The treatment I tried
Juvéderm Voluma XC, in my cheeks
My provider
Delray Beach, Florida, dermatologist Dr. Janet Allenby
Why I tried it
When I walked into the glamorous yet pristine Allenby Dermatology suite, I did so as a woman whose mind was immutably set on shaping my lips by way of injectable filler. Or at least I thought it was immutably set. Over the past three years, I’ve gotten the treatment done three times—and I’ve loved the results more and more each time. To my delight, my lips have never fully deflated back to their original baseline fullness (or lack thereof), but I’ve come to enjoy what had become an annual volumizing ritual.
However, when Dr. Janet Allenby, a board-certified dermatologist in Delray Beach, Florida, looked at my face more objectively and more clinically than I ever could, she surprised me by asking me to reconsider my request for fuller lips. It’s not that she was opposed to injecting me; she just had a very confident argument for why the filler should be used on a different part of my face.
“I really think you have beautiful lips to start with, and since you have a little more fullness in the bottom half of your face, it’s actually going to add end up making it look more bottom-heavy,” she said of lip injections, using an adjective I’d never heard applied to faces before. “Everything’s about proportion and balance—and if we added more to your mouth, you would actually extend out more and it would start throwing you more out of proportion.”
Related: 5 myths about lip fillers busted
Her suggestion? Get cheek injections instead. “Cheek augmentation creates fullness of the cheek,” she explained. “People like to see cheek shape—it’s considered a very beautiful attribute in our little reptilian brains.”
My concerns
Dr. Allenby made a great point (albeit one I was reluctant to accept, because I really do love full lips). In addition to fullness in the lower half of my face, especially when I smile, my cheeks have always been kind of flat and are probably conspiring to only get flatter with age. Despite being a beauty editor for more than a decade and a makeup wearer since I was 12, I’ve never felt confident implementing the blush and contour application tips I’ve helped disseminate for so long. Sweep a shade slightly darker than my skin tone under my cheekbones? I’d love to, if I only knew where, exactly, that was. Add blush to the apples of my cheeks? Is it possible that some cheeks don’t come with apples?
Specifically, Dr. Allenby wanted to use Juvéderm Voluma XC—an injectable gel made with hyaluronic acid, to correct volume loss in the cheek area, and the filler she favors for cheek augmentation. According to Allergan, the brand behind the Juvéderm collection of fillers, the results can last as long as two years. “But it’s also reversible in case, God forbid, you don’t like it,” Dr. Allenby assured me.
Related: Why hyaluronic acid is a powerhouse ingredient
I loved the promise of more shapeliness, but I was concerned that the results would simply make my face look fuller overall—something I was hoping to avoid, after recently losing 35 pounds (mostly in my face, it often seems). But Dr. Allenby shooed away that worry. “Just having a little more shape up there actually lifts the tissue,” she told me, explaining that some added fullness, focused on just the cheeks, provides lift and contour, not unwanted width. And the fact that jowls run in my family—and I may or may not have woken up with the beginnings of them on the exact morning of my 40th birthday, a few months ago—was all I needed to seal the deal and get my cheeks injected instead of my lips. (At least for now.)
It’s worth noting that although Juvéderm can be used in both lips and cheeks, different formulas are used, depending on the area of the face and your aesthetic goals. Whereas Voluma is the best option for cheeks, Dr. Allenby likely would have used Juvéderm Ultra XC or Volbella XC (which I’ve had injected before and loved) for the lips, because they’re not as thick or firm as Voluma and aren’t injected as deeply.
What the treatment was like
Many doctors inject lip and cheek filler with a needle. However, Dr. Allenby prefers to use a cannula. “I already knew how to use them, because I used them in liposuction. You can get them anywhere you can get a needle,” she said. And it’s not just an arbitrary preference. When cannulas were introduced as an option for cheek injection, practitioners found that there was significantly less bruising than with traditional needles. “[The cannula’s] blunt-tipped, meaning it’s not going to cut through your tissue to get where I’m going, to deliver the product.”
Pain level
She also explained the soreness would be different from that of lip injections. After applying a topical numbing cream, Dr. Allenby used a vein finder to choose an optimal entry point. “I don’t want to poke all over the place and give you holes everywhere,” Dr. Allenby explained. I felt slightly uncomfortable pressure as the filler was being injected, although in my opinion, it wasn’t as uncomfortable as lip injections. She said that afterward, however, is another story: “It’s gonna feel like I punched you in the face for a couple of days.”
Despite that statement’s being 100 percent true, I didn’t look like I’d been punched in the face—or sustained any injury, for that matter. Dr. Allenby was absolutely right about bruising: I didn’t get a single black-and-blue mark, which was a huge surprise to me, a person known to manifest bruises if I so much as think about bumping into a coffee table.
The verdict
Even if I had bruised, the results would have been worth it. The difference was instant and noticeable yet subtle and, as my husband insists I tell you, “so natural-looking, like it was supposed to be there all along.” My face looks slightly lifted, my quarter profile isn’t flat anymore, and best of all, I can see exactly where I’m supposed to apply blush and contouring products now. Ironically, however, I don’t even need the latter. (And I’m not wearing contouring makeup in the after photos — just the same blush I was wearing in the before shots.) Even viewing my face from the front, the Juvéderm has helped create those flattering shadows—the unmistakable mark of a shapely face—that I never thought I’d see in the mirror.
Considering how long Juvéderm Voluma XC lasts, it may be awhile before I visit Dr. Allenby for another injection session; but I will definitely return for a refresh when the time comes. And perhaps, in the meantime, we can reach a compromise on a little lip filler too.
