Amber Heard, Before and After

Our first shot dates back to 2005, when Amber was 19 years old. Already, she was lightening her natural brown hair colour to blonde, which somewhat washes her out. What’s different about her face compared to now? Her nose seems a bit more prominent, but I think it’s mainly her mouth. For starters, we can see that her upper lip was a lot thinner than the lower one.

She struck almost the exact same pose two years later, and not much about her look had changed. Here, her hair is a darker blonde, and styled in the piecey waves that were popular during that era. Again, the key feature that stands out is her mouth. Besides her thinner top lip, she appears to have an overbite that is making her front teeth protrude over her lower lip. 

In this photo, Amber looks even less like herself. While her skin was super pale before, she’s now rocking a deep spray tan and tons of blush. (Plus, I can’t help but notice how out of style that smoky eye makeup looks, even though we all thought it was so “classic” at the time!) At least her hair is moving toward the golden tone that works best for her. Also note how her top lip is starting to become fuller.

At age 22, she leaned into the old Hollywood moment that was big in the mid-‘00s, wearing a mane of retro-inspired ringlets with bold red lips and smoky eyes. (Remember how Scarlett Johansson used to wear this type of look as well?) She may have had her first round of dental work by this point, as her teeth seem whiter, and possibly more pushed back. 

Who knew Amber once had black hair?! Between that and the precise, skinny eyebrows, this is such a Megan Fox aesthetic (who was at her peak popularity back then). But there’s something else going on, with her lower face. Compared to 2007, she’s lost a lot of fat there, and I’m not sure it’s just from normal aging.

Out of all the photos, I found her to be the most unrecognizable in this one. She’s still got the harsh black hair, and the way it’s styled—plus the makeup—is so not her. But that’s not the only reason she looks different. Besides the hollowed lower cheeks, her nose seems wider than it is now, with a slightly bulbous tip. Plus, she appears to have heavier upper eyelids, with more excess skin.

By the end of the year, it was back to blonde hair... or at least, an interesting mix of platinum roots and brassy ends. Not only is it too light for her skin tone, but the colour is uneven and looks really fried. I’m not sure what the two indentations on her cheek might indicate... could she have started with injections already, at 23?

Then, for a brief moment, Amber returned to her natural hair colour (which, until now, she’d never revealed on the red carpet). So much better than the extreme black or blonde, yes? You can also see the improvements made to her smile (although more are forthcoming). It’s funny how the messy updo, brown eyeshadow, pink lipstick and dusting of body glitter seem so dated now.

Alas, the brunette didn’t last, and it was back to a brassy, unnatural-looking blonde (with eyebrows to match!) the following year. Together with the false lashes, heavy-handed makeup and bright, white teeth, she looks more like a newscaster than Hollywood’s next big star. Speaking of teeth, these look like veneers, but they’re a little too big for her face. Her nose is also looking quite sculpted all of a sudden.

I suspect it was around 2012—the same year she began dating Johnny Depp—that Amber underwent some further enhancements to her facial features. Here, her teeth are the right size for her mouth, her top lip is more in balance, and her eyelids may even have been tweaked for a more wide-open look. Of course, the overall styling is much improved, particularly her dye job. Suddenly, she has that star quality!

Finally, at age 27, she said goodbye to light blonde and hello to her (much more flattering) natural brunette. Also notice the lighter touch on the makeup, the subtle spray tan, and how her features are all in perfect balance. I’m especially marvelling over how much her smile has transformed compared to 2005-2007. 

I think 2014 was the year that Amber really “made it” as a celebrity, becoming a regular in the tabloids and on the red carpet. She certainly made a statement with this bouffant updo and bold, brown-toned eyeshadow. (And to show off the latter, she seems to have more lid space available now.) With an open mouth smile, we can see how much the size, shape and position of her teeth have changed.

By 2015, it becomes rather obvious that she was dabbling with hyaluronic acid lip fillers, at least in her top lip. There’s been a dramatic increase in volume since 2005, particularly if you look at the outer corners (which used to disappear). In other news, I think she finally landed on her “Life Colour” with this warm, dark honey blonde. 

Does Amber get prettier and prettier or what? She was 30 in this photo, and even with her hair scraped into an unforgiving tight updo, she looks flawless. Red lipstick is becoming her thing, now that her lips are more equal in volume. Compared to 2009, I can also see changes to her eyelids, nose and maybe even chin. 

Next, she stepped out in the same hairstyle she wore back in 2011, but what a difference a few years make! The spray tan and bleached blonde hair have been replaced by her natural skin tone and darker roots. Her top lip is also fuller, her teeth less protruding, her nose more petite, and her brows higher up.

With a slicked-back ponytail and red lip, this might be Amber’s most grown-up ensemble yet. Truthfully, I think she looks a little tired here, even though she’s wearing an extra-illuminating foundation to reflect the light. (Recall this was post-divorce, in the middle of a messy legal saga.) There’s also an angular quality to her face that wasn’t there before, I suspect due to filler injected in her cheeks. See how they jut out unnaturally in the area beside her eyes? 

In 2019, she tried out yet another shade of blonde—light and cool-toned—which she wore with pale skin and an intense red lip stain. The latter doesn’t obscure what appear to be her plumpest lips to date (they’re actually what inspired me to start investigating her transformation!). Her cheeks apparently got the same treatment, as they’ve also become more prominent, just like the previous year.

That brings us to Amber’s most recent red carpet appearance, and I think she’s more beautiful than ever. The injections have settled, and now I’d never guess that her lips or cheeks were filled. (She still has her Cupid’s bow, for example, which often disappears when people use too much—like Selena Gomez.) She hasn’t resorted to Botox yet, if the faint fine lines around her eyes and on her forehead are any indication.

So far in 2021, we’ve had to rely on Instagram for glimpses of Amber, such as this rare bare-faced selfie. I can’t help but notice her full brows, and even if they’ve been enhanced with powder, she’s very lucky (based on how skinny they were a decade ago!). Her lip and cheek fillers may have deflated a tad during quarantine, and overall, she’s looking quite natural.

Before I examined Amber’s beauty evolution, I assumed she probably had a little work done in order to score so high with Dr. De Silva’s algorithm.^[1] But I never would have guessed it was so extensive!

Rhinoplasty is the most common celebrity surgery, and so I was expecting to see evidence of that here. Her nose was already straight, but I think she had some extremely subtle refinements to the tip and the area beside the nostrils for a narrower, more button-like shape. (This is even more evident when her face is angled to one side, so compare her identical pose in 2009 versus 2018.)

I also believe she may have had one of the most under-the-radar procedures that celebs (like Jennifer Lawrence) are having done: blepharoplasty. This removes some excess eyelid skin, so the eyes look more wide-open.

But the most dramatic changes were to her lips, teeth and lower face. First of all, it’s obvious that she gets filler to increase the size of her upper lip, which was significantly thinner in her younger years.

Her front teeth no longer overlap her bottom lip, so she probably used something like Invisalign, along with bleaching and porcelain veneers to perfect their colour and shape.

Since it’s common to have a recessed chin when you have an overbite, she may have put filler or an implant there to bring more balance to her face. As for her lower cheeks, remember that they went from being full at age 21 to gaunt just one year later. So I suspect she had some type of fat removal there, too.

All in all, Amber may have had multiple procedures, but the outcome was undeniably positive. When we think about plastic surgery, we don’t usually think about cosmetic dentistry—but these results show you how transformative it can be!