Hip dips don't have an expiry date, but the decision's context shifts by decade. The honest tour:
Peak skin elasticity and graft-friendly tissue — technically the easiest canvas. Also peak exposure to filtered-image pressure, which is why the candidacy conversation here leans hardest on the "wanting it for you" gate at this age. Weight patterns still settling? Stability first; geometry isn't going anywhere.
The practice's centre of gravity: bodies settled, decisions self-owned, often post-pregnancy or post-fitness-journey unveiling. Pregnancy planned soon? Grafted fat survives pregnancy variably — sometimes the honest advice is "after your last baby," sometimes "now is fine"; it's an individual read, not a rule.
Fat quality remains perfectly graftable; mild early laxity occasionally joins the conversation — assessed honestly, since modest volume can actually improve how slightly loose lateral skin drapes. Perimenopausal weight shifts get the same stability-first patience as any other.
Less common, entirely legitimate. Skin quality becomes the deciding variable: good elasticity → proceed normally; significant laxity → an honest conversation about whether volume alone achieves what you're picturing. Anaesthesia fitness is screened as at any age — the gate is health, not birthday.
Geometry is patient; this decision keeps. There is no closing window pressuring you — which is exactly why no honest assessment will ever invent one.
