Do People Still Care About Filler?

The answer may surprise you.

A couple of new fillers debuted recently—to relatively little fanfare. Much less than in the past, anyway, when pharma companies hosted lavish launch parties and beauty editors raced to cover every new injectable.

From what I’ve seen, the marketing around the latest hyaluronic acid (HA) gels echoes previous press releases with promises of more natural-looking results due to more flexible, less water-binding gels that are made to more closely resemble the body’s own HA and more easily integrate with our native tissues … or something like that.

I was pondering the general lack of hoopla when I saw this post from Gillian Murray, a UK-based clinical researcher and prescribing pharmacist, who specializes in aesthetic medicine—filler complications and hyaluronidase, in particular. (Follow her for unbiased, evidence-based takes on the field.) She was asking colleagues to name their desert-island treatments: If they could have only three things for the rest of their lives, what would they be? Among the most frequently cited were sunscreen, tretinoin, toxin, microneedling, various lasers, and Sculptra. There were few mentions of HA filler. Noticing the dearth of HA in the comments, Murray later posted this to her stories (check out the poll):

Do we, the people, really need another HA filler? Does anyone care?

Curious about the current state of fillers, I reached out to several doctors, PAs, and nurses, whom I’d trust to stick a needle in my face, asking about the filler-related trends and preferences they’re seeing in practice.

While awaiting their replies, a shiny-new statistics report from the American Society of Plastic Surgeons (ASPS) hit my inbox. And guess what? People do still care about these injectable jellies, at least according to ASPS members. Hyaluronic acid fillers, once again, ranked number two among minimally invasive procedures. (Neuromodulators snagged the top spot, per usual.) In 2024, ASPS surgeons performed a mind-boggling 5,331,426 HA injections—that’s 1% more than the year before. The 40-54 age group accounted for 50% of the total.

The Truth About Filler (& More)

As responses from my experts rolled in, some common themes began to emerge: