Hip dips are the inward curves on the sides of the body between the top of the hip bone and the top of the thigh. They are a normal skeletal contour: the rim of the pelvis sits high, the bony knob at the top of the thigh bone (the greater trochanter) sits below it, and the stretch between the two carries less fat and muscle than the buttock above or the thigh below, so the skin follows the bone inward. They are not a flaw and not caused by fat, and no exercise can fill them, because the gap is set by bone and by where your body stores fat.
Whether they can be fixed depends on what you mean. Clothing changes how they read, filler softens them for a year or two, and fat transfer to the hips adds your own fat over the dip and is the only option that lasts, which is why it is the only one Dr. Cat offers: we do not use hip implants or fillers. This page covers what a hip dip is, why some bodies show them, what exercise can and cannot do, and how Dr. Cat Begovic, MD, FACS, board-certified plastic surgeon, treats them in Beverly Hills.
What Is Happening Under the Skin
Put your hand on your hip bone at the waist: that ridge is the iliac crest, the top of the pelvis. Slide it down the side of your leg to the bony point at the top of the thigh: that is the greater trochanter, where the thigh bone bends inward toward the hip socket. The hip dip lives between those two landmarks. Above it the buttock is padded by the gluteal muscles and a thick layer of fat; below it the outer thigh carries its own fat pad. In between, the tissue is thin: the gluteus medius and the tensor fasciae latae narrow into a flat band of tendon as they pass the trochanter, the fat layer is thinner, and the skin is tethered more tightly to what lies beneath it. Two full areas with a lean zone between them reads as a dip. Violin hips, shelf hips and hip divots all name the same profile, the outline of the skeleton showing through.
Why Some People Have Hip Dips and Others Do Not
Three things decide how visible the dip is. The pelvis: a wide, high iliac crest flares out above the trochanter and lengthens the distance between the two landmarks, which deepens the curve; a narrower pelvis keeps them closer and the line straighter, and because women have wider pelvises than men, hip dips are mostly a female concern. The trochanter: how low it sits and how far it projects sideways; a prominent, low-set trochanter leaves a longer stretch of thin tissue above it. Fat distribution, which is inherited: some women store fat evenly along the hip and it fills the gap, while others store it on the outer thigh and the buttock and leave the zone between them thin, so the dip looks deeper because the areas on either side are fuller.
Weight cuts both ways. Losing it thins the padding around the dip but cannot move bone, so many patients first notice hip dips after a successful weight loss; gaining it adds fat where your genes send it, which may or may not be the dip.
What Body Shape Has Hip Dips
Every body shape can have them. They show most in women with a high, wide pelvic rim and a defined waist, because the flare of the hip bone sets up a curve the thigh does not continue, and in women who carry their weight low, on the outer thighs and buttocks, where the fuller areas frame the dip. A straighter frame tends to show less of a dip, not because the gap is smaller but because there is less flare above it to contrast with. The hourglass, pear and apple labels do not predict hip dips; the pelvis does.
Can Exercise Get Rid of Hip Dips
No, and the reason is anatomical rather than a matter of effort. The muscles you can build here, the gluteus medius and minimus and the tensor fasciae latae, sit above and in front of the dip and cross it as tendon. Side-lying leg raises, clamshells, banded hip abduction, fire hydrants, curtsy lunges, glute bridges and squats strengthen them, and eight to twelve weeks of consistent training will add fullness to the upper outer buttock. What training cannot do is grow tissue where there is no muscle belly to grow, and in lean, well-trained women muscle definition can sharpen the outline of the dip rather than soften it. Diet follows the same logic: fat loss thins the padding on both sides of the dip, and there is no way to send gained fat to one chosen spot. Strong hips are worth training for; a filled dip is not what training delivers.
Hip Dips, Love Handles and Saddlebags Are Different Problems
These three sit within a few inches of each other and have opposite causes. Love handles are fat above the hip bone at the waistline, a surplus that liposuction of the flanks removes. Saddlebags are fat below the dip on the outer thigh: also a surplus, also a liposuction problem. A hip dip is a deficit between two fuller zones; removing fat around it does not fill it and can make it more visible. So the answer for the dip is to add volume, and Dr. Cat often treats surplus and deficit in one operation: the fat that leaves the waist or the outer thigh fills the hip. If the fat at your waist is the main thing bothering you, our page on stubborn fat covers it.
The Options for Hip Dips
Clothing and styling
High-waisted, structured fabrics that skim the hip, A-line skirts, wide-leg trousers and wrap dresses draw the eye to the waist and let the hip line blend; shapewear with a smooth panel over the hip does the same under a fitted dress. None of it changes the contour, but it is free, immediate and enough for many women once they know the dip is bone rather than a fitness failure.
