Vertical Upper Lip Lines and Smoker’s Lines. Can Injections Help?

How to reduce upper lip lines – A Few Simple Solutions

The vertical lines that form above your lips can be one of the more distressing signs of premature skin ageing. They can ruin an otherwise smoother-skin complexion. Can anything be done about these vertical lip lines? They’re also called smoker’s lines due to the constant lip pursing associated with smoking. And what about the marionette lines that rest beside them? The answer is YES – upper lip lines can be treated by your cosmetic injector and/or dermal clinician. But like most anti-ageing solutions, prevention is always preferred.

So what are some solutions for preventing or reducing vertical upper lip lines?

First, why do these lines become so ingrained before we start paying attention to them?

• Vertical upper lip lines rarely come to mind as the first area to treat your textural issues and lines.
• The reason is simple: Vertical lip lines are not considered a major skin issue for most people. This is due to the fact that they sneak up on your skin.
• If you wait to treat them until after they become deeply ingrained, it might mean more intensive treatments or less satisfactory results.
• You may focus on other aspects of your skin and miss the ageing signs around your mouth and lips.

Today we’re talking about the lines above your lips

We’ll also cover those marionette lines. Where you have lines around the mouth, there’s likely to be an ever-deepening crevice in the nasolabial fold.

As we age, vertical lines start to form above the lips. The resulting is ‘marionette’ style lines that deepen from your nostrils to the edges of your mouth (nasolabial lines).

• Many don’t realize is that this small problem can have a detrimental effect on our overall appearance
• This is especially likely over the longer term when they deepen into ‘fissures’
• When they deepen, they are visible in nearly every facial expression – even smiling
• The good news is YES, they CAN be treated if you get to them early enough
• Prevention – and early treatment – get far better results than waiting until they are deep enough to drive through

If not treated in time, the problem of these lip lines can become virtually impossible to treat. These lines then have a premature-ageing impact on your entire facial appearance.

Benefits of treating above lip lines with cosmetic injections or laser skincare

• Cosmetic injecting professionals often suggest that you start seeking solutions when you first notice these lines are forming
• Because if you wait, they will become more difficult – if not impossible – to treat
• That’s because due to repeated expressions and skin strength loss, they become quite deeply ingrained lines quite quickly over time
• How quickly they deepen also depends on your habits, sun damage and skincare regimens.

What Are Vertical Upper Lip Lines?

• Also known as Smoker’s Lines, these vertically-oriented lip lines first start to appear above the upper lips.
• They are usually thin at first (fine lines) but then they start to deepen to where they appear to form skin crevices.

When do lip lines typically start to appear on the face?

When you start seeing vertical lip lines depends on a few different factors – some internal and others are lifestyle-related. Hence, age occurrence can vary.

• Vertical upper lip lines usually start to show up in your forties.
• You might not even notice they have begun, until one day you look in the mirror – more closely – and you think “WHOA, how long have they been there?”
• But if you have had a lot of sun, pursed your lips a lot or spent years smoking, they can show up a LOT earlier in life.
• By the 50s they can become quite pronounced, and by 60 or 70 they have significantly deepened in most individuals.

Are smoker’s lip lines and facial wrinkles worse than people who never smoked?

• It’s partially depending on the person and how long they smoked (and how often), but the quick answer is, yes.
• They are typically a lot worse, particularly after the person reaches their late 40s, fifties and sixties.
• Heavy smokers, in particular, can end up looking 10 to 15 years (or more) older than their same-aged non-smoking peers.

Smokers have particularly deep vertical lip lines from a combination of an inhaling (pursing the lips) and the damaging effects of smoking on their organs, including their skin.

What are above-lip lines or wrinkles officially called?

• Above the lip lines are actually vertical fissures. They begin with ‘fine’ lines that deepen over time.
• You might not even notice them at first but they become more visible as they deepen and as your skin ages.

Are lip lines only visible in smokers?

• The often-used term smoker’s lines might cause you to assume that only smokers get these – but that’s definitely not the case.
• As mentioned above, they sometimes occur earlier in smokers – or look more pronounced – but everyone tends to get them in time.

Vertical Lip Lines are not just what happens to smokers. They tend to happen to most people’s upper lips over time. But yes, smokers do get these lip lines sooner in life and these lines are often deeper or more ingrained.

Who gets vertical lip lines?

• Smokers are more prone to them for a variety of reasons
• inhaling expressions as well as less healthy skin that is more prone to wrinkling
• due to the devastating impact of smoking on ALL of your organs including your largest organ, your skin
• People who smoke have less vitamin uptake in their cells including skin
• meaning even if they adopt a good diet their nutrient uptake is lower
• they lack vitamins that keep their skin looking healthy
• Smokers tend to get these lines EARLIER than others who do not smoke.
• But women and men will tend to get these lines as they grow older even if they have never smoked.

A majority of women and men develop these vertical upper lip lines, as well as facial wrinkles, as they age.

It’s not just smokers who get lines above their lips and heavy wrinkles.

• But these vertical lip lines and facial wrinkles around the mouth and eyes, do tend to be more pronounced in people who smoke.
• So wrinkles tend to impact the facial appearance a lot earlier than they do in non-smokers.

Reasons Skin Looks More Wrinkled Around the Mouth or Lips

• The reason for facial lines above the lip area relates to the loss of elasticity in the skin or skin tone (strength/volume) due to ageing.
• The skin volume, skin structures and skeletal support all decrease over time (this is known as atrophy)
• As a result of this loss of skin collagen and skeletal atrophy, the area above the lips gets wrinkled and can take on a sunken appearance.

The lips themselves also seem to thin a bit as we grow older. The combination of thinning lips (atrophy) and decreased skin strength (less collagen or elastin) can result in a much higher chance of wrinkles forming around your eyes, mouth and lip area. Lip augmentation injections can really help balance out thin lips and add more volume and projection.