I think you’re making things overly complicated. As with almost every single procedure, the outcome is based primarily on patient candidacy and provider skill. Longevity seems to vary from person to person, but it’s also highly dependent on the product is being used. For longevity in lips, I highly recommend using Voluma. A bit more expensive, but the longevity makes it a better value. Once the filler has been injected, it starts dissipating. It dissipates based on volume rather than time in the lips so injecting every month has no advantage other than maintaining consistent size, but comes to the cost of having too many treatments. For most people all the filler will be gone by six months and this means half of it will be gone by three months. if you don’t mind going all the way down to baseline injection twice a year should work but this includes spending half the time with less than half the volume If you want to maintain fullness, then consider getting injected every 3 to 4 months. For most people is 1 mL is sufficient. For people who have large lips and want even bigger lips than sometimes slightly more volume is needed. It’s really important to maintain a natural upper to lower lip ratio, and this should be kept the same as the patient was before treatment. The upper lip is almost always smaller than the lower lip, and this ratio should be maintained. The topic of how the injection should be done and what constitutes a really high-quality outcome is a bit beyond what can be covered here. You can’t do much about your own candidacy so they only real variable that matters that patients have control over is provider selection. Average providers deliver average results and this accounts for the great majority of providers. Only exceptional providers deliver exceptional outcomes. Finding an exceptional provider is more difficult than most people realize. Being exceptional includes consistent, high-quality aesthetic results, injecting without significant discomfort, and never having significant bruising after. All of this is possible in the hands of the rightprovider. In regards to timing of injections, I recommend you have more filler when you feel that your lips are shrinking to the point where you want augmentation and are willing to have another treatment. This is simply a balancing act between maintaining even results versus how often you want to go through the treatment. with more frequent treatments volume can potentially be reduced each time. Because treatments can potentially be uncomfortable and cause bruising in the hands of most providers decreasing the number of treatments is desirable. This is the main reason I recommend using Voluma in lips Because it maintains volume longer and can reduce the number of injections overtime. When considering all the variables involved, I suggest focusing all the effort on provider selection. In the hands of the right provider, all other variables will be taken care of and fall into place. As I mentioned previously in the hands of the right provider patient should expect consistent flawless results With minimal discomfort and very low chance of bruising after. Best, Mats Hagstrom MD