Hip dip filler
Injectable fillers add volume to the dip without surgery. Hyaluronic acid fillers give an immediate result that the body absorbs over about a year to eighteen months; collagen stimulators such as poly-L-lactic acid build volume over several sessions and fade over about two years. Both were designed for the face, and their use in the hips is off-label. The limitation is volume: a face takes a syringe or two, a hip dip takes a multiple of that on each side, repeated when the product wears off, so the running cost climbs quickly, and large volumes of filler in the body bring lumps, migration and, with hyaluronic acid, the occasional need to dissolve it. We do not use hip implants or fillers. The reason is simple: a hip dip is a volume deficit over a joint that moves with every step, and the only material that becomes living tissue there, with nothing to absorb, migrate or replace, is your own fat; a patient who wants the dip filled for good is better served by one operation than by a filler schedule that costs more over a few years and ends where surgery begins.
Fat transfer to the hips (hip dip surgery)
The lasting fix is to move your own fat into the dip. Dr. Cat removes fat by liposuction from where you do not want it, usually the abdomen, waist, back or thighs, washes and prepares it, and places it in small passes in the subcutaneous plane, the layer under the skin over the hip, until the line from the waist to the thigh runs smooth; she performs both the liposuction and the transfer herself. The fat is living tissue, and the portion that gains a blood supply stays for good. In Dr. Cat's experience more than 80 to 90 percent of the transferred fat survives, which is why her patients rarely need a second round. Many patients have it as part of a Brazilian butt lift, where the buttocks are shaped in the same operation; our guide to what a BBL is explains how the two fit together, and if your buttocks have lost their shape, start with our page on flat buttocks. When the buttocks are treated there is no direct sitting on them for six weeks, and a BBL is never done on the same day as a tummy tuck or a breast augmentation; those combinations are staged on separate days. The operation, the recovery and the risks are on our hip dip surgery page.
Hip implants
Solid silicone hip implants are offered by a few surgeons. They add a fixed volume that does not depend on fat survival, but they sit in a pocket over a zone that moves with every step and carry the problems of any implant near the surface: visible edges, shifting, fluid collections and infection. We do not use hip implants or fillers; hip dip surgery at our practice is fat transfer, because fat placed well becomes part of you and an implant never does.
Who Is a Candidate for Fat Transfer to the Hips
You need enough fat to donate; most women who ask about hip dips have it at the waist, the lower abdomen, the back or the inner thighs, and the same fat answers two complaints. You should be near a stable weight, because the transferred fat behaves like the rest of your fat afterward. You need to have stopped smoking, which Dr. Cat requires for two months to a year depending on your history, because nicotine starves the fat of the blood supply it needs to survive. And you need realistic goals: a smooth line, not a new skeleton. Slim patients need their own plan. When there is little fat to harvest, Dr. Cat collects it from several small areas at once, often the whole waist as a liposuction 360, and places a smaller, more conservative volume where it matters most. That is the skinny BBL approach, and it applies to the hips as much as to the buttocks; the result is a refinement rather than a dramatic change, and some very lean patients are better served by leaving the contour alone, which Dr. Cat will say at the consultation.
What Results Look Like and How Long They Last
The change is a line, not a size. From the front or the back, the curve from the waist runs into the hip and down the thigh without the inward break, and the buttock looks rounder at its outer edge and less square. Swelling hides the result for the first weeks; the final shape shows at around three to six months. The fat that survives is permanent tissue, so the result lasts as long as your weight stays reasonably stable; a large gain or loss moves it in either direction. One caveat belongs to this zone: the skin over the hip is tighter, has less fat of its own and a poorer blood supply than the buttock, so the hip can lag a little behind the buttock in how much it expands. Dr. Cat plans the volume with that in mind, and occasionally a patient whose main goal is the hips chooses a second, smaller round.
What Dr. Cat Looks for at the Consultation
The consultation ($500, credited toward surgery, in person or by video for the many patients who travel to Beverly Hills for surgery) starts with your history: prior surgery, medications that raise the risk of bleeding or clotting, your weight over the past year. Then she examines the shape you have: the width of the pelvis, how far the trochanter projects, how much fat sits above and below the dip, the pinch of fat in each donor area, and the things people miss on themselves, such as one hip that sits higher than the other or a curve in the spine that makes one dip look deeper. Bring photos of hips you like; she will tell you what your anatomy can reach, and say so plainly if the change would be small.
Before and After Photos
Dr. Cat's Brazilian butt lift before and after photos show the hips as well as the buttocks in most cases, because the two are shaped together; look at the back and three-quarter views for the change in the outer curve.
