Dr Laurent Miralles
A well-proportioned profile is essential to the face’s overall harmony, explains Doctor Laurent Miralles, an aesthetic doctor who has developed a protocol to free patients from their profile-related hang-ups.
When a patient comes to see Doctor Miralles about an isolated facial feature that they are not happy with – nose, chin, mouth– he first carries out an in-depth assessment of their 
as well as carefully analysing their body structure. This assessment is a good way of explaining to the patient that an isolated treatment, from head-on, will not give completely satisfactory results. Every part of the face has a role to play in the overall facial harmony. It should look well-proportioned from head-on but also from the side.
Using this observation as a starting point, Dr Miralles developed an innovative protocol using hyaluronic acid injections, performed into the profile as opposed to head-on. This enables him to balance out the volumes in the forehead, nose, lips and chin. There is no need for any aggressive procedures, no side-effects, no pain and no downtime.
The different stages involved in treating the profile
According to society’s accepted beauty ideals, the face’s profile should go in a straight line from the forehead, through the tip of the nose and down to the tip of the chin. The upper lip should be in line with, or possibly a few millimetres behind, this line. But, when a feature does not fit in with this ideal – too- flat forehead, drooping nose, blurred lip contour, weak chin or saggy ear lobes – what should we do? The best thing is to have some injections, using a hyaluronic acid whose specific texture is recommended for treating the problem concerned.
Forehead: subtly rounded
Anomalies in the shape of the forehead (too flat or concave), which are either genetic or due to aging, are representative of those “little” unsightly flaws that you might not even consider a problem but which disrupt the face’s profile.
Profile Touch-Up:
Just one session of hyaluronic acid injections is enough to give the forehead an immediate and subtle rounded shape. Since the product is resorbable, the injections need repeating after around eighteen months.
Nose: reshaping without surgery
Drooping tip, prominent hump, hollow bridge? All women (and men) that suffer from these flaws agree: “When I meet someone for the first time, I always make sure I stand straight in front of them, rather than to the side, because I don’t want them to see my profile.”
Profile Touch-Up:
Thanks to medical rhinoplasty, you no longer need to go under the knife to make your flaws – and your hang-ups – disap- pear! Depending on the problem, dense hyaluronic acid injections can be used to subtly lift the nose, fill any hollows or erase any bumps. The nose is instantly straightened, with a clean and well-defined bridge.
Since this area contains very few blood vessels, the ef- fects last a long time – around eighteen months.
Lips: well-defined and sensual, yet natural
To balance out the profile, we often need to reshape the upper and lower lips.
Profile Touch-Up:
The injections are made into the vermilion border (where the skin surrounding the mouth meets the red vermilion zone). The edge of the mouth is subtly lifted and the vermilion zone of the upper lip is visibly plumper. The results last for a year, maybe longer.
Chin: a slight forward projection
Weak, badly-shaped chin with no volume?
Profile Touch-Up:
We inject a volumising hyaluronic acid deeply, in a bolus (a small quantity of product which is de- signed to stay in a specific place). The tip of the chin is instantly reshaped and subtly projected forwards. This reshaping is completed with an injection into the outer angle of the jaw which, with age, loses its density. The results are remarkable: a sexy, Angelina Jolie-like oval with a well-defined jawbone, while the sides of the chin are lifted. The effect is both lifting and volumising; it looks very natural, counteracts the pull of gravity, and lasts up to twenty-four months.
Ear lobes: elegantly plumped
Rejuvenating ear lobes that have become crumpled or stretched by heavy earrings gives the profile a delicate and refined finishing touch.
Profile Touch-Up:
Either as a preventative measure or a cure, this treatment is fast and straightforward. The doctor injects hyaluronic acid into the whole ear lobe to firm it up. The results fade away after one to two years, so these injections will need repeating.
Dr Laurent Miralles
Graduated from the Toulouse medical faculty in 1993. Graduate diploma in injection and filler techniques from Paris Descartes university. Medical trainer and laboratory consultant. 1998-2001: Built up an international patient list in his aesthetic medicine practices in Moscow and London, performed operations in the UAE. Published a best-selling book about beauty: “Je ne veux pas que ça se voit” (Anne Carrière editions). From 1994 to today: Runs an aesthetic medicine practice in Paris.
