Concerns We Treat
Nasolabial Folds
The lines that run from the sides of the nose to the corners of the mouth, deepening as the midface loses its support.
The lines that run from the sides of the nose to the corners of the mouth, deepening as the midface loses its support.
Nasolabial folds, often called smile lines or laugh lines, are the creases that run from the sides of the nose down to the corners of the mouth. They are not strictly lines of expression; they are the visible front of a slow structural change happening above them, in the midface.
The cheek of a younger face holds its volume high and full, and the skin between the cheek and the mouth lies smoothly. As the cheek begins to lose its support, the skin slides gently downward, and the fold from nose to mouth becomes the visible edge of that slide.
Treatment for nasolabial folds suits patients whose folds have begun to read deeper than they wish, and whose midface volume has visibly thinned compared with earlier years. The treatment is conservative by approach: small amounts of filler placed precisely at the cheek, with the fold softened indirectly through the lift above.
It also suits those who would rather meet the change early than wait. A modest amount of filler at the cheek in the early forties is gentler in cost and in result than a large correction in the later fifties, and the face that has been steadily supported tends to age more gracefully than the face that has not.
The principal cause is not the fold itself but the volume loss above it. The fat pads of the midface thin with the decades, the supporting bone resorbs subtly, and the skin that once draped smoothly across full underlying tissue begins to drape across less. The nasolabial fold is the crease where the still-full lip and the now-deflated cheek meet.
This is why filler placed directly into the fold often misses the question. The fold is the consequence, and the cause sits above it. We work upward at the cheek, restoring the support, and the fold softens as the structural foundation is rebuilt.
You may notice:
Nasolabial folds tend to arrive in the early forties, though some are present earlier in patients whose midface volume is naturally on the lighter side. The fold deepens slowly through the forties and fifties as the underlying support continues to thin, and what was a faint shadow in the thirties may become a defined crease by sixty.
Weight fluctuations can accelerate the arc dramatically. Significant weight loss removes facial fat as readily as it removes fat elsewhere on the body, and the result is often more visible at the midface than anywhere else. Stable weight, across the long run, is one of the gentler choices for the face.
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