- Hi, I'm Terri Labberton,

I'm one of the doctors here

at Victorian Cosmetic Institute

and I'd like to talk to you today

about using anti wrinkle injections

for the lower half of the face.

A lot of people I think are familiar

with using anti wrinkle injections

for the upper half.

Looking at frown lines or crow's feet.

But the lower half of the face often gets forgotten.

There's a few great little tips that we can do

in the lower half of the face that

are really great for anti aging

and just refreshing our look.

So I'm actually just going to demonstrate on Arlene

just the different areas where we can treat

and just the different muscles that we can use.

So one of the first ones that I want

to demonstrate to you is the gummy smile.

Now Arlene doesn't actually have a gummy smile,

when she smiles her lip sits nicely

at the top of her teeth.

But some people when they smile,

they have a very high lip

and it actually shows quite a lot of gum

and they become a little bit self-conscious

about that and tend to,

to not smile so much.

Which is a real shame,

we all love to see a nice smile.

So, what we actually do

is treat one of the muscles that lifts the top lip.

Arlene, I'll just get you to take your glasses off.

Great, thank you.

Now the muscle that actually lifts the lip.

Can you just give us a little smile?

Yeah, and showing your teeth.

Yeah.

So when Arlene smiles,

the muscle that actually is lifting her lip

it's running down the side here

and actually pulls the lip up.

Now for someone who has a gummy smile

they're really pulling quite high on that lip.

So we actually inject just around this area

to soften that muscle so it doesn't pull quite

so strong when they smile

and the lip comes down.

Another area that a lot of people

get self-conscious about is little lines

along the top lip.

Now these are commonly known as smokers lines

but it's not only smokers that actually get these lines.

A lot of people it's part of their facial expression

that they sort of pucker their lips.

It's like a serious look.

And when you're doing that over a long period of time

it can start to cause these lines

across the top of the lip.

Now Arlene doesn't have any of these lines.

But if you could just give us a little pucker.

Yeah, a bit more.

Okay.

If you look along here,

you can see the muscle bunching up.

When we use anti wrinkle injections

we can actually inject that little muscle along there

and it just softens

the way the lips pucker.

So it still looks normal.

The mouth and the lips still work normally

but it just doesn't crease as tight

and it reduces the amount of lines

that you can get around the top lip.

Another area of the lower face

that I think is a really important area

to take note of and to treat

is actually the muscles that come down

from the corner of the mouth.

These muscles are called

depressor angularis oris.

Fancy name.

But basically they're a muscle that come down this way.

A lot of people use that muscle subconsciously.

They don't realize they're doing it,

they might do it again as a serious face.

They can tend to pull down.

Now what this does over time,

it actually starts to cause a crease

from the corner of the mouth,

and the mouth starts to droop downwards.

So we put the anti wrinkle injection in the area

where the muscle reaches down along the jawline.

And that would just soften the way that muscle pulls down.

It's not something you will notice immediately

but over time the corner of the mouth

just gets a softer look and doesn't droop down.

It's a very preventative treatment.

Great for anti aging.

Another area that we can treat

with anti wrinkle injections in

the lower half of the face is the chin.

Again a lot of people don't realize they do this

but when they're talking and animating

they can tend to really dimple up the chin.

And what that can do over time,

is it actually can cause the chin to start to fold in.

As we age, the lower half of our face tends

to fold inwards and part of it is because

of that muscle pulling in on the chin.

So we can use anti wrinkle injections

to relax that muscle in the chin.

And we actually inject into this muscle

in this area here and here.

Sometimes we'll actually do a second injection

in this area here and here.

And that just softens the muscle there.

It actually can tend to open out the chin just slightly.

And then by softening the chin,

it then opens out the face and it

can give a younger, fresher look.

Now this next part of treatment for

the lower half of the face is probably my favorite,

and that's treating the masseters.

Now the masseter is a muscle that runs down along

the side of the jaw.

And it often is a very strong muscle in some people.

Particularly if you tend to be a grinder.

I myself am a grinder,

meaning I grind my teeth a fair bit.

And so that muscle there was getting quite strong.

It's a very easy treatment and it just involves

a few injections into this muscle.

Now on Arlene she doesn't have

a strong masseter muscle so

we don't

certainly there's no area here that needs treating.

But can you just grind your teeth?

And relax.

And grind again.

And relax.

And as she does that you can see how my finger moves

and that's just demonstrating where

that masseter muscle is.

Now on somebody who has very strong masseters

your fingers really move out quite a lot.

So, and they tend to have quite

a square look to the face.

So a lot of people like to have this treatment done.

One, to soften the masseters so that

they're not grinding as much.

But the other wonderful thing that it does

is it softens the angle of the jaw

and gives a little more of a heart shape to the face.

And that's why I love it the most.

So just demonstrating here on Arlene,

when we're treating the masseters

we tend to mark out where the muscle

is at its bulkiest

and then we inject with three or four

injection points into the masseter.

Alright, now we've been working our way down the face

and this last treatment that I want to talk about

is actually not involving the face

but in fact the muscles around the jawline

and down the neck.

We have a sheet of muscle around our neck

from our jawline coming down our neck

called the platysma.

Now what can happen is sometimes this platysma

can really get quite strong and show as

sort of bands or ropiness to the neck.

Can you just clench those muscles for me Arlene?

Try that again.

Great.

Obviously Arlene is working very hard

to show us those platysma bands

but in some people, they're really quite strong

and very prominent.

Certainly when they're talking you can see

the bands popping out.

And it's quite distracting.

So a lot of people like to have them just softened.

We can use the anti wrinkle injections

by just injecting along the bands

and that just softens the way

the platysma muscle sits.

And it is a more relaxed look on the neck

and quite rejuvenating.

So in summary, the lower half of the face

is a great area that we can look at

to do some treatment with anti wrinkle injections.

Which is subtle, but still at the same time

both refreshing and rejuvenating.

(soft pleasant music)