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Are apple cheeks an important element in making a face look younger? What are the benefits of full apple cheeks? How can you self-check whether your apple cheeks are sagging? This article introduces apple cheeks, explains the three types of factors behind sagging and sunken apple cheeks, what facial changes sunken apple cheeks cause, and how daily care and aesthetic medicine treatments can improve them.
What Are Apple Cheeks? 5 Benefits at a Glance
Understanding Apple Cheeks
Apple cheeks, also called the “smile muscle,” refer to the fat tissue in front of the cheekbones (it's not a muscle!), shaped like an inverted triangle, located about 2 cm below the eyes, centered on the plump, rounded point of the midface and aligned with the tip of the nose. They show no obvious fullness when you're not smiling and puff up only when you smile. These are the elements a natural apple cheek needs to have.
5 Benefits of Full Apple Cheeks
1. Adds Dimension to the Face
Full apple cheeks can raise the curve of the midface, improving the flatness caused by the low, flat bone structure common in East Asians and creating a sense of dimension with natural highs and lows.
2. Lowers Your Visual Age
Plump, full apple cheeks make the face look more youthful, naturally lowering your visual age.
3. A Slimmer Face Effect
As dimension improves, it also adjusts facial proportions, creating a visually smaller face.
4. Defined Facial Contours
Apple cheeks and the chin form a heart-shaped face, shaping the contours and making the face look more refined.
5. A More Approachable Look
Smiling with round, plump apple cheeks makes you seem softer and more approachable. Approachability goes up!
Why Apple Cheeks Sag
1. Congenital Factors
Being born with flatter facial bones with insufficient support, or being too thin with no fat, can easily make apple cheeks look sunken and sagging. If apple cheeks sag at a young age, it may be related to innate bone structure.
2. Acquired Factors
If weight loss is done improperly, causing rapid weight loss or large fluctuations, the fat layer is lost quickly and large gaps form between the skin and bone, leading to sagging. In addition, orthodontic treatment, chewing habits, and tooth extractions may also indirectly cause hollow cheeks, so the apple cheeks lose their fullness and firmness.
3. Aging Factors
With advancing age, along with the effects of poor habits such as staying up late and stress, collagen, fat, and water in the body gradually decline. Once deep fat is lost and the soft tissue above it sags, the apple cheeks end up sagging and collapsing.
4 Facial Changes From Sagging Apple Cheeks
How can you tell whether your apple cheeks are sagging or sunken? If these four signs appear on your face, you may have sunken apple cheeks:
1. Jowls Appear
Apple cheeks are fat pads wrapped in a fascial layer. With age, as the fascia gradually loses tension and sags, the apple cheeks sag with it, causing slack cheeks and enlarged jowls, so the overall facial contour loses dimension and firmness.
2. Deeper Nasolabial Folds and Marionette Lines
When the support of the apple cheek tissue declines, it starts to sag under gravity, pushing out nasolabial folds and marionette lines or making wrinkles deeper, making the face look older.
3. A Flatter Side Profile
If the apple cheeks lose support and become sunken, and the tissue shifts downward, it visually causes the midface line to droop, and the side profile becomes flat and sagging.
4. Double Chin
Once apple cheeks begin to sag, fat accumulates in the mid-to-lower face. Besides flattening the face shape, it gradually presses on other parts of the face, and because the sagging fascial layer makes the jawline blurry, a double chin appears over time.
Daily Care for Apple Cheeks
1. Lifting Massage
After cleansing your face, apply lotion or cream and massage in a clockwise direction, which has the effect of boosting blood circulation and reducing puffiness.
How to do it: Make fists with both hands and slide them from the jaw up to the apple cheeks 5-6 times in a row, then press your knuckles under the cheekbones and slide upward 6-10 times, or use your fingertips to massage the apple cheeks, pressing gently from the inside out and holding for five seconds each time.
2. Supplement Collagen
Collagen is key to keeping apple cheeks elastic and plump. You can take collagen supplements as appropriate to keep your apple cheeks full.
3. Don't Lose Weight Too Aggressively
Rapid, drastic weight loss can leave skin that was stretched when you were heavier overly slack, which in turn makes apple cheeks sag. So if you need to lose weight, we recommend avoiding overly fast methods to keep your apple cheeks from becoming sunken and saggy.
3 Aesthetic Medicine Options for Plump Apple Cheeks
1. Hyaluronic Acid Filler
Hyaluronic acid is an important moisturizing component found in the dermis of human skin, helping maintain elasticity and lock in the skin's moisture. Hyaluronic acid filler injections can effectively help skin replenish and retain water, instantly fill hollows and refine facial lines, and sculpt more dimensional contours, improving sunken apple cheeks. It is the most common apple cheek treatment.
Recommended brands: Fairy hyaluronic acid filler, Restylane Goddess hyaluronic acid filler, Hydermis hyaluronic acid filler, and Juvéderm hyaluronic acid filler
Learn more:
Hyaluronic Acid Brands Compared! Which One Is Best for Me?
How Do Hyaluronic Acid Molecule Sizes Differ? Recommended Injection Amounts (cc) for Popular Areas!
2. Collagen Stimulators
Compared with the filling function of hyaluronic acid, collagen stimulators can stimulate collagen production in facial skin, rebuilding the skin's deep framework and lifting slack lines upward. For people over 35, injecting a collagen stimulator can strengthen the foundation and address aging at its root, improving slack-type apple cheeks.
Recommended brands: AestheFill, Sculptra, and Ellansé
Learn more:
A Miracle of Gradual Beauty! A Must-Read Guide Before Exploring the Secrets of Sculptra
The Secret of the “Youth Needle”? How to Get Youthful, Bouncy Skin Back
3. Autologous Fat Transfer
Besides hyaluronic acid and collagen stimulator injections, you can also use liposuction to take out your own excess fat, purify it, and transfer it back into the hollowed areas of the apple cheeks. The advantage is that it can deal with excess fat at the same time, but note that if the fat survival rate after purification is too low, calcification may occur and make the face uneven. NAISS CLINIC recommends the latest VASER liposuction, which has a fat survival rate of up to 80%, effectively lowering surgical risk.
Learn more:
Small Wounds After Surgery! What Other Benefits Does VASER Liposuction Have? Will the Fat Come Back?
Comparing Targeted Fat Reduction Tools: “VASER Liposuction vs. CoolTech Cryolipolysis”
Sagging and sunken apple cheeks usually come with several other signs of aging. If skin aging is severe, a combined treatment with ultrasound lifting (HIFU) is needed for more comprehensive improvement. The actual plan needs to be evaluated by a professional doctor, who will find the most suitable aesthetic medicine treatment based on how severe the sagging and sunken cheeks are and your individual facial features, to create plump, youthful-looking cheeks!
This article is for general information only. Results vary from person to person; please consult a doctor in person before deciding on any treatment.