Recovery in Brief
Recovery is mostly liposuction recovery: the donor areas are bruised and sore for a week or two and wear a compression garment for about six weeks; most patients are back at a desk in about a week, doing most normal activities within four weeks, and exercising at six. The grafted hips need protection rather than rest, so no sustained pressure on them for six weeks while the fat takes. If the buttocks were treated as well, add the BBL rule of no direct sitting for six weeks, which our BBL recovery guide takes week by week. The hip dip surgery page carries the full timeline.
What Hip Dip Surgery Costs
Fat transfer to the hips on its own, with limited liposuction, is a surgeon's fee of $35,000 to $45,000. Surgeon's fees are typical ranges: a more complex case can cost more, and your fee is set at your consultation and is final only in your written quote. When the hips are treated with a BBL or with lipo 360, the whole plan is quoted as one surgery, and the fee follows the liposuction and the areas transferred, so it can match or exceed the BBL fee ($56,500 to $63,500). The operating room and anesthesia are quoted at your consultation; our BBL cost guide explains what the combined figures cover and how patients pay for them.
Frequently Asked Questions About Hip Dips
What causes hip dips?
The shape of your skeleton and where your body stores fat. The top of the pelvis sits high, the greater trochanter at the top of the thigh bone sits below it, and the tissue between the two is thinner than the buttock above and the thigh below, so the skin follows the bone inward. A wide pelvis, a prominent trochanter and fat stored on the thighs and buttocks rather than the hip all deepen it. Hip dips are inherited, not caused by weight.
Are hip dips attractive?
Hip dips are a normal feature of most bodies, and whether they read as attractive is a matter of taste and fashion rather than anatomy. The current preference for an unbroken hourglass line makes them more noticed than a generation ago. Plenty of women like theirs; others find the dip stops a fitted dress or a swimsuit from looking the way they want. Treating them is a preference, not a correction.
Can you actually get rid of hip dips?
You cannot change the bone, so you cannot remove the reason for the dip, but you can fill it. Fat transfer to the hips adds your own fat over the gap and gives a lasting, smooth line; filler adds temporary volume, which is why we do not use it; exercise builds the muscles around the dip but cannot fill it. Yes for the appearance of the dip, no for the anatomy underneath it.
What body shape has hip dips?
Any body shape can. They show most on women with a wide, high pelvic rim and a defined waist, on women who carry fat low on the outer thighs and buttocks, and on lean, athletic frames with little padding over the bone; a straighter frame tends to hide them. The hourglass, pear and apple labels do not predict them; the pelvis does.
Do hip dips go away with weight loss?
Usually the opposite. Weight loss thins the fat over the buttock and the outer thigh but does not move the bone, so the dip often becomes more visible as the padding around it shrinks; many patients first notice their hip dips after losing weight. Weight gain adds fat where your genes send it, which may or may not include the dip.
Does a BBL fix hip dips?
When the surgeon plans for them. In Dr. Cat's BBLs the hips are grafted with the buttocks so the outer curve runs unbroken from the waist to the thigh; a BBL that fills only the buttocks and leaves the dips can make the buttocks look square. If your buttocks are already the shape you want, fat transfer to the hips alone treats the dip without adding to the buttock.
How much does hip dip surgery cost?
Fat transfer to the hips on its own, with limited liposuction, is a surgeon's fee of $35,000 to $45,000. When the hips are treated with a BBL or with lipo 360, the whole plan is quoted as one surgery, and the fee follows the liposuction and the areas transferred, so it can match or exceed the BBL fee ($56,500 to $63,500). The operating room and anesthesia are quoted at your consultation, and financing through Cherry, CareCredit or Alphaeon Credit is available.
Are hip dips normal?
Yes. Hip dips are a normal part of the skeleton, present to some degree in nearly everyone and more visible in women because of the wider female pelvis. They are not a sign of excess weight, poor fitness or any medical problem, and they do not affect how the hip joint works.
How long do hip dip surgery results last?
The fat that survives the transfer becomes permanent living tissue, so the result lasts for years as long as your weight stays reasonably stable. In Dr. Cat's experience more than 80 to 90 percent of the transferred fat survives, which is why her patients rarely need a second round. Large weight changes alter the result in either direction.
Talk to Dr. Cat About Your Hip Dips
The dip is bone and fat distribution, not something you failed to train away; the only question is whether you want it filled. Start with a free discovery call or call (310) 858-8808; a consultation with Dr. Cat, in person on Rodeo Drive or by video, then gives you a plan and a written quote. The operation is on the hip dip surgery page and the results in the Brazilian butt lift gallery.
Medically reviewed by Dr. Cat Begovic, MD, FACS, board-certified plastic surgeon. Last reviewed September 2026.