Non-surgical butt lift: all the options explained

Our Beachy Legs articles are a practical way to share our experience and knowledge in cellulite and skin tightening, from our London clinic with everyone in the world. Check all our articles here. And if you do live in London, book a treatment with us here.

• All you need to know about non-surgical bum lifting, including “non-surgical Brazilian butt lift”

• Non-surgical bum lift: squats and pelvic thrusts are the best exercises to built the butt muscles

• Non-surgical butt lift: deep-acting, high-power radiofrequency is the best treatment to lift butt skin

• Ineffective radiofrequency varieties

• HIFU for skin tightening and non-surgical butt lifting? More like “scar tissueing” and low effectiveness.

• Fractional / microneedling RF for skin tightening and bum lifting? Good luck with that…

• Big bum? This is a big problem with 90% of the non-surgical “bum lifting” RF treatments available on the market.

• What about the banana rolls?

• Bum cellulite

• Bum lift surgery without fat transfer?

• Brazilian butt lift surgery (BBL): good for 2-3 years, then things start looking south...

• BBL: the most lethal cosmetic surgery procedure. Literally.

• ‘Non-surgical Brazilian bum lift’ with an energy-based treatment? A ‘bubble butt’ with RF or HIFU? These things are as real as a pink unicorn.

• How about electromagnetic stimulation (HIFEM)?

• Now, if money and time is not a problem…

• Bum filler injections / liquid BBL: a temporary rounding of the bum, but not a lift

• Bum enlargement with suction cups…

• Lifted yes, bigger no

• How to tighten skin, remove cellulite and lift your bum non-surgically

All you need to know about non-surgical bum lifting, including “non-surgical Brazilian butt lift”

Lack of exercise, excess calorie intake, sitting down for long periods of time, weight loss, yo-yo dieting, the normal ageing process, all take their toll on the skin, muscles and connective tissues of the buttock area.

In addition, by its very nature, liposuction always leaves the bottom area with excess skin.

The result is:

• Fascia/skin looseness

• Excess fat accumulation

• Cellulite

• Water retention

… all combining together to manifest as droopy buttocks with puffy, bumpy and spongy skin.

Below you can read an extensive analysis of the causes of the soft, sagging bottom appearance, all the major treatments and what you can do yourself to lift and improve the appearance of your bum with exercise.

Non-surgical bum lift: squats and pelvic thrusts are the best exercises to built the butt muscles

Your butt muscle, the gluteus maximus is the only muscle in the body that you cannot have too much of: the bigger it is, the nicer the shape of your bum.

Use the “one-legged squats”, “donkey kicks”, “pelvic thrusts” and hip extensions to lift your bum from the inside:

• Squats with dumbbells are great for building the gluteus maximus muscle, but they can also build up the quads, leading to bulky thighs in some women. So although some squats are good, a lot of squats aren’t, especially for women who tend to bulk up quickly.

• Deadlifts with a barbell isolate the butt muscles more than squats, but they are quite a dangerous exercise for the less experienced lifters, so they are not the best choice for most women. I would skip them and replace with one-legged squats, pelvic thrusts, hip extensions and donkey kicks, outlined below.

• One-legged squats (or even one-legged leg presses on the machine) place more emphasis on the butt and less on the quads, thereby helping lift your butt, without giving you bulky thighs.

• Donkey kicks are also great to isolate your butt muscles, leading to a natural non-surgical butt lift (but, like all butt exercises, they still do nothing for your skin and cellulite on your bum). Make sure you do donkey kicks with ankle weights - 2-6 lbs are fine for most women.

• Pelvic thrusts with a barbell - or on the dedicated machine at the gym - are another great way to specifically build your gluteus muscles and thereby lift your bum, without bulking up your thighs

• Hip extensions is another great exercise to isolate the gluteus muscles and you can do it with a strong resistance band or on the hip extension machine at the gym

However, exercises do nothing to address the problem of sagginess, puffiness and sponginess of the skin itself and of the connective tissue (fascia) underneath it. Such skin laxity allows gravity to drag the whole bum down.

At our clinic we strongly recommend those exercises to help lift the bum from within, while we suggest high-intensity, deep-tissue radiofrequency to help lift the bum from the outside. Read more below.

