--- title: "Upper Lip Lift Regrets: Causes, Prevention and Revision Limits" url: https://drturner.com.au/blogs/upper-lip-lift-surgery-regrets/ date: 2026-02-03 modified: 2026-07-26 author: "Dr Scott J Turner" description: "Dr Scott J Turner | Specialist Plastic Surgeon (FRACS) Key Takeaways Most upper lip lift regret traces back to three things: a permanent scar at the base of the nose,..." categories: - "Plastic Surgery" image: https://drturner.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/blogplaceholder-img.svg word_count: 2279 --- # Upper Lip Lift Regrets: Causes, Prevention and Revision Limits *[Dr Scott J Turner](https://drturner.com.au/dr-scott-turner-sydney-plastic-surgeon/) | Specialist Plastic Surgeon (FRACS)* > **Key Takeaways** Most upper lip lift regret traces back to three things: a permanent scar at the base of the nose, a result that cannot be reversed, and candidate selection that was wrong from the outset. The patients who do best understood these trade-offs before surgery rather than after. A lip lift suits a specific anatomical problem, an elongated philtrum with little visible upper lip, rather than general lip fullness. Because skin is removed permanently, revision options are limited and sometimes unavailable. The upper lip lift is one of the most requested facial procedures I'm asked about, and one of the few I talk patients out of more often than into. The operation is small. The decision is not, because it removes skin permanently and cannot be undone. Patients who come to me unhappy tend to share one of two stories. They were never the right candidate. Or the surgery was approached as a minor appointment rather than the facial operation it is. This article is about that side of the decision: why regret happens, why revision is so limited, and what reduces the risk. What the surgery involves and who it suits is set out on the [lip lift surgery](https://drturner.com.au/procedures/face/lip-lift-surgery/) page, with the [Brisbane lip lift](https://drturner.com.au/locations/brisbane/lip-lift/) page covering Queensland consultations. ## What an Upper Lip Lift Does, and What It Doesn't An upper lip lift shortens the philtrum, the vertical skin between the base of the nose and the red of the lip. A strip of skin is removed just under the nose and the lip is lifted into a slightly higher position. Done for the right reason, it brings a little more upper lip into view and a little more tooth show when the face is at rest. What it isn't is a way to make lips fuller. This is a positional operation, not a volumising one. Cosmetic injectables add volume and can be dissolved. A lip lift moves and removes tissue, and once that skin is gone it doesn't come back. That permanence is why candidate selection carries more weight here than the surgery itself. ## When a Lip Lift Addresses a Real Problem The lip lift was designed for a particular anatomical change, and it works best when that change is clearly present. As the face ages, the upper lip lengthens. The philtrum stretches, the red of the lip rolls inward and thins, and less of the upper teeth shows when you talk or smile. As a reference point, the philtrum commonly sits around 11 to 13 millimetres in women and 13 to 15 in men, with roughly one to five millimetres of upper tooth visible at rest. These are typical ranges rather than targets, and normal variation is wide. Where that distance has lengthened well beyond the typical range and the lip has largely disappeared at rest, filler cannot correct it, because the problem is position rather than volume. Adding volume to a lip that sits too low simply makes a low lip larger. That's the patient the operation suits: a long philtrum, little visible upper lip, reduced tooth show, and usually some natural skin texture that helps a fine scar settle. A clear anatomical indication is what most separates a satisfied patient from a regretful one. ## Who Should Reconsider The harder conversation, and the more important one, is about who shouldn't have this surgery. Several groups come up repeatedly. **A philtrum that's already short.** If the distance between nose and lip is already on the shorter side, shortening it further pushes the face into unusual proportions and can leave the mouth looking strained. There's no anatomical problem to solve, so surgery only creates one. **A full lip with good tooth show.** If there's already plenty of visible upper lip and teeth at rest, a lift has nothing to correct, and the result tends to look overdone rather than natural. **Younger patients with smooth skin.** This is the group I decline most often, for two reasons. Smooth skin gives a scar nowhere to hide, since the incision sits at the nose-lip border, and young, reactive skin can heal with a firmer, more visible line. And the face keeps changing. A lip set to look ideal at twenty-five can read as unnaturally short a decade later, and because the tissue was removed there's no way to lengthen it again. **A history of keloid or thick scarring.** The scar is the part patients regret most, so a tendency toward raised scars is a serious reason to reconsider. **Motivation driven by images rather than anatomy.** A great deal of demand now comes from edited and filtered photographs that exaggerate how full and lifted lips should look. Seeing those repeatedly resets what feels normal. If the motivation is to match an image rather than to correct a change you can measure in the mirror, the surgery is being asked to solve the wrong problem. ## The Scar Is What Gets Regretted Most When a lip lift disappoints, it's usually the scar. The incision runs along the base of the nose, and on the right patient it settles into a fine line sitting in shadow. On the wrong patient, or with a closure under tension, it can widen, raise or sit unevenly. There's a particular trap worth understanding before surgery. If a scar heals poorly and a patient wants it revised, revising it means removing more skin, which shortens the lip further. For someone whose lip was already shortened too much, scar revision makes the proportion worse rather than better, and in some cases meaningful correction is no longer possible. The [lip lift scar healing guide](https://drturner.com.au/blogs/lip-lift-scar-healing/) covers the normal maturation timeline and what falls outside it. ## Asymmetry Asymmetry is the regret patients rarely anticipate, partly because faces are asymmetric to begin with and most people haven't examined their own closely before surgery. Two kinds matter here. Pre-existing asymmetry, where one side of the lip already sits slightly higher or the philtral columns differ, can become more noticeable once the lip is lifted, because the operation draws the eye to that area. And surgical asymmetry, where marking or skin removal differs slightly between sides, can produce an uneven lip border or scar. Small differences often settle as swelling resolves over the first months. Genuine asymmetry that persists past full healing is difficult to correct, because the correction again involves removing more skin from the shorter side. The practical protection is pre-operative assessment: asymmetry identified, measured and discussed before surgery is planned around, whereas asymmetry noticed afterwards is a much harder conversation. ## Why Revision Has Real Limits Patients often assume a poor result can simply be fixed. With a lip lift, that assumption is frequently wrong. Over-shortening is the clearest example. Take too much skin and the lip can struggle to close comfortably, the mouth can look tight, speech can be affected, and the nostrils and base of the nose can be pulled out of shape. None of that is straightforward to reverse, because the correction would need skin that's no longer there. **Timing matters too.