High cheekbones give the illusion of youth and beauty. It’s part of the Triangle of Beauty which is characterised by an upside down triangle made up of smooth, round-shaped, high cheekbones and a thin, sharp jawline.
As we age, we start to lose volume in our mid face and lose the biological velcro our muscles and ligaments offer us, causing a gravitational descent of the mid face. As our hormones decline, our bone structure also change resulting in a flattening of the cheek bones, shortening of the jaw bone and widening of the nasal and orbital aperture.
This means, our cheeks start to go south and this accentuates our laugh lines, hollowness under our eyes and heaviness of our jowls.
There’s nothing wrong with this.
Unfortunately society reminds us as women that this is bad which is horrible and unfair. How you want to age is up to you but don’t let your cheeks define your worth! If you would like to do something about it without surgery, here are 4 options to slow down the process of volume loss and muscle weakness in our cheeks plus a treatment that can worsen it.
1. Use those cheek muscles
The saying goes “If you don’t use it, you lose it.”
You work your pectorial muscles when you want perkier breast. You work your gluteus muscles when you want a more sculptured bum. You work your cheek muscles when you want more enhanced cheekbones.
Facial exercise done consistently and correctly can help give it an extra oomph!! This includes laughing and smiling A LOT!
An easy way to isolate your cheek muscles is making an “O” shape with your mouth and try to smile with your cheeks. You will feel it ache.
2. Tissue stimulation
This can be done by massaging and sculpting the mid face with your fingers or a tool e.g. gua sha, suction cups or jade rollers.
Intention, consistency, patience and shape it “like you mean it” is important.
3. Volume replacement
This can be done by strategic placement of dermal fillers to give an immediate effect. You can also use collagen biostimulators e.g. Ellanse to stimulate collagen to give a longer lasting result.
Be careful not to put too much to avoid the chipmunk look.
4. Volume repositioning
This can be done by lifting the droopy tissues by face-lift tapes (temporary tapes on the side of your face) or with thread lifts (procedure where threads with anchors are used to lift tissues).
There will be a limit with non-surgical treatments if there is excess skin laxity.
WHAT I DON’T RECOMMEND
Radiofrequency treatment if done repetitively or too intensively can melt fat which is not what we want in our cheeks. This can speed up volume loss and mid-face droop. So proceed with caution.
This can speed up volume loss and mid-face droop. So proceed with caution.
I hope you found this helpful.
If your cheeks concern you and you would like to do your research on treatment options that best suits you, I invite you to book a consultation with me for an assessment and open discussion. You can reach me by emailing [email protected].
Until the next blog,
Dr Terry