What are Facial Fillers?
The power of facial fillers or dermal fillers to sculpt and contour facial features, as well as improve skin texture, is revolutionary. The L&P Aesthetics master injection team specializes in the use of dermal fillers such as JUVÉDERM® and Restylane in Palo Alto and Los Gatos. They know exactly how each product works on different areas of the face and in the levels of facial tissues.
During your consultation, our staff will help you decide on a personalized treatment plan to achieve your desired goals.
We work exclusively on the face and have extensive experience with fillers and other approaches for nonsurgical and surgical facial rejuvenation. Just as importantly, we will take the time to understand your goals, create a specific treatment plan, and work toward a result that matches your desires and expectations.
Get Discounts On JUVÉDERM And Other Facial Fillers
Signing up for the free ALLE rewards program will allow you to unlock valuable discounts on Juvederm and other facial fillers as well as wrinkle treatments like BOTOX Cosmetic. On occasion, L&P Aesthetics, Palo Alto and L&P Aesthetics, Los Gatos also offer promos on dermal fillers so checkout our specials page.
Your Volume Loss Solution
We know how personal this process is for each individual; the same plan does not work for everyone. Some patients want a single area addressed, such as the folds around the mouth or the fine lines around the lips. Others want to treat their face more comprehensively. There are now multiple ways to replace volume.
Facial fillers are important tools for the facial plastic surgeon. Our experienced facial plastic surgeons will design a treatment plan tailored to each patient based on their specific needs and desires. Sometimes the best result can be achieved using different fillers that complement each other. Volume loss can also be replaced using fat transfer or fat grafting from one part of the body to another.
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What Should I Expect for My Filler Treatment?
Once you decide to proceed with treatment, we will carefully analyze your face and devise a comprehensive treatment plan that takes on a global approach. Our philosophy is to never have our patients look “over-filled” or “over-done.” It is always better for our patients to age gracefully and appear natural. It is vital for us to obtain a result that balances all your facial features in harmony. We will suggest very specific refinements to enhance your beauty without the worry of surgery or downtime.
Using a very small needle, the chosen filler is injected into targeted areas. There is rarely much discomfort. Redness at the injection sites should subside within an hour. Bruising is infrequent but when present can last for a few days. This can be camouflaged with makeup. Patients can return to work immediately after treatment. The treatment begins to take effect right away and results can last between three months to over a year, depending on the type of filler used. Dermal fillers are a safe, easy and effective way to restore volume to the face and minimize or even erase wrinkles. Treatment should be performed by an experienced professional you trust.
What Do Dermal Fillers Accomplish?
A youthful face has volume and subtle contours. As we age, we lose fat in certain areas such as the cheeks, temples, and around the mouth. This volume loss produces a sunken appearance and a wrinkled texture to the skin. Injectable fillers are a minimally invasive treatment to correct many of the signs of aging. They can make a dramatic improvement with minimal downtime.
Our team uses dermal fillers to help San Francisco-area patients fill in hollows that can create shadowing under the eyes or the appearance of sunken cheeks. By temporarily replacing lost volume, fillers restore a more contoured, youthful look to the area.
We also offer the innovative microcannula injection method. These blunt-ended microcannulas pierce fewer arteries and veins when inserted through the skin, resulting in less bruising, swelling, and downtime.
Why L&P & the Different Types of Fillers
All the facial fillers we offer, including the JUVÉDERM family of fillers (JUVÉDERM VOLUMA®, VOLLURE™, Ultra XC, VOLBELLA® XC) Restylane®, BELOTERO BALANCE®, RADIESSE®, and Sculptra® Aesthetic, are done in our comfortable office setting using only a topical local anesthetic. You will be awake the entire time so that you can see the results as they happen. There is also no downtime and minimal to no post-treatment bruising.
- Hyaluronic acid is a naturally occurring substance that is found in all parts of our own body
- These fillers are soft and easy to inject at various depths in the skin
- Safe with very low allergy potential
- There is an antidote – this is the one class of filler that is reversible
- Results tend to last nine to 24 months depending on where the injection is given and which filler is selected
- Common areas: fine lines around the mouth, lips, enhancement to the cheek area, under eyes, tear trough, folds around the mouth
Calcium Hydroxylapatite: RADIESSE
- Naturally occurring substance found in bones
- Excellent structural filler, used for filling in deeper folds and hollows
- Safe – very low allergy potential
- Lasts 18 months on average
- Common indications: deeper folds around the mouth, hollows in front of the jowl, sunken cheekbones, hollowing at the temples
Poly-L-Lactic Acid: Sculptra Aesthetic
- Indicated for volume loss and hollowing along the cheeks, midface, and temples
- Works by stimulating your own collagen, restoring fullness to volume-depleted areas and deeper wrinkles
- Can last well over 2 years after complete correction is achieved
- At least 2 sessions are required. The best results are achieved with two to four sessions
What Are the Differences Between These Fillers?
This is a very common question during a consultation. All the fillers work in the same way. They are injected beneath the skin near wrinkles and hollows caused by the natural aging process. They help rejuvenate and replenish the skin, helping those areas that lie flat to regain natural contours and thereby decrease shadows and concavities. Fillers also have a lifting capability. Each filler has its own applications in different parts of the face.
While there are benefits unique to each of the various brands noted above, there are also variations within a single family of fillers. JUVÉDERM, for instance, has a formula used primarily for treating lines and wrinkles around the nose and mouth, a formula for restoring volume to the apple of the cheeks, and a formula designed to augment lips that are thinning or just need a boost to appear fuller.
During your visit, we will determine which fillers will address your unique needs. If you have any questions about facial fillers, please call L&P Aesthetics at 650-381-1077.
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Facial Fillers Before and After Gallery
View real results from real patients below.
