Many of us believe that the faces we have right now are the ones that will stay with us forever. But just looking back at our own lives reveals that this isn’t true. Of course, face shapes can change. That’s what makes us look like adults once we hit our late teens.
But once you’re an adult, is there anything you can do to change your face shape? Well, it turns out that there is. Yes, some interventions take work, but they could be worth it, depending on your situation.
So, what’s out there?
Orthodontics And Jaw Alignment
One option is orthodontics and jaw alignment. This technology can affect the bone itself, not just the teeth, which is why so many people now use it for face-sculpting purposes.
It sounds strange, but when you think about what braces and similar devices do, it starts to make more sense. By aligning the teeth properly with the jaw (and overcoming any congenital issues), the biting mechanism becomes straighter, and the jaw ensemble begins to consolidate. Eventually, it takes a more symmetrical shape.
Of course, orthodontics won’t change the bone’s shape. That’s not possible. But it can influence how it looks through various stresses and forces.
Dietary Adjustments
Another option is to make dietary adjustments that reduce puffiness, another factor that can affect face shape. Usually, this puffy material accumulates on the front of the face around and below the eyes, making the complexion protrude.
The prime culprit for this is inflammatory foods. Eating lots of processed meat, sugar, and baked goods can bring this on.
Fortunately, you can usually sort it out by simply increasing your intake of greens and fruits. Adding beans can also help because it changes the nature of the gut microbiota which, in turn, can have an effect on the face.
You may also notice that adding more of these foods to the diet improves skin tone. Often, they reduce redness and roughness.
Use Non-Invasive Techniques
You don’t have to get a facelift to change your face’s shape. These days, there are all sorts of non-invasive techniques available, many of which simply restore your natural beauty.
Take Masseter Botox for example. This technique involves applying Botox to certain parts of the jaw to counter conditions like bruxism, or persistent jaw clenching. The idea is to relax the surrounding muscles so that the jaw can rest at night, instead of clamping together and stressing the face.
The same is true of thread-based facelift techniques and infrared light. All these methods target the underlying structure of the soft tissue in the face, helping it align more with what you want.
Dermal Fillers
Of course, if you want to have a big impact quickly, you could opt for dermal fillers. The main ingredient is usually hyaluronic acid, a type of hydrophilic molecule that makes the face look plumper. However, there are others under various brand names.
What’s important to understand about dermal fillers is that their direct effect is only a small part of the results they generate. Most of their effects come from how they change the responsiveness of the skin, activating latent rejuvenation pathways. For this reason, fillers can have longer-lasting effects over time, and actually increase their benefits the longer they remain under the skin.
Eventually, the body will remove these fillers from the complexion, but the youthful appearance they generate will often persist.
Better Skincare
Another approach is to adopt a completely non-invasive skincare routine and see how your face reacts. Sometimes, applying the right products can make your complexion more defined.
These days, the potency of skincare products is substantially higher than in the past. It’s possible to concoct a regimen that makes your face look firmer and more defined by reducing inflammation and puffiness. Key ingredients include retinoids, peptides, and antioxidants. These often combine to deliver exceptional results, leading to reductions in apparent skin age.
Just be careful if you use any prescription skin products. These tend to be much harsher and designed to deal with medical conditions. While retinoids can be highly effective at sloughing off dead skin, they can also lead to redness, pinkness, and swelling.
Facial Exercises
A few years ago, the notion of facial exercises also became more common. People started practising face yoga to target the muscles in the cheeks, jaws and eyes.
The concept was pretty simple. The idea is to exercise those parts of the face to recruit healing and rejuvenating factors from the rest of the body, similar to what happens when you exercise your arms or legs.
Later, some companies began to introduce exercise tools you could put in the mouth to practice clenching the jaw under pressure. Proponents believe that these techniques can change the face shape and deal with issues like a receding jawline.
The science of whether these interventions work is limited right now. However, there is some evidence that it may offer a degree of contouring. Even so, fat loss from the tissues around the face is likely the most effective intervention.
Conclusion
It is possible to change your face shape if you adopt the right strategies. Unlike what many people assume, it isn’t something set in stone by genetics, but malleable depending on how you live your life and the treatments you receive.
What’s more, many of the methods you can trust first are non-invasive. There’s no need to go immediately under the knife and engage in a procedure that requires a general anesthetic.
There are, of course, numerous cosmetic options available on today’s market. These include things like nose reshaping and chin augmentation, which physically break and reconstruct the tissue to change the aesthetics.
Then there’s buccal fat removal, which can also permanently change face shape. This removes fat you don’t want in some regions, and can make the face more chiseled.
However, extensive surgeries aren’t always necessary, and many clinics prefer patients to make subtler changes before attempting significant work on their faces.
So there you have it: some subtle and not-so-subtle ways to change your face shape.
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