Direct (Sashimi) Lip Lift

The Direct (Sashimi) Lip Lift at V CLINIC Brno places the incision along the lip's vermillion border — the red-to-skin boundary — rather than beneath the nose. By removing a strip of skin at this border, the philtrum is shortened and the lip's pink edge is optically enhanced, creating fuller-looking lips through permanent anatomical repositioning. Unlike the bullhorn technique, scar placement is at the lip border rather than the nose base, and the effect is slightly more direct in enhancing the lip vermillion. Suitable as an alternative to filler for patients with inverted vermillion, downturned corners, or wrinkles above the lips.

The sashimi lip lift, also termed the direct lip lift, achieves a similar outcome to the bullhorn technique — philtrum shortening and lip vermillion enhancement — but through a different incision strategy. Rather than placing the excision beneath the nose base, the sashimi technique removes a strip of skin directly at the vermillion border: the anatomical boundary between the pink lip tissue and the surrounding skin. This placement means that when the skin above the excision is advanced downward and sutured, the vermillion border is moved superiorly and slightly anteriorly, directly revealing more pink lip tissue and creating the appearance of a fuller, more defined lip profile. The result is a permanent enhancement of lip architecture — the vermillion shows more, lip color is visible even in profile, and wrinkles above the lip caused by lip inversion are also improved. The trade-off compared to the bullhorn technique is scar location: the sashimi scar runs along the vermillion border rather than in the less-visible nose-base crease. This scar is typically well-concealed by the natural colour difference at the lip boundary, but patients are counselled on this difference during consultation so they can make an informed choice between the two techniques. Surgery takes approximately 45 minutes under local anaesthesia, with same-day discharge, suture removal at day 9, and scar massage from week two. Active recovery is two weeks and the final result is visible at one to two months.