Our obsession with selfies may have led to lip plastic surgery spike

Pining for the perfect pout has thousands of women going under the knife in the U.S.

Lip implants gained popularity with both women — and men — across America last year. There were 27,449 of them performed (an increase of 48 per cent since 2000).

That translates to roughly one lip implant every 19 minutes.

“We live in the age of the selfie, and because we see images of ourselves almost constantly on social media, we’re much more aware of how our lips look,” Dr. David Song said in a statement.

Tweet This Click to share quote on Twitter: "We live in the age of the selfie, and because we see images of ourselves almost constantly on social media, we're much more aware of how our lips look," Dr. <a href="http://www.plasticsurgery.org/about-asps/leadership/asps-presidents-message.html" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">David Song</a> said in a statement.

He’s the president of the American Society of Plastic Surgeons, which came out with the new numbers this week.

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The group also commissioned a national survey asking more than 1,000 women which celebrity’s lips they coveted most. You can find the top four in the gallery below.

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Aside from selfies, experts credit new lip implant technology with the increase in lip implant popularity.

“We make two small incisions in the corners of the mouth, use a tiny passing instrument to pull the implant into place, and you’re done,” said Ohio plastic surgeon Dr. Robert Houser in a release. “Two stitches, very little bruising, minimal swelling.”

The recovery time is said to be “minimal.”

“Going to the right doctor is crucial,” Houser warned. “Mistakes from less qualified providers can be obvious and disastrous.”

Tweet This Click to share quote on Twitter: "Going to the right doctor is crucial," Houser warned. "Mistakes from less qualified providers can be obvious and disastrous."

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Lip injections, which offer a more temporary fix (of a few months), saw higher demand as well.

Between Botox and other fillers, they were part of nearly 9.2 million injection procedures in 2015, a combined increase of more than 1,000 per cent since 2000.

But not everyone’s buying that bigger is better.

There were 927 lip reductions in the U.S. in 2015, up more than 34 per cent over 2013.

Global News reached out to the Canadian Society of Plastic Surgeons to see if the findings are consistent with Canada’s most common cosmetic procedures. The group says it doesn’t track that kind of information.