as surgery. ## Using Before-and-Afters Well In practice, these photos are most useful in the consulting room rather than on a screen at home. Seen alongside an assessment of your own anatomy, a surgeon can show results from patients whose starting point resembled yours, explain what is and isn't achievable for your lip, and set expectations against measurements rather than images. Dr Turner's [before and after gallery](https://drturner.com.au/photos/facelift-before-after-photos/) covers facial surgery results, and individual outcomes vary considerably between patients. That's a different exercise from scrolling a gallery and hoping your face behaves like someone else's. ## Frequently Asked Questions **Can before-and-after photos predict my own lip lift result?** No. A before-and-after shows one person's outcome, and your result depends on your own anatomy: philtrum length, how much upper lip and tooth you show to start with, lip volume and skin quality. Photos are useful for understanding the kind of change a lip lift makes, but the only reliable guide to your own likely result is an in-person assessment with measurements. Outcomes vary between individuals. **What should a fair lip lift before-and-after show?** Consistent conditions in both images: the same lighting, camera angle, distance and head position, and the same expression, ideally with both a relaxed and a smiling view. The after photo should be taken once healing is well progressed, so the scar appears as it will settle, and the nasal base should be visible rather than cropped or angled away. Advertising guidelines also require a statement that results vary. **Should a before-and-after show changes to the nose?** Ideally yes, because the lip lift incision sits at the base of the nose and lifting the lip can slightly widen the alar base or flatten the nasal sill in some patients. That's a genuine consideration of the operation rather than a complication, but it should be visible for assessment. Compare nostril width, nostril shape and the nasal sill across both images, and treat a gallery that consistently hides the nose with some caution. **Why do lip lift photos look so different smiling versus at rest?** Because a lip lift changes how much upper tooth shows, and smiling already lifts the lip and reveals more tooth. A before photo taken at rest compared with an after photo taken mid-smile exaggerates the change. A fair comparison uses the same expression in both images, so a smiling view should be matched against another smiling view. **How soon after surgery are before-and-after photos taken?** It varies, and the timing matters. Swelling can persist for weeks, and the scar keeps maturing across the first year, so an after photo taken early may not represent the settled result. The most informative images are taken once swelling has resolved and the scar has had time to fade. It's worth asking when an after photo was taken before reading much into it. --- If you're researching a lip lift and want a measured assessment of what the surgery could and couldn't do for your lip, that's a conversation better had against your own measurements than someone else's photographs. Dr Scott Turner consults in Sydney and Brisbane. For clinic information and the consultation pathway, visit the [Sydney clinic](https://drturner.com.au/locations/sydney-clinic/) or [Brisbane clinic](https://drturner.com.au/locations/brisbane/), or [contact the practice](https://drturner.com.au/contact-us/) to arrange a consultation.