Can You Still Kiss After Lip Injections?

Winter is the time of year for kissing. The Christmas season brought kissing under the mistletoe, New Year’s Eve brought kissing at midnight, and everybody is kissing 2024 goodbye as they welcome 2025. With all of this focus on lips, it’s no wonder that people consider lip injections at Wisconsin’s Radiance Skin Therapy.

Lip injections involve the introduction of hyaluronic acid-based gel into the lips to make them fuller, softer, smoother, and more pillowy. Enhancements can be subtle or more dramatic, depending on the patient’s goals for their pout.

Speaking of goals, many patients want to know whether their treated lips will still be good for kissing after an injection session. The Radiance Skin Therapy team is happy to report that enhanced lips are still quite safe to kiss, but you’ll want to wait just a little while before starting on smooching.

The ideal window for putting the kibosh on kissing is very brief: just 24 to 48 hours. After that, feel free to pucker up!

Why is this couple-day rest period important? Just after injection, the gel is still malleable and “finding its place” in the treatment area. Putting too much pressure on the substance below the surface can cause it to move or migrate, leading to results that don’t quite look like they did just after the injection. To ensure everything stays where intended, give the lips a rest for a couple of days.

Kissing is also a very intimate activity and involves sharing a lot with someone else—including bacteria. Keeping the injection sites as clean as possible in the hours after a treatment session can help to minimize any unwanted side effects.

Finally, note that just-enhanced lips may be sensitive, with slight bruising and swelling being common developments to watch for. Until these effects resolve, kissing may not be quite the delightful experience you are hoping it to be.

Be aware that the results just after a lip filler session may appear overfilled and exaggerated. This is primarily due to post-treatment swelling. As the swelling goes down, the actual extent of the enhancement will become apparent. This added volume can be expected to last six to 12 months for your first few sessions—but can gain longevity over time with repeated sessions! Throughout that time, you can kiss—and talk, pout, talk, sing, and do whatever you’d like with your lips.

To learn more about lip injections, contact Radiance Skin Therapy and Laser Center by calling 608.240.0088 or scheduling a consultation online.

Anne Pientka