No matter who you are or your socio-economic position in life, your body will show signs of aging, especially your skin. One particularly bothersome area is the skin along your jawline and below your chin. As you get older and your skin gets thinner and loses elasticity, this area may start to sag and create the dreaded jowls.
Men and women past 40 years of age soon notice sagging jowls with dismay. Do you look in the mirror each morning and rub your fingers along your jowls and feel a little loose skin? Are developing saggy jowls inevitable, and are you doomed to have the face of a bulldog the older you get?
If you are lucky, you may have a genetic disposition that may keep you from developing these unsightly flaps of skin under your chin. Your aging jowls may also be less prominent if you are overweight, have thick skin, or have have an abundance of facial collagen to keep the area tighter.
Your lifestyle and environmental factors also play a role in developing sagging jowls. Is there anything you can do naturally to minimize this blubbery nuisance? How do they develop, and what non-surgical ways can you do to minimize them?
Will You Get Sagging Jowls?
While most people will notice loose folds of skin under their chin and jawline, certain factors may increase your odds. Some are things that you can’t control and others you can. Consider these factors:
Genetic Predisposition
If you’re wondering if you are going to develop sagging jowls as you get older, look at your parents, grandparents, and other older people in your family. Do you see a tight jawline, or do most of them resemble Winston Churchill? If you say the latter, you are more likely to inherit the same flabby issue.
What About Your Lifestyle and Environmental Factors?
Sun Damage:
For years, Hollywood’s definition of perfection was a Malibu lifestyle and a perpetually suntanned body. Starting with the baby boomers, generations of sun-worshippers basked in the warm rays to keep their skin a sexy bronze color. Unfortunately, those ultraviolet rays often cause serious skin damage, wrinkles, and risks of deadly skin cancers.
Were you a frequent sunbather? Does your skin appear dry, leathery, and prematurely aged? Your probability of developing sagging jowls is much higher under these circumstances. However, it’s never too late to be sun-smart and wear protective clothing and sunblock when you go outside during the day.
Smoking:
If you search for another good reason to kick the smoking habit, here’s another one. Cigarette smoke is loaded with tar and other hazardous compounds that damage your lungs cardiovascular system, and skin. These poisons sink into your skin cells and slowly destroy their elasticity, creating deep furrows, lines, wrinkles, and saggy jowls.
Losing Weight:
Of course, losing excess weight is a good thing to make your body healthy and strong again. It also decreases your odds of developing certain diseases like diabetes, high blood pressure, kidney disease, and cardiovascular disorders.
The only downside is when you lose weight, it’s challenging to shrink your skin that was overstretched for years, and you’ll notice areas of loose, flappy skin, especially around your jowls.
Facial Expressions:
Remember how your mother used to warn you that if you made silly or mean faces your face could freeze like that? Although it’s not instantaneous, there’s some truth to her reprimand. If you are continually grimacing, scowling, or twisting your face into unnatural expressions, they can cause unwanted lines, wrinkles, and flabby jowls.
Poor Posture:
Here’s another one of your parents’ rules that have lifelong benefits. Good posture keeps your bones and joints in line and your muscles strong. Be careful when you have your head and neck bent down for long periods because it can affect your face, neck, and jowls.
What If You Already Have Saggy Jowls?
Ok, what if you’ve always been sun smart, never smoked, maintained a healthy weight, and still developed flappy jowls. Perhaps it’s one of those genetic markers, and you had no control over it. Before you go into hiding or resort to surgery, you have better non-surgical options.
You needn’t undergo painful and expensive cosmetic surgery to reduce your wobbly jowls. So, chins up and discover easy ways to work at home on your face, chin, and neck. Consider these helpful hints for reducing your saggy jowls for good.
• Reduce Your Environmental Risks
If you haven’t already quit, talk to your primary healthcare provider about a smoking cessation program that would be best for you. Avoid bright sunlight during peak hours, and you should always wear protective clothing and a strong sunblock with optimal UV protection. Give your neck periodic rests when working on the computer or talking on your phone. Your jowls will notice the difference.
• Facial Exercises
Did you know that you have 42 different muscles in your face? They need care and exercise, just like the rest of your body’s muscles to stay toned and healthy. Although saggy jowls have more to do with your skin than the muscles, daily facial exercise tightens the jawline muscles and reduces the rubbery appearance of your jowls.
Consider doing these simple facial exercises a few minutes when you wake up in the morning and right before you go to bed:
1. Jawline Massage
If your skin gets saggy in a certain area, sometimes you can build muscles to bridge the gap. Such is the case for your chin and jowls. Have you noticed that your jawline is a little shaky lately?
Try giving your jowls a little pat back into shape. Using the back of your left hand, pat gently around the jowls of the right side of your face for about 25-30 seconds. Then, use the back of your right hand to pat along your left jawline for another 25-30 seconds.
Your pats should be firm but gentle enough that it doesn’t hurt your face. It should be a light sensation that shows that you are encouraging blood flow around your entire jawline. Your jaw should feel firmer and less saggy when you do this exercise as part of your beauty regimen.
2. Smile a While
Did you know that smiling is good for your face, especially your cheeks and jawline? Instead of frowning when you see a little extra bounce in your jowls, why not smile them into better shape. This is an exercise that will make you happy every time you do it.
To do this, make both hands into a fist and place them on each side of your jawline, right below your ears. Gently pull your cheeks back with your fists until you are smiling, and you feel your skin tightening. It’s almost like you are a child leaning on your fists and smiling.
Try to do these smiling exercises 40-50 times each day. You should notice the skin in your jawline feeling tighter and your jowls less noticeable. Isn’t that something that will put a smile on your face?
3. Make Funny Faces
Here’s another exercise in smiling your way to a younger face and tighter jawline. You may chuckle a bit at the funny faces since you’ll probably be looking in a mirror while doing these exercises. It’s a great way to strengthen your facial muscles and smile on your face each morning.
Bring your bottom teeth up over your upper lip and cover it with your lower lip. Make a smile and try to hold it for 10-15 seconds. Repeat this exercise ten times.
4. Use Makeup
Your makeup bag is one of the best tools in your arsenal of beauty supplies. Although it won’t make your sagging jowls disappear, it can do wonders to minimize their appearance. Talk to a makeup expert or go online to find ways to use foundation and brushes to create contours on your chin and jawline.
It’s important to use the best foundation shade for your skin tone. Also, put a little more emphasis on enhancing your eyes. It will naturally make other people’s focus be on your eyes and upper face and less on your jawline.
Final Thoughts on Firming Up Those Sagging Jowls
Another ideal way to camouflage your less-than-perfect jawline is with a scarf. Treat yourself with a few classy scarves that will match just about anything in your wardrobe. Colorful silk scarves are the epitome of femininity and can be tied in many attractive ways.
Don’t forget the covering power of a turtleneck. These quintessential collars can hide sagging jowls but also give your lower face a gentle boost. Avoid open or plunging necklines that can draw more attention to an area you are trying to hide.
Nobody wants to look in the mirror and see inevitable signs of aging, especially sagging jowls. Fortunately, you can forgo the surgeon’s knife and try some of these handy tricks to minimize their appearance. They take a few minutes and can make a difference in how you feel about yourself.
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