If the inward curves along the sides of your hips make your silhouette look less rounded than you would like, you may be wondering whether a Brazilian Butt Lift can help. A BBL can often soften the appearance of hip dips by strategically adding your own fat to the lateral hip and surrounding contours, but complete elimination is not always possible.
At Beverly Hills Plastic Surgery®, Dr. Gabriel Chiu can incorporate hip contouring into a customized Brazilian Butt Lift when your anatomy, donor fat, and aesthetic goals make fat transfer appropriate. He considers both the areas receiving fat and the surrounding regions treated with liposuction to create more balanced body proportions.
Table of Contents
- What Are Hip Dips?
- How Can a BBL Correct Hip Dips?
- How Liposuction Can Improve the Waist-to-Hip Transition
- Brazilian Butt Lift vs. Isolated Fat Transfer to the Hips
- Do You Need Enough Donor Fat to Fill Hip Dips?
- What Are the Limits of Hip Dip Correction?
- What Is Recovery Like After Fat Transfer for Hip Dips?
- Can Weight Changes Affect Hip Dip Fat Transfer?
- Why Choose Dr. Gabriel Chiu for Your Hip Dip BBL?
- Frequently Asked Questions About BBLs and Hip Dips
What Are Hip Dips?
Hip dips are inward curves or depressions along the outer hips, often around the area between the upper pelvis and upper thigh. They are more of a unique anatomical variation in body shape than they are something abnormal or wrong.
Their appearance can result from the relationship between your:
- Pelvic and femoral bone structure
- Gluteal and surrounding muscles
- Connective tissues
- Subcutaneous fat distribution
- Skin quality
The underlying region around hip dips can include the greater trochanter (a bony bump on the upper femur) and several muscle attachments around the buttock and thigh. This is why exercise or weight loss may not make hip dips disappear.
How Can a BBL Correct Hip Dips?
A Brazilian Butt Lift uses liposuction to harvest your own fat and then transfers selected fat into areas of the buttocks to enhance shape, volume, projection, and overall proportions.
Fat transfer may add volume around the lateral hip depression, creating a smoother transition from the waist to the hips and buttocks. Rather than changing your underlying bone structure, the procedure adds soft-tissue volume around it.
However, the extent of improvement depends on your anatomy. A shallow hip dip may require less volume to create a smoother outer curve, while a deeper depression caused largely by skeletal structure may remain somewhat visible even after fat transfer. For this reason, Dr. Chiu aims to soften and improve hip dips rather than promise their complete elimination.
How Liposuction Can Improve the Waist-to-Hip Transition
Treating hip dips does not always involve adding volume alone. The surrounding waist and flank contours can also influence how noticeable the depression appears.
During a BBL, liposuction removes fat from selected donor areas before processing and transferring it. Common donor regions may include the hips, abdomen, and thighs, and treating surrounding areas can improve overall body proportions.
For the right patient, contouring excess fat around the waist or flanks while adding volume strategically can create a smoother visual transition into the hips. Your surgical plan depends on where you naturally carry fat and which areas would benefit from reshaping.
Brazilian Butt Lift vs. Isolated Fat Transfer to the Hips
A traditional BBL focuses broadly on improving buttock shape, projection, and surrounding body contours through liposuction and fat grafting. If your primary concern is specifically the outer hip contour rather than buttock projection, the treatment plan may place greater emphasis on adding volume around the lateral hips. The distinction comes down to your desired shape and where Dr. Chiu plans to place the transferred fat.
Dr. Chiu tailors each BBL to the patient’s individual figure rather than using the same injection pattern for everyone. The amount of fat removed, donor locations, and target figure vary by patient.
Do You Need Enough Donor Fat to Fill Hip Dips?
Fat-transfer procedures require enough harvestable fat to provide the volume needed for your treatment plan. If you have a very lean frame, Dr. Chiu will need to determine whether you have enough donor fat to achieve a meaningful improvement without compromising the contours of the donor areas.
Skin quality matters as well. Good skin tone around the hips and buttocks is an important characteristic for BBL candidates because the procedure adds volume but does not directly remove significant loose or sagging skin.
What Are the Limits of Hip Dip Correction?
