Has anybody ever asked you if you were grumpy, when you’re actually in a good mood? Or maybe somebody thought you were angry when you actually were quite happy.
If this describes you it’s possible that you may be suffering from the permanent frown, often called downturned mouth.
If that is you, then I’ve got the solutions for you in this article.
How do you take that frown and turn it upside down?
I’m gonna tell you about how to lift downward turned lips and there are a number of options that you have and only one of them involves very minor surgery. You’ll also see before and after pictures.
How do you take that permanent frown and turn it into a more pleasant appearance.
Table of Contents
What Causes Drooping Mouth Corners?
The first thing we need to think about is anatomy. Why does somebody gets a perma frown?
Depressor anguli oris muscles are the muscles that extend from the corner of the mouth down and they basically pull the corners of the mouth down.
In a lot of people, as they get older, those muscles can get more and more hyperactive, pulling the corners of their mouth down.
How do you treat something like this?
Unfortunately there’s no cream that you can put on your skin, there’s no laser treatment, there’s no micro needling that’s gonna do anything for the perma frown.
You really have to target the muscle that pulls the actual corners of the mouth down and you got to target filling in the lines.
Botox/Fillers
If you’re somebody who has a little bit of a downturmed mouth but it’s not terribly severe, you may be able to treat it with some botox and/or filler.
Botox injected about two to two-and-a-half units under each corner of the mouth in that depressor anguli oris muscle can weaken that muscle and can cause the corners of the mouth to actually lift up.
If that doesn’t quite do it, and it doesn’t in most people, then the next step is an injectable filler like Restylane or Juvederm.
By injecting that filler into the marionette lines, which are the lines that come straight down from the corners of the mouth, we can fill those lines in and actually even provide support for the corner of the mouth to lift the corners of the mouth up.
The great thing about these treatments is that there is absolutely no downtime. You’ll see the results for the filler right away, the Botox can take a week or so for it to work.
The negative is this is an invasive procedure. It does involve needles, although in general it’s relatively minimal discomfort when you’re having it done.
So we can get a pretty nice treatment for that when it’s not that bad without surgery.
Grin Lift
You may be reading this article and say ‘the injections may work for some people, but I’ve got it a lot worse’. If that describes you, then you may be a candidate for a grin lift, otherwise known as a corner mouth lift.
Let me show you a picture of before and after:
This is a woman in her late 50s and people used to think that she was always grumpy. No matter what she said or did, people believed that she was upset and she was NOT.
When you take a look at her mouth in the before part of the picture, you can see why people would think that. The corners of the mouth were turned down and she’s got these marionette lines.
Botox and fillers unfortunately were not powerful enough to lift her corners of the mouth enough to give her that kind of pleasant appearance.
Then what was done was a grin lift.
A grin lift is removal of a tiny triangle of skin from each corner of the mouth and by removing that skin and stitching the skin together it provides a lifting effect of the corners of the mouth. You can see a big difference in the after.
The grin lift takes about 20 minutes, it can be done under a local anesthetic and it’s basically as simple as having a mole taken off from each corner of the mouth. It’s that simple.
The negative though, like any surgery, is it does create scars and the scars from the grin lift extend from the corners of the mouth upward.
Initially if you have this surgery done, you’re gonna look a little bit like Jack Nicholson from the Joker, which is a little scary when you think about it.
But those scars tend to heal pretty well, especially the older that you are, the better those scars heal. You can see a very nice result afterwards.
This woman said ‘I’ve got issues because when I go out to dinner with my friends or I go out to lunch, I get food and I get salad dressing and things stuck in these grooves extending from the corners of my mouth’.
What was done for her is same thing. She started with a little Botox, she did a little bit of filler, but it just wasn’t powerful enough to lift her downturned corners of the mouth and turn that permanent frown upside down.
They combined that with the grin lift, giving her a little scar coming up from the corners of the mouth on each side and you can see a big big difference.
No more worries about getting food stuck in those crevices.
This woman actually had a facelift, her neck and everything else was good, but she still looked grumpy.
She ended up getting a grin lift. Extra skin was removed, she’s got the little scars coming out from the corners of the mouth. A huge difference was achieved.
So you can get that procedure but it is surgery and the surgery some minimal downtime.
Drooping mouth corners before and after
Rebecca is a licensed aesthetician and certified laser technician with almost 15 years experience in the dermatology. Her life-long passion is making people look good and happy.