Kylie Jenner’s lips are probably one of the world’s most talked about body parts in the world right now, coming in just below Kim Kardashian’s arse and Cara’s brows (which, FYI, I’ll never get bored of). Sure, we might have heard that it takes her about 40 minutes to draw them on, but aren’t KJ’s lips just the result of meticulously applied lipliner?
And the obsesssion continues. Since Friday, people have been getting involved in the #kyliejennerchallenge, where they use a glass/jar/pot and place it over their lips and suck it in to form a vacuum that makes the lips swell. And, judging by most of the pics going around, ends up making them look pretty gross and disfigured.
But messing about with lip suction like that can’t be good for you – can it? ‘I guess there are two issues here – the short term and the longer term. If you were to do this as aggressively as people seem to have done, then you could certainly cause bruising, bleeding, blistering and cause the possibility of infection. If people were to repeat it multiple times then the danger is that you could produce a permanent change,’ consultant plastic surgeon and BAAPS member Stephen Hamilton told The Debrief.
But how does that compare to the potential risks of actual fillers? ‘When someone makes an aesthetic change to the lip with filler or the like, it’s very uncontrolled. Most fillers these days are temporary and absorbable. They’re relatively modest amounts and they will disappear in time, so if it produces effects that you don’t like, it goes away.’
He warns: ‘If you're doing this kind of thing [the #kyliejennerchallenge] where there’s uncontrolled stretching of the tissues potentially done repeatedly, they may produce changes to the skin or the red tissue of the lip and you could produce irregularity or laxity that you didn’t want to have.’
So basically, it’s probably best not to do this, people. As for why they’re actually doing this, we’re undecided in the office. Are they taking the piss? Or do they genuinely want to try and imitate her full lips? In which case we’re thinking it's one of those silly ‘challenges’ that’s going around, like the cinnamon challenge.
But the fact that there’s actual, ‘legit’ devices that you can buy which use suction to plump up your lips and take you through a ‘conditioning period’, shows that there’s a definite wider ‘trend’ of big, full lips.
Are lips the new bums? It looks like they might be. Remember though, there’s nothing wrong with ‘thin’ lips. Still not convinced? All you need is a decent lipstick and liner to get yourself some KJ lips.
Like this? Then you might also be interested in:
Six Second Hacks: We Try Out Kylie Jenner’s Humongous Lips On Vine
Follow Chemmie on Twitter @chemsquier
This article originally appeared on The Debrief.