Jawlines Of Victory

One Of The Most Notoriously Difficult Areas To Rejuvenate Is The Latest Fixation Of Doctors And The Selfie Generation Alike.

- Cheryl Wischhover

When New York City– based writer Alix Tunell turned 28, she treated herself to a cosmetic procedure she’d been considering for years. “My chin was weak, and I had two little fat pockets [hanging from my jawline] that I would constantly edit out of photos as soon as Facetune became available,” she says. “I just felt my side profile wasn’t strong.” So she visited a well-regarded plastic surgeon on the city’s Upper East Side and, under sedation, had the fat removed with liposuction. In the months following, she’s had doctors use advanced Botox and filler techniques, off-label, to continue sculpting that elusive photogenic mandible. Her results are subtle but fit the bill. “I don’t really Facetune it as much anymore,” Tunell says. “And I don’t feel like I need to work on my angles so much in photos.”

While getting any of these treatments pre-thirties may seem objectively young, Tunell is not alone in her fixation on the area once reserved for chiseled actors and Disney princes. Ava Shamban, MD, an L.A.-based dermatologist and assistant clinical professor of dermatology at the UCLA-Geffen School of Medicine, says the jawline is the hot area in aesthetics right now. “Part of that has to do with the fact that we’ve corrected so many of the other issues,” she says. Now that everyone has smoothed their frown lines and filled their smile lines, we’re looking lower down on our faces. The trend is now so mainstream that major injectable companies have invested millions to get their products FDA-approved for the area, though doctors have been using them off-label for years for this purpose.