You look in the mirror one morning and realize the sharp line of your jaw just... isn't there anymore. It's subtle at first. Maybe a little softness near the corners of your mouth. Then, suddenly, it feels like your lower face is migrating south. Gravity is a jerk. Let's be real—everyone wants to know how to get rid of jowels, but the internet is full of "face yoga" gurus who haven't actually seen a clinical study in their lives.
Jowls happen. They're basically just skin and fat that have lost their structural support. As we age, we lose collagen and elastin, the proteins that keep skin bouncy. Also, the fat pads in our cheeks start to deflate and slide downward. Think of it like a house where the foundation is shifting; the siding starts to sag because there’s nothing holding it up anymore.
Why Your Jawline Is Moving South
It’s not just birthdays. Genetics play a massive role. If your parents had heavy lower faces, you’re probably fighting an uphill battle. But lifestyle factors like sun exposure and smoking accelerate the breakdown of those precious elastic fibers. Even tech neck—the constant hunching over your phone—is being blamed by some dermatologists for premature sagging.
The Anatomy of a Sag
Your face is built in layers. You’ve got the bone, then muscle, then deep fat pads, then the SMAS (superficial muscular aponeurotic system), then superficial fat, and finally, the skin. When you’re trying to figure out how to get rid of jowels, you have to address which of these layers is the culprit. Usually, it's a combination of the fat pads descending and the skin losing its "shrink-wrap" effect.
Dr. Shereene Idriss, a well-known board-certified dermatologist, often talks about "face-aging" as a loss of volume rather than just sagging skin. If you just pull the skin tight without addressing the lost volume in the mid-face, you end up looking like you’re in a wind tunnel. Not great.
Non-Invasive Fixes: Do They Actually Work?
Most people want the "lunchtime lift." They want to go in, get a zap or a poke, and come out looking ten years younger. It’s rarely that simple, but some tech is actually pretty impressive.
Energy-Based Tightening
You've probably heard of Ultherapy or Thermage. These are the heavy hitters of the non-surgical world. Ultherapy uses micro-focused ultrasound to heat up the deep layers of the tissue (the SMAS layer we mentioned earlier). It basically tricks your body into thinking it’s been injured, so it rushes to produce new collagen.
It hurts. A lot. Most patients describe it as hot needles or a deep, aching "zing."
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Thermage uses radiofrequency (RF) instead. It’s better for surface-level skin tightening. If your jowls are mostly just loose skin and not heavy fat, RF might be your best bet. Then there's Sofwave, which is newer and tends to be less painful because it doesn't go as deep as Ultherapy but still hits the mid-dermis hard enough to trigger a response.
The Filler Controversy
Filler is a double-edged sword. For years, the standard advice for how to get rid of jowels was to "lift" the face by putting filler in the cheeks. The logic was that if you inflate the top, the bottom will pull up.
That’s how we ended up with "pillow face."
Modern injectors, like Dr. Harris in London, advocate for a more conservative approach. Instead of overfilling the cheeks, they might place a small amount of a high-density filler (like Juvederm Volux or Restylane Lyft) directly along the jawline or in the "pre-jowl sulcus"—that little notch that forms right in front of the jowl. This creates a structural camouflage. It doesn't actually remove the jowl; it just makes the line look straight again.
The Hard Truth About Face Exercises
Can we just talk about the "Mewing" trend or face yoga for a second? Honestly, it's mostly nonsense.
The idea is that if you build up your facial muscles, they’ll fill out the loose skin. But jowls are caused by skin laxity and fat displacement, not weak muscles. In fact, overworking certain muscles—like the platysma bands in your neck—can actually pull your lower face down more.
If you want to try it, fine. It’s free. But don't expect it to replace a facelift. You’d have to do those exercises for hours every day to see even a negligible difference. Most of the "before and after" photos you see for these programs are just better lighting and a different tongue position.
