Nasolabial fold: beauty guide to understanding and dealing with smile lines

What is the nasolabial fold and why does it appear

Have you noticed those lines that appear between the nose and the mouth, just as you are smiling? They are known as nasolabial folds, also laugh or smile lines. Those folds, which can be the result of slackness and changes in facial volume, make us look tired or sad, which is why a lot of people look for ways to smoothen them out or get rid of them altogether in order to achieve a more cheerful facial expression.

The nasolabial fold appears due to a combination of genetic and environmental factors which affect how the fat in our face and our skin behave. Youthfulness of our facial skin depends on elastin, collagen and hyaluronic acid. The internal factors that cause the appearance of those folds include losing fat from our cheeks and slackening of our skin due to a decrease in collagen and elastin caused by ageing, in addition to bone resorption which makes our skin slacker.

On the other hand, the external factors that contribute to the appearance of these folds are the natural ageing process, loss of facial fat, exposure to sunlight, smoking, genetic propensity and sudden changes in body weight.

Daily care routine to smoothen the nasolabial fold

1. Muscle stimulation and massages: spend 3 minutes a day on upward massages from the corner of your lips to your temples, and facial exercises (such as puffing out your cheeks or exaggerating the pronunciation of vowels) to strengthen the muscles that support your cheeks.
2. Filling and firming active ingredients: apply hyaluronic acid with high and low molecular weight to hydrate and visually “fill” the line from the outside. Use retinol or peptides at night, which are the star ingredients to stimulate the natural production of collagen and improve the elasticity of the area.
3. Prevention and posture habits: use sun cream on a daily basis to avoid the ageing of your skin and avoid the deepening of those expression lines. Moreover, try to sleep face-up. Sleeping on your side applies pressure to your cheeks, thereby deepening the nasolabial fold every night.

Popular aesthetic treatment to smoothen nasolabial folds

• Hyaluronic acid: is the most popular option. It fills in wrinkles and folds immediately and confers hydration.
• Biostimulators (Radiesse/Sculptra): they not only fill in the fold, but they force your skin to produce new collagen for a more natural, lasting effect.
• Thread lifts: lift our cheeks to “stretch” the fold from above without adding extra volume.
• HIFU (Ultrasound): technology that tightens our skin deeply through heat. It is an ideal treatment if the original problem is slack skin.
• Facial balancing: a comprehensive approach that treats cheeks and other areas so that the fold is smoothened out as a result of improving the whole structure of our face.