Short version: the FDA has approved filler for a fairly short list of places, and it explicitly recommends against a few of the most commonly sold ones, including under the eyes and in the nose. Off-label injection is legal and extremely common. The point of this page isn't that off-label is wrong. It's that you should know which side of that line you're standing on before you agree to it.
Where filler is actually approved
For adults over 21, the FDA has approved dermal fillers for:
- Moderate to severe facial wrinkles and folds, such as nasolabial folds and perioral lines around the mouth.
- Augmentation of the lips, cheeks, chin and back of the hand.
- Correction of contour deficiencies, including acne scars.
- Restoring facial fat loss in people with HIV.
Permanent fillers get a much narrower approval: nasolabial folds and cheek acne scars only.
Where the FDA recommends against it
The FDA recommends against using dermal fillers or any injectable filler for body contouring and enhancement to increase breast size, increase the size of the buttocks, increase fullness of the feet, or implant into bone, tendon, ligament or muscle. It also recommends against injecting the glabella (between the eyebrows), the nose, the periorbital area (around the eyes), the forehead, or the neck.
That second list is the one that should stop you, because those are areas being actively marketed. The reason for it is anatomy rather than squeamishness: those regions carry arteries that connect back toward the eye, and an occlusion there is where the blindness cases come from.
What that means locally
Counting from local providers' own published pages, here's what's advertised across the 235 in this directory:
| Area advertised | Local providers | FDA position |
|---|---|---|
| Lips | 43 | Approved |
| Jawline and chin | 33 | Chin approved |
| Under-eye and tear trough | 26 | Recommends against |
| Cheeks and midface | 14 | Approved |
| Nose (liquid rhinoplasty) | 2 | Recommends against |
| Temples | 2 | Not an approved area |
| Back of the hands | essentially none | Approved |
Counted by matching filler terms near area terms in the text of providers' own websites, collected July 2026. It's a floor, not a census: a provider who offers something without writing it down won't appear.
Under-eye filler is the interesting number
26 local providers advertise tear trough or under-eye filler, an area the FDA recommends against injecting. That's not a scandal, and I want to be fair about it. Off-label use is legal, it's routine across all of medicine, and experienced injectors do under-eyes carefully every day with good results. The tear trough is also genuinely one of the hardest areas on the face to do well, and it's where the difference between a skilled injector and a trained one shows up fastest.
What I'd want, as a patient, is for someone to say that out loud in the consultation. "This area isn't FDA-approved for this product, here's why I still recommend it, here's how many I've done, and here's what we do if it goes wrong" is a completely reasonable conversation. Silence on the point is the thing to notice.
Liquid rhinoplasty
Two local providers advertise a non-surgical nose job. The nose appears on the FDA's recommend-against list, and among injectors it's widely regarded as the highest-risk area on the face for vascular complications, because the blood supply is end-arterial with connections toward the eye. Two out of 235 is a low number, and I'd read that as most of this market having decided the risk isn't worth the revenue.
Hands: approved, well supported, and nobody sells it
Hand augmentation is one of the FDA's approved uses, and the agency maintains a separate device product code for fillers approved for the hand, distinct from the facial one. Radiesse and Restylane Lyft are the products approved for the back of the hands.
Which makes it strange that I could find essentially no local marketing for it. Searching every page we've collected from all 235 providers, the only clear mention of hand filler is a blog post from 2012. An approved indication with real evidence behind it, sitting unsold, while an area the FDA warns about is advertised by 26 providers. That's not a conspiracy, it's just what happens when marketing follows demand instead of evidence.
If aging hands bother you more than your nasolabial folds do, it's worth asking. One caution straight from the FDA's own patient guidance: tell your provider if you have joint, tendon or blood vessel disease affecting the hand before considering hand augmentation.
The buttocks: this section is a safety notice, not a shopping guide
No filler is approved for buttock augmentation. The FDA explicitly recommends against using dermal fillers or any injectable filler to increase the size of the buttocks, and against injecting into bone, tendon, ligament or muscle. Injectable silicone is not approved for any aesthetic procedure anywhere in the body, and the FDA states that silicone injections can lead to long-term pain, infections, and serious injuries including scarring and permanent disfigurement, embolism, stroke, and death.
You'll see "Sculptra butt lift" and "liquid BBL" advertised in bigger metros, and sometimes at real medical practices. It's off-label use of a product approved for the face, and the volumes involved are an order of magnitude beyond anything the product was studied at.
No provider within an hour of Boulder advertises injectable buttock augmentation. I went looking specifically, and the only nearby business selling a "Sculptra Liquid BBL" isn't in this directory. That's a genuinely good sign about this market and I'd rather say so than manufacture alarm about it.
One clarification worth making, because the terms get mixed up. A fat transfer, also called fat grafting, moves your own fat and is a surgical procedure done by a surgeon. That's a different thing from injecting a manufactured filler, with different risks and different regulation, and the FDA's filler warnings aren't about it. One local plastic surgery practice lists fat transfer among its surgical options, which is normal and unremarkable for a surgical practice.
Two more things the FDA tells patients
- Don't buy filler online. The FDA has warned specifically about unapproved versions of Juvederm, including Juvederm Ultra 2, 3 and 4, being sold and distributed in the US including by online retailers. Filler is a prescription device. It should be bought and injected by a licensed provider, and never by you.
- Needle-free "filler pens" are not approved for injecting dermal filler, and the FDA has issued a safety communication about serious adverse events with them.
What to ask, area by area
- Is this area FDA-approved for the product you're proposing? If not, say so plainly and tell me why you recommend it anyway.
- How many of this specific area have you personally injected?
- Are you using cannula or needle here, and why?
- Do you have hyaluronidase on site, and what's the protocol if I show signs of an occlusion?
- Which physician is delegating this, and are they reachable during my appointment?
A word about what this is
I'm a medical technologist, not a physician, and this isn't medical advice. I'm reporting what the FDA has approved, what it recommends against, and what local providers advertise, so you can walk into a consultation knowing which questions are worth asking. Whether any treatment suits you is a conversation with a licensed clinician who can examine you.