Non-surgical butt lift: deep-acting, high-power radiofrequency is the best treatment to lift butt skin

As explained above, intensive gluteus maximus work will lift the bum from inside (muscle and deep connective tissue), but quite often some help is needed to lift the outside, i.e. the skin and superficial connective tissue/fascia.

At the moment of editing this article (August 2023), the most effective technology available for skin tightening and lifting is cooled, high-intensity (at least 250 Watts), deep-tissue radiofrequency.

Nothing else really works, including the gimmicks of HIFU and microneedling RF.

Ineffective radiofrequency varieties

Other types of radiofrequency are also commonly advertised (due to lower cost or due to ignorance), such as superficial radiofrequency (bipolar/tripolar/octipolar/whatever-polar) and/or low intensity radiofrequency (below 250 Watts), or both.

However, these are just too superficial and/or too weak to provide any significant results, with the difference between expectations and results bridged with hype and fake ‘before and after’ photos.

At our clinic we only do high-power, deep-tissue radiofrequency with a maximum power of 300 watts.

Everything else is just a waste of clients’ money.

HIFU for skin tightening and non-surgical butt lifting? More like “scar tissueing” and low effectiveness.

HIFU (high intensity focused ultrasound) is also used for skin tightening, but that either:

• Doesn’t work (i.e. nothing happens with low-medium intensity HIFU): a poor outcome

• Results in skin hardening (with extreme intensity HIFU and good response from the skin): the “best” outcome

• Results in excessive scar tissue bumps (with extreme intensity HIFU and exaggerated response from the skin): a very bad outcome

• Or results in even more skin looseness (extreme intensity HIFU with poor/no response from the skin): a bad outcome

Proper, extreme intensity HIFU (luckily the minority of HIFU treatments on the market) does not stimulate skin tightening (collagen contraction or synthesis) like radio frequency does.

It literally burns your collagen tissue (euphemistically called ‘coagulation’) with the hope that your body will then try to repair the burn and build scar tissue on it.

The problem is that scar collagen tissue is not the same as healthy collagen tissue and either feels hardened tissue or - if you overdo it - you end up with one or more hard bumps.

In some cases your body fails to create any new scar tissue on the sights of the HIFU burns and you end up with more skin looseness. Not a great idea…

On the other hand, low intensity HIFU, the majority of HIFU treatments on the market, does absolutely nothing.

Clearly, as compared to HIFU, high-intensity deep-acting radio frequency is super safe (99.5% or higher safe at our clinic) and stimulates the synthesis of healthy, functional collagen, rather than the creation of mini-scars under the skin.

All in all, we have tried HIFU from different manufacturers and read all the research relevant to HIFU and we are not interested in providing it, especially when we have such a superior technology - high intensity, deep tissue radiofrequency - to use instead.

Fractional / microneedling RF for skin tightening and bum lifting? Good luck with that…

The exact same comments made above about HIFU also apply to the overhyped, overpriced and unsafe fractional RF / microneedling RF treatments proposed for cellulite and skin tightening/lifting.

Low intensity microneedling RF does nothing (plus you may get a skin reaction from the needling) and high intensity microneedling RF is just unsafe.

For those who fall for microneedling RF for non-surgical butt lift, I only have one thing to say: good luck with that…

Big bum? This is a big problem with 90% of the non-surgical “bum lifting” RF treatments available on the market.

Specifically for larger sizes, the usual low-power / superficially-acting radiofrequency treatments available at most clinics/salons can only scratch the surface - literally.

The larger the size of the buttocks, the more power is needed to provide results. Clearly, the 120 Watt or 160 Watt machines found in most places are a total waste of time and money.

At the clinic we use 100-200 watts for face, so you can imagine how inadequate these treatments are for big - or even the smallest of - bums.

For larger bums 300 Watts and deep acting RF is the only option on the table and that’s exactly what we use at the clinic for larger sizes.

What about the banana rolls?

The fat deposits underneath the butt (at the top of the thighs) are often called "banana rolls".

Their surgical removal results in droopy bottom. This is because the banana rolls, with all their connective tissue and fat, help provide support to the butt above. Clearly not a good idea to remove them.

The best solution to the issue of banana rolls is to have a strong deep tissue radiofrequency treatment on both butt and banana rolls, in order to lift and tighten the connective tissue in the overall area (both butt and banana rolls) AND to do loads of butt exercises for the gluteus maximus muscle, as described above.

