Anna Hargreaves Aesthetics

What’s the best aesthetic treatment for ageing?

The answer probably isn’t just one treatment.

Something I always explain to my patients is that achieving natural, balanced results often involves looking at several different aspects of facial ageing.

Dermal fillers can help restore lost volume and structural support.

Anti-wrinkle treatments can help soften expression lines.

Skin boosters, polynucleotides and other skin treatments can help improve skin quality, hydration and texture.

But here’s the important part…

You can restore volume to a face, but if the skin quality is poor, you might still not achieve the result you’re hoping for.

Equally, you can invest in beautiful skin, but that won’t necessarily address the structural changes happening beneath it.

This is why I believe in a combination approach, rather than relying on one treatment to do everything.

And that doesn’t mean having every treatment available. It means understanding what your face actually needs, prioritising the right areas and creating a plan that works for you.

The best results aren’t always about doing more. They’re about doing the right things, in the right order.

The area that bothers you isn’t always the area that needs treating first.

One of the most common concerns I hear from patients is about their lower face. They notice deeper folds, heaviness around the mouth or changes along the jawline.

Naturally, they assume that’s where the filler needs to go.

But here’s where understanding facial anatomy becomes so important.

As we age, we can lose volume and structural support through the mid-face, including the cheek area. These changes can contribute to what we’re seeing further down the face.

So rather than immediately placing filler into the lines or folds that bother you, I may recommend restoring support higher up first.

Because sometimes treating the lower face starts with treating the mid-face.

That doesn’t mean cheek filler will automatically lift or correct everything in the lower face. It’s about understanding what’s contributing to those changes and creating a treatment plan that makes sense for your individual anatomy.

This is exactly why I assess the face as a whole, rather than treating individual lines in isolation.

Treat the cause, not just what you can see.

Years of medical training and somehow this is the skill I’m most proud of 😂

Ask me to remember what I walked into a room for? Absolutely not.

Ask me to estimate how many ml of filler someone might need? Give me 20 seconds.

Not everyone is a suitable candidate for under-eye filler… and sometimes saying no is the best treatment decision.

The under-eye area is one of the most delicate areas of the face, and treating it isn’t always as straightforward as filling a hollow.

When assessing this area, I’m looking at much more than just whether someone has dark circles or looks tired.

I’m assessing skin quality, tissue thickness, puffiness, fluid retention, fat pads and the support from the surrounding cheek area.

For example, if someone already struggles with under-eye bags, puffiness or fluid retention, adding filler can potentially make the area look worse rather than better.

And sometimes what appears to be an under-eye hollow is actually influenced by volume loss and reduced support in the mid-face.

Just because an area can be injected doesn’t mean it should be.

For some patients, under-eye filler may be appropriate. For others, treatments aimed at improving skin quality, addressing mid-face volume loss or a referral for surgical assessment may be more beneficial.

My priority will always be choosing the right treatment for your anatomy, even when that means advising against filler.

Good aesthetics starts with knowing when NOT to inject.

There are still so many misconceptions around lip filler…

“I’ll end up with duck lips.”
“1ml is loads.”
“It’ll definitely migrate.”

But having lip filler doesn’t automatically mean having big, obvious lips.

Good lip filler is about your anatomy, your proportions, the right product, appropriate amounts and careful placement. For some patients, the aim might simply be better definition, hydration or restoring a little structure that’s been lost over time.

And migration? It can happen, but having 1ml of filler does not mean your filler is destined to migrate. Product choice, placement, volume, anatomy, repeated treatments and time can all play a part.

The goal should never be to make you look like you’ve “had your lips done.”

It should still look like you just subtly enhanced.

This patient had previously had migrated lip filler dissolved. Once the unwanted product had been removed, she was left with some indentation and irregularity in the tissue just above the lip border, which created shadowing and made the area look less smooth.

Rather than simply refilling the lips, I used a very soft, fine dermal filler strategically through the area above the lip to gently soften those indentations and improve the transition between the lip and surrounding skin.

No big change. No unnecessary volume.

Just a small, considered treatment to restore a smoother, softer and more natural-looking result.

Sometimes the smallest adjustments make the biggest difference.