You catch yourself in the car's rearview mirror at a red light, chin slightly down, and there they are. Two soft little shelves along your jawline that were definitely not there at your cousin's wedding. Your next move is predictable: you search do facial exercises work for sagging jowls and find a lot of very confident people making fish faces.
The honest answer is that facial exercise has a tiny body of research, one promising but small study in midlife women, and no clear evidence that it tightens the jawline. Let's look at what was actually measured.
The Northwestern study everyone quotes
In January 2018, dermatologists at Northwestern University published a research letter in JAMA Dermatology. They recruited 27 women aged 40 to 65 with some sun damage and an interest in facial exercise. Sixteen made it to the end.
The program was not casual. Participants had two 90-minute training sessions with an instructor, then practiced at home: 30 minutes every day for eight weeks, then 30 minutes every other day through week 20. The routine had 32 different exercises, each held for about a minute. The exercise developer, from a company called Happy Face Yoga, was a coauthor.
Two dermatologists who didn't know which photos were before or after rated the women's faces at the start, at week 8 and at week 20. What changed:
- Upper cheek fullness improved, with average scores moving from 1.8 to 1.1 on the rating scale
- Lower cheek fullness improved too, from 1.6 to 0.9
- Average estimated age dropped from 50.8 years to 48.1, a difference of about 2.7 years
The authors suggested the cheek muscles may have grown slightly, the way any muscle does with training, filling out the mid-face. The women also reported being happy with the results.
Why that study can't settle the jowl question
Three problems, and they're the authors' own. There was no control group, so we don't know what would have happened to similar women who didn't do the exercises (or who just slept better, drank more water or got photographed in kinder light). The sample was tiny. And the women were self-selected, likely very motivated people, which isn't who most of us are at 10 p.m. after a long day.
The dropout rate is its own clue. Of 27 women who signed up, 11 didn't finish. That's not a knock on them. Thirty minutes of face exercises a day is a real time commitment, roughly the length of a TV episode, every single day for two months. Any result that depends on that level of consistency is going to be hard for most people to reproduce.
Also, estimated age is a soft measure. It's two experts looking at photos and guessing. It was done blind, which helps, but a 2.7-year shift in a guess is a long way from a measurable lift along the jaw.
Then the jowl issue itself. The published results highlighted the cheeks and the overall age estimate. In the write-ups we read, there's no reported improvement in jowls or jawline definition. Fuller upper cheeks can make the whole face look a bit lifted, so there may be an indirect effect, but nobody measured that directly. Lead author Murad Alam described the findings as some evidence and said a larger study was needed to confirm them.
Reviews since then have been blunter. A 2014 systematic review in Aesthetic Surgery Journal looked at nine facial exercise studies. All reported positive results, and none was randomized or controlled. The reviewers concluded there wasn't enough evidence to say whether facial exercises work. A 2024 systematic review in Revista CEFAC found seven studies, each with between 3 and 20 adults, no randomized trials, and called the evidence insufficient to prove a benefit.
Why jowls show up in midlife anyway
This part matters, because it explains why a muscle workout probably isn't the right tool. Jowls aren't mainly a weak-muscle problem.
First, collagen. The American Academy of Dermatology (AAD) says women's skin loses about 30 percent of its collagen in the first five years of menopause, then about 2 percent a year for the next 20. As collagen drops, skin loses firmness and starts to sag, and the AAD specifically names jowls as one result.
Second, bone. A 2010 study in Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery used 120 CT scans to measure jawbones in younger, middle-aged and older adults. The jaw lost length and height with age, and the angle of the jaw widened, which softens the line along the bottom of the face. The researchers described a significant decline in jaw volume, meaning less scaffolding holding up the soft tissue above it.
So you're dealing with looser skin draped over a slightly smaller frame. Exercise isn't known to rebuild either one. That's not a character flaw, and it's not because you skipped your chin lifts.
Could face exercises backfire?
There's no evidence that face exercise causes harm in healthy people. One thing to keep in mind: the AAD lists avoiding repetitive facial expressions as a way to limit lines, because using the same muscles over and over for years can make creases permanent. Nobody has studied whether a daily face workout deepens lines, but if a move makes your skin fold hard in the same spot, it seems sensible to skip that one.
And if you have jaw clenching or TMJ pain (trouble with the joint where your jaw hinges), a lot of extra chewing-muscle work is worth running past your dentist or doctor first.
What about chin lifts and neck moves?
You'll find plenty of exercises sold specifically for jowls: jutting the jaw forward, tilting the head back and pouting at the ceiling, pressing the tongue to the roof of the mouth. They may feel like they're doing something, and some of them are a pleasant stretch.
But we couldn't find good evidence for any single jowl move. The 2014 review noted that nearly every study it looked at combined several exercise types and mostly relied on subjective ratings, which makes it impossible to say which move did what. So if a program promises a tighter jawline from one particular exercise, that claim is running well ahead of the research.
What has better evidence for the lower face
None of this is as fun as a face yoga reel, but it's better supported:
- Daily broad-spectrum sunscreen, SPF 30 or higher, on all exposed skin including the neck. The AAD lists daily sun protection among its ways to reduce premature skin aging.
- Retinoid creams. The AAD says a dermatologist may recommend one for thinning midlife skin, and that products with retinol or peptides may help with collagen.
- Not smoking. The AAD says smoking greatly speeds up how quickly skin ages.
- A conversation with a board-certified dermatologist about in-office options if the jawline really bothers you. Those are medical procedures with real costs and risks, and they're worth discussing with someone who can examine your face.
If you still want to try it
Fair enough. It's free, low-risk and some people find it relaxing. Just go in clear-eyed. The one study that showed anything required about 30 minutes a day for two months and then every other day, so the commitment is closer to a gym habit than a quick trick. Expect, at best, a subtle change in the cheeks. Take a photo in the same light at the start and at three months so you're judging real change, not a good-hair day.
And if you look at that photo and decide your jowls are just part of your face now, that's a completely valid ending too. You don't owe anyone a sharper jawline.
