The Aesthetic Guide for Forehead to Chin Skin Consultation

As an aesthetic nurse, my job day in and out is to assess and evaluate facial anatomies. I encounter beautiful, unique features everyday and I’m constantly met with dilemmas of how to improve someone who either has minimal correctional needs or someone who’s budget doesn’t allow the correction she or he desires. Regardless of budget, I’ve learned the best method when performing a skin consultation with a patient is to do a forehead to chin assessment. This is essential because someone may come in with one problem area not realizing another area is causing the problem. For example, someone may come in because their nasolabial folds (smile lines) are deep and may not realize that the apples of their cheeks have lost deep tissue causing a descension of the cheeks on top of the smile lines. It’s important to understand why, during a skin consultation, your aesthetic provider may address a different area from the area you’re concerned with. The facial anatomy works together in synchrony and when one area falls, the neighboring areas aren’t far behind. In this article, I’ll address the top concerns I hear during a skin consultation and how I address these concerns.

Starting At Your Forehead’s Unique Needs

The forehead often bears the brunt of environmental exposure and can often be what people see as the first signs of aging, making it a key area to assess during consultations. What usually bothers my patients are their “elevens”(frown lines) or their horizontal forehead lines. These wrinkles typically present themselves due to sun damage, persistent dehydration, strong muscle movement overtime, loss of collagen and elastin or a combination of everything, a.k.a AGING! Usually addressing these lines makes a HUGE difference in someone’s appearance and perception of themselves. My rule of thumb is even though we may just be treating the forehead and frown lines, we have to think how reducing these wrinkles will look and work with the remaining face. It may look unnatural to “freeze” the forehead with botox but have wrinkles throughout the rest of the face. Balance throughout should always be the goal. So while botox is an amazing product for reducing significant dynamic movement to forehead and frown lines, we also want to make sure we’re not overdoing it where it dramatically changes where the anatomy naturally likes to sit. Also, some static or fine lines are not fully affected by botox as they’re from lack of moisture or collagen/elastin to the skin. In these cases, I recommended hydrating skincare and nutrition as well as microneedling which creates micro-injuries that will stimulate collagen production. This combo treatment can help smooth out resting wrinkles over time and maintain a smooth and hydrated appearance.

Caring for Your Eyes

The skin around the eyes is fragile and prone to puffiness and dark circles. Aging in this area can make people insecure and want to avoid eye contact. There’s many conditions in this area that can create the perception that you’re tired or angry or sad, unhappy or simply make you appear older. Under eye puffiness, sagging eye lids, strong crow’s feet, periorbital darkness/hyperpigmentation can all give a less favoring affect on someone’s appearance. It’s important in this area to be realistic about what med spa treatments can do and when it’s time to seek a surgical route based on the individual’s desires. I find when it comes to significant drooping of eyelid skin most medspa treatments won’t significantly tighten the skin. When there’s a moderate to severe amount of extra skin you can lift and you want most of it gone, surgery is typically your best bet. Same with under eye bags. Under eye filler gets a bad rap which is often warranted as fillers are hydrophilic and can sometimes cause fluid retention and make under eyes appear even worse in the wrong candidate. Though, there are candidates that have volume loss in the perfect area where a small amount of filler can make a significant difference. Botox is also great for crow’s feet but sometimes too much can change the “spark” and uniqueness in a smile. Eyes are a tricky area so must be treated with caution. For minimal under eye wrinkles I love some PRP (platelet rich plasma) sessions and the alastin under eye serum.

The Secrets of the Cheeks

Cheeks can reveal a lot about your skin’s health, from redness and blemishes to signs of aging. Understanding this area is essential for anyone seeking to enhance their complexion effectively. Often times when assessing patients who are in their 40s and above, the cheeks have some visual signs of volume loss, loss of elasticity and overall reduction in skin quality. As mentioned earlier, loss of volume in the cheeks can cause a cascade of effects to the lower face including deepened nasolabial folds, jowling, loss of definition in jawline. As an aesthetic nurse, I’m exploring all options such as laser treatments for pigmentation issues or injections for restoring volume to sunken sections caused by fat and collagen loss. Usually just doing one modality will still leave a patient wanting more so I urge patients to work on all levels of the skin and tissue, not just one.

Beyond injections, cheeks benefit from technologies that boost dermal thickness. Procedures like microdermabrasion can help rejuvenate the skin’s texture, and lasers, Ultherapy or Morpheus can help with skin tightening. Balancing products with agents such as hyaluronic acid, growth factors, retinol and niacinamide can ensure hydration, cell renewal, resurfacing and brightening to the skin for the ultimate rejuvenating effects.

Navigating the Lips: Central to Your Skin’s Health

The lips are a very popular area to treat in the world of fillers. Overtime though there’s been a shift away from persistent filling of the lips and as an aesthetic nurse, I’m here for it! When trends come along, typically the number of wrong candidates walking in start to increase. It’s also difficult because beauty is subjective so you don’t want to tell people that their idea of beauty is wrong but many patients are so fixated with one portion of their face (a.k.a lips) that they aren’t assessing whether bigger lips even compliment their facial anatomy. That’s when I come in. An area I find lips can affect is the chin. It’s important that the chin is balanced to the face as a recessed chin may appear even more recessed with bigger lips.

There’s also this phenomenon of constantly wanting bigger and bigger lips every few months. Especially for those who’ve had smaller lips, the thought of their lips reducing in size is devastating, and often they lose their perception of how big their lips are getting. One must take into account how often their injecting, as overtime, filler can stay longer than its indications. I’ve examined and felt lips that looked like they were loaded up with filler yesterday but the patient claims she hadn’t had filler in 5 years. Moderation is a word that’s overused but because it’s so accurate. Trying to get too much in too fast will almost always lead to disaster (and much needed dissolving).

Perfecting the Chin

As addressed in the previous paragraph, it’s important to assess the positioning and projection of the chin when addressing facial balancing. Someone who has lack of jawline definition can often improve this by adding some projection to the chin if they’re lacking. Treating the jawline gonial angle and the chin can often reduce some jowling. There’s also skin texture issues that often occur with the chin as the chin can be a hotspot for hormonal acne, rosacea and other skin concerns. Lasers to the chin to resurface the skin and serums like glycolic acid, salicylic acid or niacinamide can reduce oil production, resurface the skin and reduce acne in this area.

So when going to your next facial balancing appointment, make sure to consider the forehead to chin consultation technique to address areas that may arise when only treating one region of the face.

Also Read: Tips For The Lips: Injector’s Advice On Lip Fillers