Cheek fillers are most suitable for patients who would want to restore the volume and youthfulness to their face. As we age, our face starts to lose volume in different areas. For some patients, the ‘baby fats’ on the cheeks tend to disappear more prominently. This makes one look older and more haggard. At the same time, when you lose the fullness of the mid face, it can also make your face look squarer.
Mid cheek fillers can replenish this lost volume effectively, giving one a more youthful and feminine look. For some patients, the area beside the nose bridge can also seem sunken due to the lose of volume. This area is what we call the medial cheek. Medial cheek fillers, usually in conjunction with undereye fillers, can naturally fill up and restore years to one’s face.
Our ‘cheek bone’ or the lateral cheek, gives a lifted and more youthful appearance to our face. Similarly, a loss of volume around this area will result in a droopy looking face and a more aged appearance. Cheek fillers can also be done around the lateral cheek bone area to plump it up and giving the face an overall more lifted appearance.
Fuller cheeks, replenishing of facial volume loss, and a more youthful look. In addition, for patients with deep smile lines, cheek fillers help lift up the cheeks and slightly reduce smile lines as well.
The amount of filler depends on the amount of volume loss one has.
Typically, mid cheek/apple cheeks usually use 1.5-2.5ml (1.5-2.5 syringes) in total.
For medial or lateral cheeks (cheek bone), 1-1.5ml (1-1.5 syringes) should be sufficient for most patients.
Not all fillers are made equal – it takes a professional to understand their intended uses, and experience to know which would be more suitable for which area. Place a filler wrongly and you may end up looking weird!
Juvederm Voluma is an excellent choice for mid cheek/apple cheek fillers. They last longer, provide more volume replacement than most fillers, and absorbs water over time, leaving the cheeks full and plump.
Restylane Volyme is also a good choice of filler for the cheeks. Like Juvederm Voluma, it is also designed to be soft enough to be natural and without lumpiness, but also able to provide more volume replacement than most fillers.
Radiesse and Ellanse are also suitable fillers for the cheeks – However, as they are non-hyaluronic acid fillers, they can feel slightly harder than hyaluronic acid fillers. A plus point for both Radiesse and Ellanse though, they do have some collagen-stimulating properties that can help plump up facial tissue in the long run.
For medial cheek fillers, we would use a filler that is lighter and softer, as the skin there is thinner without as much tissue compared to the mid cheek. A filler like Restylane Refyne or Juvederm Ultra XC would be suitable for the medial cheek.
For better cheek bone definition and filling of the lateral cheek – Restylane Lyft would be the most ideal filler, as it gives the lift and definition without collapsing over time. It also does not absorb water over time as we do not want a rounded protruding lateral cheek/face.