A BBL can reshape soft tissue, but it cannot alter your skeletal anatomy. Because hip dips partly reflect the relationship among the pelvis, greater trochanter, muscles, and surrounding soft tissue, some degree of indentation may remain.
Your result can also depend on:
- The depth and location of your hip dips
- How much donor fat you have
- Your natural buttock and pelvic shape
- Skin tone and elasticity
- How much transferred fat ultimately survives
- Future changes in your body weight
A personalized consultation allows Dr. Chiu to evaluate these factors and discuss a realistic degree of improvement before you decide to move forward.
What Is Recovery Like After Fat Transfer for Hip Dips?
Because hip-dip correction may form part of a BBL, recovery generally follows the postoperative plan for your overall Brazilian Butt Lift. Patients should avoid direct pressure on the buttocks during the first two weeks. After a follow-up visit, Dr. Chiu may allow modified sitting with a special pillow or cushion during weeks three and four. Residual swelling continues to resolve over the following months.
Your exact recovery can vary according to how much liposuction you undergo, where Dr. Chiu transfers fat, and your individual healing response.
Can Weight Changes Affect Hip Dip Fat Transfer?
Once transferred fat successfully establishes itself, it can behave similarly to other fat in your body. Losing weight can cause those fat cells to shrink, while weight gain can enlarge them.
Significant weight fluctuations may therefore change the fullness around your hips and alter the proportions created during your BBL. Maintain a healthy lifestyle and stable weight to help preserve long-term BBL results.
Why Choose Dr. Gabriel Chiu for Your Hip Dip BBL?
Correcting hip dips requires more than simply adding volume. Your surgeon must consider the relationship among your waist, hips, buttocks, donor areas, and natural skeletal structure to determine where additional volume can create the most balanced result.
Gabriel Chiu, D.O., is board certified in plastic and reconstructive surgery by the American Osteopathic Association. His practice emphasizes personalized planning, open communication, and natural-looking body contouring based on each patient’s individual goals. Combining this experience with advanced surgical techniques, Dr. Chiu and his surgical team are dedicated to creating a safe, comfortable patient environment tailored to your needs, concerns, and aesthetic goals.
For buttock augmentation, Dr. Chiu prefers autologous fat transfer. After harvesting the fat, he filters the aspirate to remove unwanted fluids. He injects the fat by hand using syringes and fat-transfer cannulas, an approach he uses for greater fine-tuning and customization.
Frequently Asked Questions About BBLs and Hip Dips
Can a BBL completely eliminate hip dips?
Not always. A BBL can add soft-tissue volume that may reduce the appearance of hip dips, but it cannot change the underlying bones and muscle attachments that contribute to their shape.
Are hip dips caused by being too thin?
Not necessarily. Hip dips are influenced by anatomy, including skeletal structure, muscle attachments, and soft-tissue distribution. They can occur across different body types.
Can exercise get rid of hip dips?
Exercise can build and strengthen your gluteal muscles, but it cannot change the shape or position of your underlying bones. Because hip dips involve more than muscle alone, exercise cannot guarantee that the depression will disappear.
Can I get fat transfer to my hips without making my butt much larger?
Treatment can be customized to your specific contour goals, but the right distribution and amount of fat depend on your anatomy and available donor fat. During your consultation, Dr. Chiu evaluates your natural body type and desired shape before creating a personalized fat-transfer plan.
Am I a candidate for a BBL if hip dips are my main concern?
Potential candidates generally need good overall health, realistic expectations, sufficient donor fat, and appropriate skin tone around the hips and buttocks. Dr. Chiu must evaluate you personally to determine whether BBL fat transfer can meaningfully improve your specific hip contours.
Explore Hip Dip Correction With Dr. Chiu in Beverly Hills, CA
Hip dips are a natural part of many body shapes, but you do not have to keep them as prominent if a smoother, rounder hip contour better reflects your aesthetic goals. If you are considering hip dip correction with a BBL in Beverly Hills, Dr. Gabriel Chiu can evaluate your anatomy, available donor fat, skin quality, and desired shape to determine how much improvement fat transfer may realistically provide.
Call (310) 888-8087 or fill out the online contact form to schedule your consultation at Beverly Hills Plastic Surgery® today.