Putting The “Complex” In Beauty Industrial Complex: Now You Can Worry About Your Jawline, Too

So you’ve punctured your face with needles, paralyzed muscles, peeled away layers with chemicals, cut out bits with scalpel and shellacked your visage with enough makeup to paint a house… Now what? Well, there’s still a little something to be done about your jaw. You hideous beast. Here are some tips to give women something else to slowly drive ourselves crazy and spent millions over:

• Hair Removal
  

  Removing facial hair along the sides of the lower face creates a sharper-looking jawline with immediate effect and has become the latest trend in LA and New York. It began with actresses and models having their peach fuzz removed in order to create more definition and a sharper Lshape for the camera, but has now gone mainstream.

• Yes, those barely-visible little baby hairs across your skin are really getting in the way of letting your Facebook pictures be all they can be. No offense, but everyone’s been talking about your undefined Lshape. Best zap those away immediately.
• Hairstyle
  

  ‘The hair and jaw need to work together to frame the face. Jennifer Aniston needs those long, soft, flowing layers. Anything short and blunt and her chin would be all you saw. Minnie Driver’s squarer jaw needs an angled fringe and gentle layers to add softness.’

  Or. You can just wear your hair however the fuck you like and acknowledge that your prominent chin is a part of your face, not to mention a little gift one or both your parents have passed down to you.

• Makeup
  

  Laura Mercier, make-up artist to the A-list, advocates clever camouflage for an ill-defined jawline.

  ‘Creating a shadow to absorb the light, redefine and contour the jaw is one of the most useful tricks of the trade,’ says Mercier, whose clients include Madonna, Sarah Jessica Parker and Brooke Shields.

  This is an ideal little beauty trick for those of us who have the extra time each morning to apply shadow to your jaw believing that this will make the slightest bit of difference to your family, friends and co-workers.

• Facial Exercise
  

  ‘By exercising certain muscles in the face for ten to 15 minutes, several times a week you can maintain, or even recreate, a good jawline. There’s no magic wand, but as long as you have the discipline and patience to maintain it, this method is far more effective than any facelift.’

  However, it’s important to do the right exercises and do them correctly. If you accidentally strengthen your depressor anguli oris, the muscles responsible for the ‘mouth frown’, and your platysma band muscle in your neck, your jowls and turkey neck could become more unsightly.

  Or you can spend that time finding something to genuinely smile about.

• Hormones
  

  Although experts continue to argue about human growth hormone (HGH) and hormone rebalancing as an effective rejuvenation treatment, controversial anti-ageing guru Dr Cecilia Tregear and the well-heeled clients who come to her clinic in

  Harley Street swear by the effects of her bio-identical hormone balancing therapy.

  President of the British Society of Anti-Ageing Medicine and a member of the British Association of Cosmetic Doctors, Dr Tregear insists on an extensive, and expensive, series of endo-crinological tests to check for imbalances.

  A cosmetic surgeon insisting on an extensive and expensive series of superfluous tests that could potentially cause mood swings, depression and other unforeseen problems? Color us shocked! With a pearlescent shadow along the browline, as our eyebrows can no longer move.

Moral of the story? You’re never going to win. You can zap away your peach fuzz, do strange facial contortions and pump yourself full of hormones and you will still not be perfect. Because next week, surgeons and beauty companies and magazine editors are going to decide that saggy earlobes are costing you jobs, lasting relationships and peace of mind.

So take our advice and relax. Sit back, have a glass of wine and read a good book. See? You look lovelier already.

KEEP YOUR CHIN UP [Daily Mail]