Recovery and Beyond
Because we have a unique understanding of complex facial anatomy, developed through training and experience as facial plastic surgeons, we think about the face as a 3-dimensional structure comprised of layers of skin, complex facial muscles, connective tissue, and bone. It is not simply about filling lines and wrinkles, but rather about achieving harmony and balance in the contours of an attractive face.
Facial Fillers FAQs
Common indications for dermal fillers include:
- Deepening of the folds around the mouth (nasolabial folds)
- Deepening of folds that run from the corners of the mouth toward the chin (marionette lines)
- Downturn of the corners of mouth that creates a permanent frown or unhappy look
- Deepening of the hollow in front of the jowls
- Fine lines around the mouth (smoker’s lines)
- Scars that have created depressions as they have healed
- Creases in the brow and forehead
- Acne scarring
- Hollowness and shadowing under the eyes
- Volume loss at the cheeks and cheekbones
- Sinking in at the temples
- Lip augmentation (lip injections)/lip enhancement
There are 2 main reasons why dermal fillers may be known as “collagen injections,” even though they contain no collagen.
- Injectables designed to add volume to the face were primarily collagen-based in years past. The active ingredient in these injections is derived either from human skin or from large, domesticated animals, such as cows and pigs. Bovine and porcine collagen require that patients get allergy testing, so when hyaluronic acid-based fillers arrived, patients gravitated toward them due to their ease of use, as well as their longer-lasting results.
- Dermal fillers serve as a stand-in for collagen, temporarily providing the same benefits as the valuable protein after it diminishes in the skin. Some fillers essentially replace collagen for a time where it is needed. Other fillers physically stimulate the growth of new collagen in addition to providing volume.
As an abundant protein in the body and the skin, in particular, collagen serves to provide support where structural stability is needed, making structures both strong and elastic as necessary. In the skin, collagen creates a framework for other vital components and keeps tissues lifted into youthful contours.
Our bodies naturally make collagen, though the protein breaks down over time and can be damaged and destroyed by ultraviolet radiation, toxins and pollutants, and other elements. When we are young, collagen is quickly replaced, so our skin maintains its structure well. As we get older, however, collagen production tapers off, so the protein grows increasingly scarce in our skin. Its absence leads to problems from small-scale fine lines and wrinkles to large-scale facial contour shifts as once-rounded areas flatten and sag.
Hyaluronic acid’s role in healthy skin is to keep it moist, as it retains water very well. It also works to fill space, keeping contours round. Like collagen, hyaluronic acid levels in the skin drop over time. As skin dries out and loses its filler, wrinkles form, laxity increases, and structure diminishes.
A third element, elastin, allows the skin to stay pliant and resilient, moving back into its proper place after being pulled by muscles while forming expressions. In this way, its role as a structural support is closely related to collagen. As elastin diminishes, skin loses its ability to stretch and move with ease. Wrinkles begin to develop, then stay and become increasingly pronounced.
The collective loss of collagen, hyaluronic acid, and elastin intensifies the signs of aging.
BOTOX® Cosmetic and fillers are often combined to make subtle enhancements to your face. Their collective, temporary effects have been referred to as a “liquid facelift.” BOTOX can improve wrinkles caused by movement of the facial muscles, while fillers can enhance a wider variety of areas of the face by increasing volume and thereby eradicating wrinkles, shadows, creases, and depressions of the face.
Because dermal fillers focus on adding volume to the face, patients who want to revitalize their skin by addressing uneven pigmentation that has developed over time due to the natural aging process and sun exposure can choose skin resurfacing via lasers, and many of the skin resurfacing treatments offered at The iO Clinic such as chemical peels, dermaplaning, and microneedling. These treatments complement fillers by removing the outermost layers and reducing the appearance of irregularities in coloring, as well as fine lines and some scarring.
The lift from a JUVÉDERM VOLUMA treatment may inspire some patients to improve other contours on their face. Ultherapy® uses ultrasound therapy to tighten sagging tissues on the face and neck, while the injectable KYBELLA® ruptures unwanted fat cells that cause a double chin and obscure a defined jawline. A surgical facelift is also available for men and women seeking long-term results in their efforts to maintain youthful facial contours.
Our core objective is always to provide a safe, comfortable surgical experience that aspires to restore your appearance and aims to produce natural results.
BOTOX® Cosmetic and fillers are often combined to make subtle enhancements to your face. Their collective, temporary effects have been referred to as a “liquid facelift.” BOTOX can improve wrinkles caused by movement of the facial muscles, while fillers can enhance a wider variety of areas of the face by increasing volume and thereby eradicating wrinkles, shadows, creases, and depressions of the face.
Because dermal fillers focus on adding volume to the face, patients who want to revitalize their skin by addressing uneven pigmentation that has developed over time due to the natural aging process and sun exposure can choose skin resurfacing via lasers, a chemical peel, dermaplaning, or microneedling. These treatments complement fillers by removing the outermost layers and reducing the appearance of irregularities in coloring, as well as fine lines and some scarring.
The lift from a JUVÉDERM VOLUMA treatment may inspire some patients to improve other contours on their face. Ultherapy® uses ultrasound therapy to tighten sagging tissues on the face and neck, while the injectable KYBELLA® ruptures unwanted fat cells that cause a double chin and obscure a defined jawline. A surgical facelift is also available for men and women seeking long-term results in their efforts to maintain youthful facial contours.
Our core objective is always to provide a safe, comfortable surgical experience that aspires to restore your appearance and aims to produce natural results.
Did you know you earn points and save money by joining the Allē rewards program? It’s free to register, and every time our office treats you with JUVÉDERM, BOTOX, or any other Allergan product, you’ll earn points for savings on future treatments or purchases.
