I was called Botched Barbie for my bad lip filler – injectors wouldn’t tell me ‘no’ until I found a surgeon who fixed it
AFTER years of getting lip filler to disguise scars from childhood surgeries, one woman ended up with the cruel online nickname of Botched Barbie.
She admitted that she had “really bad migration” and no filler provider would tell her “no” — leading her to a plastic surgeon who took several sessions to fix her pout.
Steph Heintz, 37, was born with a cleft lip and cleft palate that took her down a winding road of cosmetic and plastic surgery from an early age.
With almost 580,000 followers on TikTok, she now uses her platform to advocate for cleft awareness and promote a fit and healthy lifestyle.
It’s meant she’s dealt with “weird situations,” from being called a Botched Barbie to having people scream at her on the streets.
But before she gained her thick skin and “cleft confidence,” as she calls it, Heintz pursued cosmetic solutions for her facial differences after being severely bullied as a child.
“I’ve been filling my lips since I was 19, and that sounds absolutely outrageous, but if you put it from that perspective, I was in college, I was an adult. It was all led by me,” she told The U.S Sun.
“I wanted Goldie Hawn lips at first. I saw The First Wives Club and I was like, ‘Okay, I want something permanent.’ I just want to ‘fix it,'” she admitted.
While her lip filler looked fine for years, a new doctor made what she calls a “huge industrial mistake.”
She described how he hit her scar tissue and her gums “dropped down like a cowbell.”
And it continued to get worse from there, with more filler leading to some “really bad migration.”
Her botched lips eventually led her to a doctor who got her back to “ground zero.”
A TOUGH START
With her childhood health problems, Heintz was no stranger to doctor’s offices.
“I did two surgeries right away pretty much. My first surgery was at six months,” she said.
“I was on a feeding tube when I was an infant. I had to hit a certain weight to be able to go into surgery.”
The palate, or the roof of the mouth, is instrumental in eating and breathing, meaning Heintz needed surgery to fix hers.
Her follow-up operation was within a year, and her third cleft-related surgery at three years old is her first memory.
In the eighth grade, Heintz had an outpatient procedure with the same plastic surgeon.
“I did a heavy laser where I had to wear a band-aid for three months. I did a V-Y split surgery on my upper lip, where it’s kind of like what they do for a boob job,” she said.
In the procedure, they split the cleft lip like a V to even you out and give the upper lip a symmetrical look.
“My surgery journey is nowhere near what some people have gone through in my community. I consider myself really, really lucky. I didn’t need a bone graph or a rhinoplasty like many others,” she said.
MAKING TWEAKS
When she got older, she wanted a “protective armor” that made her feel good when she looked in the mirror — and she turned to filler.
“Bullying comments hurt you when you believe it. I was in this pursuit to have solutions so I didn’t believe it,” she admitted.
“That’s why I’m loud about my story because I just think that if I was an eight-year-old, 11-year-old, or 14-year-old, I just wish I could have seen someone that I thought was beautiful.”
FILLER FAILURE
Her experience with filler took a wrong turn when she saw a new provider.
“He made a huge industrial mistake,” she said, describing how he went “straight at me” and “wanted to build a cupid’s bow.”
“He went to fill that and instead of filling my outer lip, and he hit my scar tissue, my gum underneath and it dropped down like a cowbell.”
After seeing the results, Heintz sent the doctor a video of the botched job.
I was getting really bad migration, and I was never finding someone that would tell me no
Steph Heintz
“He immediately refunded my money. He knew that it was bad, and he just didn’t want me to spread it on the internet,” she said.
She continued to have filler issues with new providers in New York.
“I was getting really bad migration, and I was never finding someone that would tell me no,” she said.
Lip filler migration happens when the injectable used to plump the lips moves away from the injection site and settles into another area of the lips or mouth.
“I thought that it was my scar tissue. So I passively ignored that because I was like, ‘That’s something I can’t fix,'” she explained
She also never had someone who was “super confident” and would walk her through the “expectations of care or results.”
SAVIOR SOLUTION
Things started to look up when she met Dr. Justin Harper of Juvly Aesthetics during the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020.
While the world shut down, Dr. Harper decided to “hunker down” in New York and do a lot of his research on studies and trials, which led him to connect with Heintz and schedule a consultation.
“He’s not a super big talker, but he just analyzes your photos so much and flips them before and after each appointment,” she said.
“If you don’t think you’re going to make something better. You should be able to tell somebody no if you don’t think you can accomplish their goal,” Dr. Justin Harper added.
“I think more injectors should have the skill to do it. I don’t think a lot of injectors have the skill currently to do it.”
After multiple sessions, Dr. Harper “measured out the expectations” from the start and said it would take three visits, each two to three weeks apart.
“He said, ‘We’re going to take some out and build a little bit in but you will not be happy in between because there are going to be some weird moments in between these visits,'” Heintz said.
Because they were in “high profile masks time,” Heintz was “game” and let Dr. Harper “set her baseline” and even let other injectors practice their aesthetic skills on her.
“When I saw it, it was unclear the extent of the natural anatomy. So, in her case, I had to take it down much more than I do normally,” the plastic surgeon said.
“If you have been botched, go to a skilled provider that can find your baseline,” Heintz advised.
“Get you back to ground zero and build the house. If you don’t have that floor, that first level, you cannot keep filling on top of that because you will just garner a bad result.”
Dr. Harper called it a “very stressful” and “very psychologically challenging process” that not everybody can go through.
“You have to go through a period of looking worse to look better. I’m very cautious with who I allow to go through that as well. I have to make sure they’re ready and have the timing to go through that correction phase,” he added.
Heintz said she was “blessed” to have Dr. Harper do her initial treatment, and feels comfortable with aesthetic professionals like Head of Provider Education Jessica Sarkis continuing his work.
“My healing is different. My nerve endings are different. My personal emotions and trauma tied to someone touching my face are different,” she admitted.
I now know that the more I bruise initially, the more natural my result ends up looking.
Steph Heintz
Before meeting Dr. Harper, she used to fill her lips every three months and now fills them once a year.
The self-love advocate also thought that if you bruise less that’s better care.
“I now know that the more I bruise initially, the more natural my result ends up looking,” she said.
“It means that for my case specifically, they’ve managed, massaged, manipulated, and made sure that they’ve gotten the filler to where my scar is and that they evened it out more.”
AESTHETIC ADVICE
Even though she didn’t need a rhinoplasty like many other people with cleft palate, she allowed herself to be a model for training and received a liquid nose job.
“I just paid for the filler basically, and he brings everyone in and they train. You could see that everyone in the room was like, ‘Oh my God, this is such a hard case,’ and just super uncomfortable,” she said.
Heintz didn’t mind the reception and felt empowered by it.
“I’m representing a community that goes beyond just cleft lip and cleft palate. My community identifies also as facial difference,” she added.
Before getting any cosmetic work done, Heintz recommends doing your research and reading as many reviews as possible.
“There are a lot of people that have been swindled by uneducated, misinformed people, by viral things on the internet, and it lands them in a rough spot,” she said.
“In free consultations, it’s your opportunity to get all the reassurance, grill that provider, and make sure that you’ve built that rapport of trust ahead of time.”
She also shared a TikTok makeup tip that she thought was especially applicable for those with cleft and a cost-effective lip trick.
“Draw your lip liner from the corner up, rather than what everyone does, which is to put a bow down. That gives you a sad face, but if you go from the corner up, you get this nice, full lift,” she explained.
The biggest message Heintz wants to share is she wants to take the expected vanity aspect away from plastic and cosmetic surgery.
“All that matters is how you feel when you look in the mirror at the end of the day,” she said.