When clients present for non-surgical bum lifting at the clinic, we always treat the banana rolls, in order to tighten them, so that they can better support the butt tissue above.

They banana rolls slightly reduce in size but they also become tighter, thereby improving both appearance and structure/function.

Bum cellulite

Usually saggy skin on the butt area does not come on it’s own: in most cases loose skin goes hand in hand with cellulite.

This because the same physiological changes that cause the saggy bottom appearance also cause hypodermal water retention, inflammation, fibrosis and fat accumulation, i.e. cellulite.

Squats and other bum exercises can indeed lift the bum from the inside, as surgical butt lift and Brazilian butt lift procedures can from the outside.

However, one thing exercises or surgery cannot do is remove cellulite from the bum

And this is where high-power, deep-acting radio frequency is indispensable: it is the absolute best way to get rid of cellulite on bum, in addition to lifting and tightening the skin.

Bum lift surgery without fat transfer?

Only surgical removal of excess skin can offer good results in areas that suffer from extreme loose/saggy skin and obviously this is not applicable to the buttock area, as it leads to shape distortion of the butt and very unsightly scars.

So normal butt lift surgery WITHOUT fat transfer is better reserved only for overweight / obese women with extreme excess skin.

It is not useful for slim, normal weight or even "curvy" women with a little butt skin looseness.

Brazilian butt lift surgery (BBL): good for 2-3 years, then things start looking south...

On the other hand, butt lift surgery WITH fat transfer (‘brazilian Butt Lift’ / BBL) is a much more aesthetically pleasing but also much more dangerous option.

The addition of fat in the butt area can improve the shape of the bum, but only temporarily. In 2-3 years the fat starts to accumulate sideways and downwards, especially on clients who put on weight after surgery, i.e. 90% of clients.

Furthermore, the brazilian butt lift cannot do anything for cellulite.

So for 2-3 years the brazilian butt lift is the best option - if performed on the right candidate by a good surgeon and if complications do not occur.

But to maintain it for 10-15 years you must follow a permanent strict healthy diet and exercise regime, in order to avoid skin looseness, shape deformation and cellulite, which almost no-one does (if they did they wouldn’t need BBL in the first place).

BBL: the most lethal cosmetic surgery procedure. Literally.

One last thing about Brazilian butt lifts. They have the highest mortality rate of all surgical cosmetic procedures.

The undeniable fact is that Brazilian Butt Lift surgery is the most dangerous surgical cosmetic procedure (with abdominoplasty, a.k.a. “tummy tuck” being second). According to a 2017 study by the American Aesthetic Surgery Education and Research Foundation, anything between 1 in 2351 to 1 in 6214 people died from this procedure, usually due to fat embolism.

This means that BBL is 3-5 times more dangerous than the second more fatal cosmetic procedure, abdominoplasty (a.k.a. “tummy tuck”, with a fatality rate of 1 in 13,147 people) and 10-20 times more dangerous than the average of all surgical cosmetic procedures (fatality rate 1 in 55,000 people).

On 20/11/2019 Daily Mail had the following report on a recent BBL fatality case🔗: “Ms Cambridge's partner Scott Franks told Wakefield Coroner's Court the surgeon who carried out the procedure told him he had “injected the fat too far into the muscle and it entered her veins”. Mr Franks said when he flew out to Turkey after his partner died, Dr Ali Uckan had told him: “It's a guessing game, you can't see where you are going into.” He said Dr Uckan's 'exact words' were: 'It's a matter of life and death when you are doing it.'“

We are not against cosmetic surgery - we just insist on people making an informed decision on what they undertake and what to expect both immediately and five years down the line

‘Non-surgical Brazilian bum lift’ with an energy-based treatment? A ‘bubble butt’ with RF or HIFU? These things are as real as a pink unicorn.

Don’t waste your time and money, these only exist in the imagination of unscrupulous practitioners who take advantage of the naive and the gullible (there is, of course, the option of butt fillers, which we analyse later in this article).

Despite claims made by such practitioners on Instagram (where else?), no machine and no non-surgical treatment in the world can add volume (i.e. fat or muscle) to your bum to create the round "bubble butt" / "Brazilian bum" look on a flat/small bum.

The “Brazilian bum” / “bubble butt” look is possible only with surgical fat transfer (or, to a much lesser extent, with very intensive gluteus maximus exercise for several months).

