Tightening The Jawline Is The New Botox

Fashion week for me used to be all about watching a parade of stunning 18 year old’s wearing dresses that I would never be able to fit in nor afford. As I get older however, different things draw my attention.

Now I prefer watching the women observing from the front row. These are all powerful, successful women far nearer to my own age and career path and with a lifestyle I aspire to. I love to monitor their fashion choices and of course what they’re doing to their faces. This year I was riveted not by shortened hemlines but by tight jaw lines.

And as a matter of fact I was hard pressed to find a single jowl on anyone. These women had expression lines, wrinkles around their eyes and on their forehead when speaking, but chins and jaw lines that were as tight as a girl just sitting her GCSE’s; there wasn’t a slackened jowl in sight.  It’s not just about being thin, there’s tightness that on planet earth, as far as I can tell, just shouldn’t naturally be there.

So just how do they do it? After some calls to my best insider A-list Docs, it seems the new trend amongst power women is the Nefertiti Lift. This is named for the Egyptian queen famous for (amongst other things) her very defined jawline.

Dr Barbara Kubicka sees a host of them at her Knightsbridge clinic and says that ‘While the whole world expects it’s wrinkles that age you, it’s actually your face shape that’s making you look older.” She has clients coming in each and every day asking for Botox not on their foreheads but designed to firm their jaw line.

Here’s why: “The first thing that our mind assesses when it come to judging the age of the person is shape of their face,” Dr Kubicka says, “Our faces change with time from a triangle (high cheek bones and defined jaw line) to a square with a heavy jaw line and double chin. The shape of the face is much more important than the lines and folds. In fact, according to recent research we universally recognise as younger, a person who is wrinkly but has a youthful face shape. Thus, traditional Botox on the forehead alone doesn’t improve appearance, but changing the shape of your face and tightening your jaw line, does.”

Getting a Nefertiti Lift, or lower face rejuvenation has become a must have amongst the jet set. The good news is though, that apart from a lower face lift – which if fairly extreme– for those of us who want to avoid going under the knife there is a lot of options out there.

Indeed, Dr Kubicka of ClinicBe confirms that there’s a lot that can be done without surgery:

You can jab it: Access to soft and fat tissue around the jaw line and under the chin can be corrected with up to 3 sessions of Aqualyx (which is a new and improved version of ‘flab jab’) It works to dissolve fat cells and allows us to pass them out of our bodies when we urinate (£550 pounds per treatment).

You can tighten it: Loss of skin laxity can be rectified with different skin treatments like Dermaroller, Radio Frequency or laser and loss of volume on the upper face resulting in a lower face drop can be improved with Dermal Filler or Sculptra.

You can lift it: Over active Platysma muscle on the neck that pulls the corner of the jawline down with every contraction can be relaxed with muscle relaxant injections such as Botox which gives an effective lift. Botox (muscle relaxing injections): Nefertiti Lift £350 (Treatments last 3 – 4 months).

And finally Dr Kubicka says that the best innovation over the last couple of years is threads.  These have been around for a while (remember Madonna was snapped with that suspicious scarring that was widely believed to be a thread lift?)

Brand new to the market are PDO threads – a Korean innovation that is suitable for both lifting and tightening.  It’s far less invasive than traditional threads (there is no hook to hook them on) and there are many sizes and lengths of threads available which allows treatment to every part of the face and even the body. As much as they lift they result in an increase of collagen production and line improvement as a bonus. PDO Threads – Price on Consultation. (Treatments last up to 18 months)

And with all of these treatments, subtlety is what you’re aiming for. Says Dr Kubicka: “The greatest advantage is that we can improve the lower face, lift it and tighten without adding extra volume (as seen before with the dreaded “pillow faces look”) which allows us to achieve not only a younger but as well more naturally beautiful facial appearance.”