March 28, 2024

If you had told me when I was a skinny kid watching my pop idols shake their perfectly-shaped butts to the beat on MuchMusic that I could, one day, go to a medi-spa and get that same bounce from a needle — no knives involved — well… I might have started saving up. Or at least saved myself some squats.

I’m joking, of course; ten-year-old bodies tend to change a lot on their own eventually, and squats are a fantastic compound exercise that do a lot more good for the body than shaping one’s derriere.

What squats can’t necessarily do are give everyone an ass like Jennifer Lopez. Is it possible? Maybe, but be prepared to work out for hours every day and inhale boiled chicken breast like it’s water.

People come in different shapes, and that’s fine, but the skyrocketing popularity of the Brazillian Butt Lift (BBL) suggests that women and men alike are more willing than ever to shell out their hard-earned cash to look like Beyoncé, Shakira or a fictional Drake. At least from the waist down.

There are plenty of plastic surgery clinics in Toronto where one can get a BBL procedure performed, but it’s controversial, pricey and invasive: A doctor literally has to take fat via liposuction from somewhere else on your own body and then transplant it into your buttocks. This is why nobody believed Kim K when she tried to prove her butt was real with an x-ray. No judgment, just saying.

Long story short, the BBL — while capable of producing dramatic results — is a major surgery that comes with inherent risks, a five-figure price tag, and the inability to sit for six-weeks after. Seriously.

The LBL, or “liquid butt lift,” is a more palatable option for people who aren’t down to go under the knife or who don’t have enough fat to graft a new butt from, and it’s now a thing you can get in Toronto, if you are so inclined.


“The Liquid Butt Lift is a safe way to add volume and curves to the buttocks or smooth out irregularities with filler with no downtime and with no anthesis,” says Dema Najjar, founder and CEO of Yorkville’s D Luxe Lab. “It is the most innovative procedure in the market.”

It was through an Instagram Stories post from D Luxe Lab that I first learned of butt filler being available in Toronto. I chuckled at the idea of someone getting their butts injected like they do with their lips, cheeks or any other body part you can get pumped up at any medi-spa in Toronto.

As it turns out, this is actually the only clinic in Toronto with a plastic and cosmetic surgeon who actually performs the LBL procedure. My Instagram DM inquiring about the procedure was inadvertently a bulls-eye.

Najjar says the liquid butt lift is “performed only by Dr. Sean Rice in partnership with D Luxe Lab to cover the Toronto area” using an exclusive Health Canada-certified Hyaluronic Acid product created by Revanesse and Dr. Rice. She says that “it’s the only treatment of its kind” locally.

“With the Liquid Butt Lift, Dr. Rice is able to create fullness and contour the shape for clients who are either not candidates for surgical BBL, not interested in a surgical procedure, or clients who want a way to achieve buttock fullness with minimal to no downtime,” she told blogTO.

“Most of the procedure is very tolerable with little to no discomfort,” she added, noting that the whole thing can be performed in under an hour using a local anesthetic.

“After a Liquid Butt Lift is performed, clients can return to their normal daily activities whether that be heading back to work, school pickup or running errands.”


Yes, butt filler is real. And it’s here. And it’s popular.

“Generally, we see a large number of clients who would prefer not to have surgery or are too skinny to harvest fat for a surgical procedure. Others are looking for immediate results or have been unable to build their desired look at the gym,” says Najjar. “We do not perform the procedure on anyone who currently has buttock implants.”

Apparently, butt implants are also a thing that exists. They’re like breast implants, for the butt.

When asked if the LBL was, as I judged it to be, simply “filler for the butt,” Najjar replied that Rice “uses Hyaluronic Acid From Revanesse by Prollenium to plump, shape and add volume to the buttocks.”

For those unaware, Hyaluronic Acid is also what’s been used to plump up the lips of maybe 50 per cent of all women you’ll see in downtown Toronto on a Saturday night.

The particular HA filler product used for Dr. Rice’s LBL was created and developed between the celebrated physician himself and Revanesse (a Canadian brand) specifically to treat the buttocks region.


Najjar says getting this treatment to Toronto has been “four years in the making,” and that patients who’ve had it elsewhere with Rice have seen results last for nearly half a decade (though the average time clients can typically expect to enjoy their bigger butts is between two and four years.)

That is if they want bigger butts in the first place — this treatment isn’t all about size.

“There seems to be a misconception that buttock augmentation means that the client wants a very large buttock, however that is usually not the case,” says Najjar.

“Most patients are seeking more shape and some volume augmentation. Typically the end goal is to look good in a bathing suit or in tighter clothing.”

Dr. Rice can “tailor the enhancement to make the shape whatever a client desires: Rounder, more athletic, more heart-shaped, or with more projection. Here are some before and afters to illustrate.

“The other misconception is that everyone interested in this procedure is a young woman in their 20s. Dr. Rice routinely performs this procedure on women whose buttocks are not what they used to be due to aging or weight loss,” she notes.

“He’s even treated a group of women in their 70s who just want to look good in their daily clothing or bathing suit.”