The Shape of the Aging Face

It’s no secret that as we get older our faces change.  It’s a slow process that you don’t notice day today, but if you look at pictures of yourself from five or even ten years ago, you can see a big difference!  Yes, laugh lines appear and your skin may show some signs of fun in the sun, but there are other, deeper changes too.

The biggest change for most women is how they loose volume in their face as they age.  Now, if you’ve always had a round “baby face”, some of this volume loss is very welcome!  Some women like the shape of their face in their 30’s and 40’s, but for many others, these changes make them look tired and older than they really are.  So what really happens to the shape of our face as we age?

When we are young, we have plenty of volume in our face.  The classic shape of the young face is heart-shaped or like an inverted pyramid:  full and broad at the top around the forehead, temples and the eyes, and becoming tapered at the bottom, around the mouth and the chin. The transitions from the forehead to the eyes, from the lower eyelids to the cheek and from the cheek to the oral area are very soft and smooth.

As we grow older, loss of bone and fat, combined with loss of laxity in our skin causes the heart-shape to flip upside down.  Temples hollow and eyelids become thin and heavy.  Jowls and heavy lines around the mouth appear.  The transitions from one area of our face to another become disconnected and take on an angular or sharp look.  All of this contributes to the upper part of our face looking tapered and the bottom part looking full.  A complete 180-degree turn!

View More Botox Injections Before and After Pictures

But there is something that you can do to regain a more youthful shape to your face.  When we combine the use of Botox and fillers such as Restylane, Restylane Lyft and Juvederm, we are able to restore fullness, softness and smoother transitions.  Botox can actually help reshape the face.  Relaxing some muscles makes others work more.  The net effect is to “lift” certain areas.  Then by adding volume with dermal fillers, you can add even more contour and fullness to areas that need it.

Take a look at the patient below.  She had an extremely deep “glabella” line, which in most people, shows up as a pair of lines commonly referred to as “the 11’s”.  In her case, we first used Botox relax the muscles that were pulling on the skin and causing the line to form.  Then, to soften it even more, we used Restylane to fill it.  The overall result is a smoother, softer and more youthful appearance of the area.