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Professional Procedures That Actually Move the Needle
If the creams and the light-zapping didn't do it, you're looking at more "invasive" territory. This is where you get the most dramatic results, but also the most downtime.
Liposuction and Kybella
Sometimes the jowl is mostly fat. If you're younger and have good skin elasticity but just have those stubborn pockets of fat at the jawline, submental liposuction is the gold standard. A surgeon makes a tiny incision, sucks out the fat, and you're done.
Kybella is the injectable version. It’s deoxycholic acid, which dissolves fat cells. It works, but it causes massive swelling. We’re talking "bullfrog neck" for two weeks. Most people would rather just do the lipo and be done with it.
Thread Lifts: The Temporary Tighten
Thread lifts were huge a few years ago. They use dissolvable sutures with tiny barbs to physically hook the tissue and pull it up.
Here's the catch: they don't last.
The "lift" you see immediately is often just inflammation. Within six months to a year, the threads dissolve. While they do stimulate some collagen, they rarely provide the long-term solution people are looking for when they research how to get rid of jowels. Many plastic surgeons actually hate them because they create scar tissue that makes a future facelift more difficult.
The Surgical Gold Standard
Eventually, every conversation about jowls leads to the Deep Plane Facelift.
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This isn't your grandma’s facelift where they just pull the skin and pray. A deep plane lift involves going under the muscle layer (the SMAS) to release the ligaments that are holding the jowl in its saggy position. Once those ligaments are released, the surgeon can move the entire unit of fat and muscle back to where it lived in your 20s.
It's a major surgery. You'll be out of commission for at least two weeks. But if you want a jawline that looks like it could cut glass, this is the only way to truly "get rid" of jowls rather than just hiding them.
At-Home Maintenance and Prevention
Look, you aren't going to fix a jowl with a serum. I wish I could tell you that a $300 cream from a luxury brand would work, but it won't. Skin is very good at keeping things out. Most collagen molecules in creams are too big to actually penetrate the dermis.
However, you can prevent things from getting worse.
- Retinoids: Tretinoin or high-strength retinol helps keep skin cells turning over and keeps the top layer of skin looking healthy.
- Sunscreen: UV rays are the number one cause of elastin breakdown. If you aren't wearing SPF 30+ every single day, you're basically inviting jowls to stay.
- Microcurrent: Devices like the NuFace or MyoLift use low-grade electricity to temporarily tone the muscles. Think of it like a "flash facial." It looks good for about 24 hours. Great for an event, but not a permanent fix.
- Diet: High sugar intake leads to glycation, where sugar molecules attach to collagen fibers and make them brittle. Cut the sugar, save your jawline.
Making a Decision
So, what should you actually do?
If you’re seeing the very first signs of sagging, start with preventative skincare and maybe a round of Sofwave or Ultherapy to build a "collagen bank." It won't be a miracle, but it'll slow the roll.
If you have a clear "step" in your jawline, look into jawline filler. Find an injector who understands anatomy and doesn't just want to give you "Kardashian cheeks."
If you’re looking in the mirror and pulling your skin back with your fingers and thinking, "I wish it stayed there," it might be time to consult a board-certified plastic surgeon. There is no shame in it.
The biggest mistake people make is spending thousands of dollars on "mini" treatments that don't add up to a result. Sometimes, saving that money for a single, effective procedure is the smarter financial move.
Actionable Steps for a Sharper Jaw
- Audit your posture. Stop looking down at your laptop. Elevate your screen so your neck stays neutral.
- Consult a pro. Book a consultation with a dermatologist who has multiple devices (not just one) so they aren't biased toward a specific machine.
- Manage expectations. Understand that non-surgical results are usually "subtle" (a 10-20% improvement).
- Check your Vitamin C. Use a topical antioxidant every morning to protect against the environmental damage that eats away at your skin's support structure.
- Watch the weight fluctuations. Gaining and losing weight repeatedly stretches the skin. Try to maintain a stable weight to keep the skin's "snap-back" ability intact.