But there is no such thing as a non-surgical Brazilian butt lift. It is as real as a pink unicorn.

• You can indeed have a ‘non-surgical bum lift’ with high-intensity, deep-acting radiofrequency (not the low intensity bipolar RF advertised by those practitioners).

• But you cannot have a ‘non-surgical BRAZILIAN bum lift (i.e. fat/volume added) with any treatment, as these practitioners advertise

You cannot possibly increase bum fat with a machine that supposedly reduces fat - this is absurd and delusional. Such claims are only good as cheap B-list celebrity PR stunts and titillating tabloid spreads - nothing else. Do not believe the lies and the ridiculously fake ‘before and after pictures’ on Instagram. You will be disappointed.

Virtual reality versus real reality

Here is an example of such a misleading celebrity PR stunt🔗 about getting an alleged “bubble butt” without surgery🔗. What the celebrity actually had to do in the end to get a real “bubble butt” look🔗 was actual Brazilian butt lift surgery🔗.

No matter what some practitioners say, you can’t add fat or muscle to your bum with a machine to get a “Brazilian bum”. Reality check.

Needless to say that when someone asks us at our clinic to perform a non-surgical Brazilian butt lift, we explain the truth to them and if they still want to believe in the pink unicorns they saw on instagram, we just turn them away. to waste their money elsewhere.

Instant bum lifting within minutes after one treatment? It only exists in fake ‘before and after’ photos, not in real life

The same applies to instant "butt lifting" results promised with 1-4 monthly sessions, sometimes advertised on Instagram to even occur “within minutes after one treatment”. This is pure and utter BS.

The structure of your connective tissue does not change in minutes or hours, neither in one, two, three or even four monthly sessions. Your body needs regular, repeated stimulation to change, otherwise, nothing happens.

The only thing that changes minutes after one session are the pixels in the Photoshopped fake pictures.

The laws of biology do not change because some impossible types on instagram or some B-list celebrities claim so. The body needs time (i.e. several weeks) and repeated stimulation (i.e. several regular treatments) to change long-term, not minutes and a not just couple of monthly sessions.

Sadly these people claim to lift ordinary people’s bums in 1-4 monthly sessions because it suits them, while at the same time they give celebrities 10-15-20 weekly sessions to achieve the same result. This means that they are honest with the celebs who get the freebies and dishonest with their clients who pay them with hard earned cash.

So don’t believe the hype: 1-4 monthly sessions of light, superficial radiofrequency will achieve nothing. For butt lifting something like 12 weekly sessions with strong, deep radiofrequency (and if possible, other technologies combined with it) is needed.

At our clinic, despite using the strongest radiofrequency and ultrasound available we are modest and responsible in our claims with our clients. We do indeed sell the strongest bum lifting technology available but we don’t sell miracles.

How about electromagnetic stimulation (HIFEM)?

Although electromagnetic stimulation (HIFEM) treatment is clearly not “equivalent to 30,000 muscle contractions” at the gym, with 10-20 sessions it will contribute to your work in the gym.

This of course means that such treatments should be realistically priced to allow 10, 20 or more sessions to take place, so it is silly paying more than £350 per session.

For best results combine:

• 5x sets of 12x one-legged squats or deadlifts / pelvic thrusts / donkey kicks / hip extensions, 2-3 times a week

• And a HIFEM session 1-2 times a week

Of course, muscle stimulation will only work on your muscles inside and will do nothing for your skin outside.

And no, the radiofrequency in the new HIFEM machines is too weak to offer any skin tightening results - it just acts as a warm-up for the muscles (60W are not even good enough for facials).

So if you skin is loose and has cellulite then you will still need to have a deep, strong radiofrequency treatment, perhaps combined with other technologies, to tighten, smooth and lift the actual skin.

For clients who ask us what is preferable - electromagnetic muscle stimulation or butt exercises - our answer is crystal clear: butt exercises. They are free and they are ten times more effective.

Now, if money and time is not a problem…

…and someone is too lazy to do some squats, then they can have both:

• Electromagnetic muscle stimulation, to get some poor results for a ton of money: hey, it’s their money, their rules

• Deep, high-power radiofrequency, to get the best possible skin tightening/lifting results without surgery

Otherwise the best choice is to spend money just on RF for the skin and at the same time spend just time in the gym, doing some good old squats, deadlifts, thrusts, hip extensions or donkey kicks for the gluteus maximum muscles, for free.

