When filler removal goes wrong: ‘My lips and cheeks caved in’

The trend for ‘duck lips’ is over and many people are seeking to reverse their cosmetic treatments – often with painful and disfiguring results

It was her wedding photographs that did for Grace Stewart’s dermal fillers. By the time the 32-year-old married her long-term partner in 2022, she had been getting fillers for three years – first in her jaw, in pursuit of “that snatched look”, and latterly in her lips, cheeks, nose and chin. One image in particular made her do a double-take: a side-on candid shot in which she is being swept up in a hug by a cousin. “It was this really lovely moment, but all you can see is my chin curling up and this bulky jaw,” says the Nottingham-based social media manager. “I now think: ‘My Lord, why did I do that to myself?’”

Stewart did not get any further treatments in the two years after her wedding, but while hyaluronic acid filler is typically marketed as temporary – lasting up to 18 months – she couldn’t seem to shake the volume that had been injected into her jaw. So, this year, she made like Kylie Jenner, Courteney Cox and Molly-Mae Hague and had social media’s latest injection du jour: hyaluronidase, or dissolver. “I now know that there’s a reason why my face is the shape that it is. It’s not supposed to have this angle to it that doesn’t flow,” she says. “I feel so sad that I felt the need to adjust how I looked just to feel like the best version of myself.”

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When filler removal goes wrong: ‘My lips and cheeks caved in’

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