Are the benefits of lip flips all talk?
Experts seem to think so. NYC dermatologist Dr. Shereene Idriss recently took to TikTok to warn users against the cosmetic procedure, which involves injecting Botox near the upper lip to relax the muscles for patients who don’t want a “gummy” smile.
Idriss revealed that she wasn’t aware of the side effects that accompany lip flips until she got the injections herself.
“This is something your dermatologist should tell you if you’re considering getting a lip flip,” she said in the video.
In fact, she nearly “ruined” her toddler’s birthday after getting a lip flip because she was unable to help her child blow out the candles atop the cake.
“The issue is, Botox takes a good 10 to 14 days to kick in, and when it’s at that peak period of two to four weeks, it’s very hard to move your upper lip,” she explained, adding that it makes drinking from a straw or blowing out candles nearly impossible.
While Idriss clarified that, for the right candidate, a lip flip can work well, viewers shared their own negative experiences with the procedure.
“My lip was so floppy that I was making fart noises with my mouth when I talked,” one user commented. “Never again.”
“I couldn’t drink from a straw, it was ridiculous!” lamented another.
“YOU CANT BLOW YOUR NOSE EITHER! I was NOT prepared for that little discovery with a lip flip,” someone else wrote.
“I regretted mine immediately and will never do it again!” another chimed in, adding that “it changed my smile.”
And they aren’t alone. People have previously shared their injectable horror stories online, with one woman claiming she “looked like a serial killer.”
In 2023, Chloe Ellies revealed that just three days after receiving Botox jabs for a lip flip, she was left unable to smile properly.
“On that third day, my boyfriend said I looked like the girl from ‘Smile,’” she told The Post at the time. “I ran to the mirror, smiled, and then cried big crocodile tears.”
She said she went into “panic mode,” researching how long the effects of the botulinum toxin would last — and was “devastated” to discover it would take weeks to months to fade completely.
She was so “embarrassed” that she would over her smile whenever she laughed.
“It totally distorted my face — my cheeks were flattened and frozen, and my eyes now wrinkled where they never had before because my outer cheek was pushing up on them when I smiled,” she said, calling the ordeal “a terrible first experience.”