Bum filler injections / “liquid” BBL: a temporary rounding of the bum, but not a lift

As opposed to surgery, hyaluronic acid or similar filler injections for “bum enlargement”, “liquid BBL” or “non-surgical Brazilian bum lifting” offer minimal, unnatural, dangerous, extremely expensive and temporary results.

Because fillers are broken down, continuous "filling" is required every 6-24 months.

On the other hand, if you use semi-permanent or permanent fillers and something goes wrong, it stays permanently wrong. And you don’t want to be stuck with a permanently wrong filler on your bum neither to do the stressful and expensive rounds at Harley Street doctors to see how you can remove it.

Moreover, to create any meaningful Brazilian butt lift shape you will need to have a series of injections over several weeks (you cannot just inject a huge amount of fillers in one go).

Now injecting fillers again and again and again on the same area increases the chance of reactions or simply the chance of a very bad result (shape) achieved. This is especially true if you try to keep cost down with poorly trained practitioners (read more here and here.)

Furthermore, to create that typical Brazilian bum with repeated filler injections you will need to spend a total of between £6,000-£10,000. Someone went for the £1,500 liquid BBL variety (which was for a small area, anyway) and that was the result. Another disaster story here.

And of course nothing is lifted: the buttocks may indeed become more round (if no reactions occur and if the shape of your bum does not get deformed from the repeated injections), but that’s all.

Skin and deep connective tissue (fascia) does not become tighter to lift the bum from the outside, neither the gluteus maximus muscle is engaged to lift the bum from the inside. With fillers, just temporary volume is added and that’s all.

Just volume - no lifting, no tightening.

There is also the option of filler injections for skin tightening / lifting, without volume added.

Again, this option has the problem of repeated injections being needed, which come with the increased chance of irritation/deformity and with the crazy cost of £6,000-£10,000, which is equivalent to 30-50 highly effective deep tissue radiofrequency treatments.

Between several potentially dangerous fillers injections and 50 safe deep tissue RF treatments at exactly the same cost, RF wins hands-down. It’s a no brainer.

For all the above reasons, fillers for non-surgical butt lifting do not make any sense at all. Fillers are for the face and let’s keep them there. They have no place in butts.

This is the worst of all options for non-surgical butt lifting/shaping.

Bum enlargement with suction cups…

Just like suction cup breast enlargement, bum enlargement with suction cups is a very old and low tech option - and equally pointless.

I cannot believe that in 2022 people are still trying to enlarge their breasts or bum with suction cups. It beggars belief…

Lifted yes, bigger no

All in all, if you have a small or flat bum and unless you are prepared to have Brazilian butt lift (BBL) surgery (with all its shortcomings, such as increased risk of complications/death), you should forget about the words “Brazilian”, “bigger” and “bubble“ next to the word “bum”.

Non-surgically, these things are practically impossible.

On the other hand, if you are looking for a non-surgical bum lift (without “bubbles” or “Brazilian”) then the best possible option available today is high-intensity, deep-acting radiofrequency, as described above.

Find a reputable practitioner with good equipment and be prepared to have 6-12 weekly sessions for good results (and up to 20 sessions, for the worst cases). Don’t fall for “bubble butt” “transformations” “in one session”…

At the clinic we always suggest 6-12 sessions - never one or two.

And we never take fake before and after photos with downlighting “before” and flash frontal lighting “after”. Our before and after pics use identical lighting before and after and they are never photoshopped, like the vast majority of such pictures you see on Instagram.

How to tighten skin, remove cellulite and lift your bum non-surgically

The strongest possible SAFE technologies for skin tightening, butt lifting and cellulite removal are high-power, deep-acting radio frequency and high-power cavitation, and for this reason this is what we offer at LipoTherapeia.

If anything else was as effective and SAFE, we would already offer it.

Check our professional consultancy in radiofrequency, ultrasound cavitation, cellulite and skin tightening

Do you want to deeply understand radiofrequency, ultrasound cavitation, cellulite and skin tightening? Attend an 1-hour, half-day, 1-day or 2-day professional consultancy / one-to-one masterclass and confidently offer your clients the safest, strongest and most effective treatment possible. Service available via Zoom or at our central London practice.