The Restylane family of fillers is a long-established line of fillers based on hyaluronic acid, a naturally occurring substance in your body.  In fact, it is found in the area between your living cells, much like collagen is.  Although the Restylane fillers are all similar in their composition, they differ in their physical properties.  They are all of different “stiffness” or “elasticity”, to better match the area they are augmenting.  For example, the cheeks require a filler that is more “stiff”, while the lips need something that is more “soft”.  Luckily, we have several options to treat most areas of the face, and the Restylane line offers something for every area.

 

 

Restylane, the original member of this family, is still a great material for a variety of applications despite multiple generations of fillers that have come after it.  It is an intermediate consistency filler, being soft enough to use in the lips and tear troughs as well as being stiff enough to use in the cheeks.  Before the more “thin” fillers were introduced, it was the filler of choice to fill superficial lines in the skin as well.

 

 

The stiffest of the Restylane line, Lyft is my filler of choice to augment the cheeks as well as the corners of the mouth.  It has a resilience to it that no other Restylane product offers, and this makes it a great choice to treat deeper areas that need to resist the effects of gravity.  Restylane Lyft is actually more “stiff” than Juvederm Voluma, and produces great results when placed properly.   I commonly use it in cheeks to replace lost volume, marionette lines to soften the shadow in the jawline, and smile lines to soften the transition between the cheeks and lips.

 

 

 

The newest generation of offerings from the Restylane line are products that excel in areas of motion.  Their cohesive properties give them the ability to augment areas they are injected into, to deform when manipulated, and to “snap” back to the resting position when the manipulation ends.  For example, you have lines around your mouth that are treated and filled, you smile, and then rest again, and the filler follows you in every step. This makes these fillers especially useful in the lower third of the face.

 

 

Defyne is the more “stiff” of these fillers, and does well to add volume to the “smile lines”, or nasolabial folds, as they are in constant motion, as well as marionette lines, or the lines running from the corners of the mouth down to the jawline.  With the ability of this filler to move and snap back to where it was injected, treating the animated face now gives much better results.

 

 

Refyne is the “thin” version of the newest filler line and does especially well treating the “smoker’s lines”, or the radial lip lines.  These are lines that I used to not treat, and now I find myself treating these more, as I can now inject this filler much more superficially than others, and it looks great without forming lumps.  I also use this filler to treat the frown lines (the “11s”) with great results, as it “keeps up” with the motion much better than Restylane used to.  It is also a great filler in the lips and tear troughs, making its versatility a helpful addition to the Restylane family.