** Revision isn't performed early. Scars firm up, thicken and then soften over many months, and a scar assessed at three months can look substantially different at twelve. Operating on an immature scar risks treating a problem that would have resolved, while adding a second scar and removing more skin. The usual approach is to wait for full maturation, commonly around twelve months and sometimes longer, with non-surgical scar management in the interim. That wait is difficult for a patient who's unhappy with a visible facial result, which is worth knowing in advance. Permanence cuts both ways. It's what makes a good result lasting, and a poor one hard to undo. ## Technique and Setting: What to Ask About The way the operation is performed varies, and the differences are worth understanding because they affect the scar. In a skin-only approach, a strip of skin is removed and the skin closed, with the lifted lip supported largely by the skin sutures themselves. This can be performed quickly under local anaesthetic. The mechanical issue is that when the weight of the lifted lip rests on the skin closure, that tension can contribute to scar widening over time and downward pull on the base of the nose. In a layered approach, the deeper tissues are addressed rather than skin alone. The muscle is managed to support the new lip position, the lifted tissue is anchored to firm structure at the base of the nose so the load sits on stable tissue rather than skin, and the closure is built in layers so the surface heals under minimal tension. Reducing tension at the skin surface is the main thing within surgical control that supports a fine scar. This takes longer and is generally performed in an accredited facility under general anaesthesia or sedation with an anaesthetist present. Neither description tells you what any individual surgeon does, which is the point of asking. Useful questions: whether the muscle is addressed and the lift anchored to deeper structure, how the closure is layered, where the procedure is performed and what anaesthesia is used, and how much skin is planned for removal based on your measurements. ## Choosing a Surgeon A lip lift sits within the same anatomy as facial surgery generally, and calls for similar judgement: how the deeper layers support the skin, how scars behave in this specific location, and how one change reads against the proportions of the whole face. A surgeon who works regularly in these layers is making those assessments routinely. In Australia, "Specialist Plastic Surgeon" is a protected title requiring accredited specialist training and Fellowship of the Royal Australasian College of Surgeons. Practitioners from a range of backgrounds may offer cosmetic procedures, and qualifications, training and scope differ between them. Checking AHPRA registration and specialty on the public register takes a couple of minutes and tells you what someone is qualified in. Asking how often a surgeon performs this specific operation, and asking to discuss cases where they declined to operate, tends to be more informative than asking how many they've done. ## What This Means If You're Considering One **Start with the indication, not the idea.** If you don't have a long philtrum, a thin or vanishing upper lip and reduced tooth show, pause. You may be solving a problem you don't have. Confirm the surgery against what you can measure in the mirror rather than an image on a screen. **Ask about technique and setting**, using the questions above, and treat convenience as a lower priority than how the closure is constructed. **Accept the permanence.** Go in understanding that an unsatisfactory result may be difficult, and occasionally impossible, to put right. That's precisely why the decision deserves the time it takes, and why a consultation that ends in "not you, or not yet" is a useful outcome rather than a wasted appointment. ## Frequently Asked Questions **Can an upper lip lift be reversed if I don't like the result?** No. A lip lift removes skin permanently, so it can't be undone. A poor result can sometimes be improved, but the options are limited and depend on how much skin remains. If the lip was already shortened too much, further surgery can worsen the proportion rather than improve it. This is why candidate assessment matters so much beforehand. **Why do younger patients regret lip lifts more often?** Two reasons. Smooth, young skin gives the scar at the nose-lip border nowhere to hide and can heal with a firmer line. And a young face keeps changing, so a lip shortened to look right at twenty-five can appear unnaturally short years later, with no way to lengthen it again. Many patients in their twenties with full lips and good tooth show have no anatomical indication for the surgery to begin with. **How long do I have to wait before a lip lift can be revised?** Generally until the scar has fully matured, commonly around twelve months and sometimes longer. Scars firm, thicken and then soften over many months, and one assessed at three months can look very different at twelve. Revising early risks treating something that would have settled, while adding a second scar and removing more skin. Non-surgical scar management is usually used during that period. **Does the technique or setting affect the scar?** It can. A skin-only closure places the weight of the lifted lip on the skin sutures, and that tension can contribute to scar widening and downward pull on the nasal base. A layered approach that manages the muscle, anchors the lift to firm structure and closes in layers reduces tension at the skin surface, which supports a finer scar. Ask which approach is planned for you rather than assuming from the setting alone. **How do I know if I'm a candidate for a lip lift?** The clearest signs are a long philtrum, a thin or barely visible upper lip at rest, and reduced upper tooth show when speaking or smiling, usually with some natural skin texture that helps a scar settle. If your philtrum is already short, your lip is full, or the motivation is an image rather than a measurable change, regret is more likely than benefit. A consultation with actual measurements is the only reliable way to confirm. --- If you're considering an upper lip lift and want a straight assessment of whether it suits your anatomy, including the possibility that it doesn't, that's what a consultation is for. 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.