Want to Look Your Most Youthful and Attractive? Chin up!

Posted on: April 30th, 2018 by Heidi Craig

Chin size and shape are key to how attractive and youthful a face looks, and there is now a wealth of treatments available to change your chin’s appearance. Every year in the United States, people are increasingly enhancing their chins through surgery and less-invasive procedures.

Why the chin?

Ask anyone to point out a good-looking and desirable face, and they’re likely to choose one with a well proportioned, angular chin. Since the chin tends to soften and recede as we age, a strong and well carved chin can also make you look younger.

Beyond the esthetic advantages, enhancing your chin can be a sound career move. A strong chin, especially among men, is often unconsciously associated with personality traits that are favorable in business and leadership. Accordingly, it can point to professional success. With video conferencing commonplace, both men and women are more concerned than ever about making the right visual impression.

So, what if, due to heredity, fat distribution or aging, your lower face isn’t what you want it to be? Chin up! You have lots of options, from non-invasive and temporary to surgical and long-lasting. If you are not ready for a more permanent option, try taking a phased approach to achieving your desired results.

Phase 1 – Consider your chin in context.

Before you run out and get that chin implant, step back. Take time to come up with a long-term, holistic plan for your face. Ideally, do this with a California Skin Institute (CSI) provider. They can advise you with the advantage of their expertise and professional eye, as well as established facial-symmetry formulas for beauty and handsomeness.

Your chin is not an island.

Take a long, hard look at the shapes and proportions of all your facial features and how they interplay. It may change the plans you have for your chin. For instance, with a nose job, skin tightening or removal of extra fat, would your chin still look small? Similarly, bear in mind that other cosmetic procedures to the face, like lip enhancement or porcelain dental veneers, may impact the relative look of your chin.

Your chin will look different over time.

When you create your face plan, be sure to factor in the impact time will have on your lower face, neck and under your chin. By age 35, we begin to lose bone mass along the entire jawline. The chin becomes more recessed, and skin loosens as the supporting bone shrinks. Other normal, age-related changes to the area, including skin laxity and a greater tendency to accumulate fat, can make the chin seem smaller still.

Phase 2 – Begin with more conservative treatments.

When it comes to the chin, even small changes to the area can make a big difference. Rather than going for a surgical solution right away, you might want to try baby steps. Start with combinations of temporary, outpatient treatments to help you better understand exactly what changes you want to make to the chin vs. the surrounding areas. Shorter-lived treatments can also enable you to postpone an implant. With age-related loss of bone mass along the jaw, a chin implant may shift position or start to look out of harmony over time. Getting an implant later may make more sense. A consultation with your CSI provider can help you to determine the right options based on your goals and your age.

Here are some of the more temporary, quick-and-easy options that can be performed with local or no anesthesia and no downtime:

Neurotoxins (Botox)

Neurotoxins — like Botox, Xeomin and Dysport — all use botulinum toxin A to prevent muscles from tensing up. They’re wildly popular for softening and preventing wrinkles and, when injected into your chin, the muscles may relax enough to produce a noticeable but natural-appearing increase in chin size and projection.

Dermal fillers

Fillers can be injected directly into your chin to manipulate its size and shape, or they can lend your chin more definition by filling and lifting complementary areas of the lower face.* Depending on the one you choose, a filler can last from several months to a couple years or more.

Most fillers are made of hyaluronic acid, a moisture-attracting substance found naturally throughout the body:

• At the more lightweight end of the range are silky, smaller-molecule fillers like Juvederm XC and Restylane. They can improve the overall look of your chin by filling adjacent areas, like the lips, above-chin crease, or vertical wrinkles extending downward from the corners of the mouth (marionette lines).*
• Thicker, longer-lasting hyaluronic fillers, like Restylane Lyft and Juvederm Voluma XC, can work wonders to add size and definition when injected directly into the chin or along the jaw. They’re also used to replenish skin thickness and lift the lower face, which can reduce jowling and reveal a stronger chin and jawline.*
• Radiesse can achieve similar results to the other more viscous hyaluronic fillers. However, it often lasts longer because it also contains calcium hydroxylapatite, which is harder for the body to break down.*
• Sculptra is composed of PLLA — a biocompatible, biodegradable, synthetic polymer from the alpha-hydroxy-acid family — and lasts around 2 years. It is excellent for adding volume in order to lift the lower face and diminish jowls. Results build gradually, as Sculptra stimulates your skin to build up its own collagen and increase thickness.*

Thread lifts

You may have heard about actress and beauty guru, Gwyneth Paltrow, endorsing this type of outpatient procedure a few years ago. And it has only gotten better since then. Thread lifts are useful in reducing marionette lines, facial sagging and jowls to yield a cleaner, stronger continuous angle from jaw to chin.* They require only local anesthesia.

With a NovaThreads lift, soft, dissolving sutures are inserted under the skin via needle to lift facial contours. These sutures, or “threads,” have tiny barbs so they don’t need to be anchored to be effective. Silhouette Instalift is similar except that the threads may have small cones or be twisted, and the effects can last up to twice as long due to more collagen stimulation.*

Skin tightening

Have loose skin, but not ready for a face or neck lift? Innovative procedures have come onto the scene to stimulate new collagen production in order to lift and tighten for reduced jowls, a more defined jawline and sleeker neck. Ultherapy uses ultrasound to target your foundational layer of facial tissue, while Thermage and Thermi leverage radiofrequency technology for skin tightening. All are minimally invasive ways to help reveal a better-defined chin.*

Chin & neck fat reduction

There are new, effective ways to attack a double chin, and give you a cleanly defined jawline, without downtime or general anesthesia.* Coolsculpting freezes the fat and Kybella dissolves it. While both methods may require multiple visits, they eliminate  fat cells permanently. You’ll need to prevent weight gain, though, to keep new fat from overtaking your chin.

Phase 3 – Go for longer-lasting change.

When you’re ready for a lasting or more dramatic chin enhancement, there are several surgical approaches you can take. While they are more invasive, costly and may require general anesthesia and recovery time, the results are virtually permanent and can be achieved in just one visit to California Skin Institute.*

Liposuction + fat grafting

Liposuction, especially when performed with fat grafting, can provide especially impressive results for the chin. Through lipo, your CSI doctor can suck extra fat from your neck and under your chin and jaw. They can then use your own removed fat to enhance the size and shape of your chin.*

Lift of the lower face, neck

If jowls, loose skin and marionette lines are detracting from your chin, a lift may be the answer. There are many different types of lower-face and neck lift, so talk to your California Skin Institute doctor about the best one for you.

Chin implants

An implant gives you a great deal of control over the final look of your chin. Chin implants feel like bone yet slightly elastic, and there are many sizes and shapes to choose from. Be sure to consult a doctor you trust to help you select the best implant and placement for your desired result. Bonus: in some cases, an implant can also help fill loose skin and reduce a double chin!

So, what’s your gameplan?

Your best course of action is to work with a qualified CSI physician to create a long-term plan, not just for your chin, but for your face as a whole — paying special attention to your lower face and neck.

Make an appointment with a board-certified cosmetic dermatologist and surgeon at California Skin Institute to devise a holistic plan for your chin.

 

 

Monique J. Wilson, MD is a board-certified dermatologist with advanced fellowship training in cosmetic procedural dermatology. Dr. Wilson wants her patients to feel and look their best at every age. With this goal in mind, she is pleased to offer her patients an ever-expanding range of the latest options in aesthetic rejuvenation. She sees patients at CSI – Sunnyvale.