Hello! New here! DIY Filler Questions!
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Sun Jan 20, 2019 9:10 am

I've been doing my own filler for about 3 years now. At first I ordered from a website that sold out of England, but now I order my filler from a vendor on Alibaba. There are thousands of vendors on there that sell it - for WAY WAY cheaper than the big name brands. And it's the EXACT SAME thing. Actually, if you do some research, the process of making Hyaluronic Acid is very easy for these labs. These big name pharmaceutical companies charge so much solely for the name recognition and to fund their entire operation- not on the product itself. Anyway, I usually order a 5ml syringe of the "Deep" and a 2 ml syringe of the "Fine". The difference is the size of the particles, and therefore the thickness/viscosity is the product. For the lips you would want "Fine" or "Ultra Fine". With how thin the skin is there and how much the lips move, you want a very thin or runny consistency of the filler. Thicker fillers in the lips will look unnatural, be a little less comfortable to move your lips and you have more of a chance at forming nodules/granulomas (the body reacts more to the larger particles).

I have to say though, that the lips are the most difficult and painful area to do, and it took me two years to work my way up to doing them on myself. They are very vascular (therefore bleed a lot resulting in bruising) and the pain is pretty bad without lidocaine. If I didn't pre-treat with lidocaine I honestly don't think I could block out the pain enough to focus solely on the procedure - which is a MUST if you want a decent result. Also, because it is such a small area and the skin so thin you have to be very precise with the amount of filler you place. Your injection technique has to be extremely even and consistent along the entire lip, otherwise you'll have one side of your lip larger than the other. You have to know the precise depth- too deep and you'll only see a bulge on the inside of your mouth, too superficial and you'll get bubbles or blisters of filler right under the skin that will pop and ooze out filler.

If you want to go the DIY route- I HIGHLY recommend getting proficient at it on other areas first. The areas to start or learn on are the areas that have the thickest skin- which would be the cheeks and jawline. Areas with the thinnest skin are the hardest and going to hurt more. And I can't suggest enough the use of a micro cannula instead of a needle (you can buy on EBay for about $5 per cannula). To summarize it- you poke a hole in the skin with a needle, then remove the needle and slide the cannula through that hole and under the skin. The tip is rounded, therefore it doesn't slice the tissue as it moves through the skin. Basically the cannula just slides right by the veins instead of slicing through them with a needle. There is WAY less trauma to the tissue therefore less bruising, less painful, more control of depth, etc. But this is a whole other technique to learn as well.

I've become very very good at it- to the point where my sister who is a ER nurse is trying to convince me to get the licensure needed to do it professionally. She says I know more than most of the assistants that do these injections in the clinic.

My advice- Watch a MILLION videos, study facial anatomy (nerve location, vein location, skin depth charts, etc) practice using a syringe (using even pressure so that the same amount comes out the whole time) and only do a little bit at a time. You can always go back and add more. Baby steps.

But it can certainly be done. I've saved myself thousands and thousands of dollars over the years. Just be smart and safe.

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