Chin Implants Have Been The Secret To A Snatched Jawline For Decades

Celebrities have been going viral for revealing their plastic surgery “recipes” for a minute now, ever since Kylie Jenner gave an admiring fan on TikTok the exact details of her boob job. While many other stars have since followed suit and shared specifics of the work they’ve had done, there’s one routinely-performed procedure you’ll seldom see on your FYP: the chin implant.

Chin augmentations are by no means a new addition to the aesthetic surgery tableau; they’ve been in play for decades. In fact, plastic surgeons say they are the secret behind many a snatched Hollywood jawline. “They’re a lot more common than we might think,” says Dr. Catherine Chang, M.D., a board-certified plastic and reconstructive surgeon based in Beverly Hills.

But for some reason, it’s not a surgery a lot of people admit to having. Chin implants are often performed along with rhinoplasties and facelifts, and the latter two surgeries usually get the credit for the glow-up. “A lot of times, patients will own up to having the rhinoplasty but will never say they had a chin implant, even though that’s the thing [making a big difference],” says Dr. Jennifer Levine, M.D., a board-certified facial plastic surgeon in New York City.

The numbers, however, prove how common this surgery is. The chin augmentation market in the United States is expected to reach a projected revenue of $654.9 million by 2030, in contrast to $439 million in 2023. And despite it not being as popular as other procedures, chin implants have come up when people have shared their aesthetic surgery journeys. Isabel Alysa, a celebrity tan artist and founder of self-tanning brand Dolce Glow, posted her neck lift and chin implant before and afters last year. Celebrity makeup artist Kristofer Buckle recently shared his facial workup, which involved a deep plane neck and lower facelift, plus many more smaller tweaks, including a chin implant.

What Is A Chin Augmentation?

A surgical chin augmentation is the refinement or improvement of the bony contour of the chin area, often to increase the “projection” or protrusion of the chin, resulting in a stronger and more sculpted jawline. Most often, an implant is inserted into the area to widen and/or elongate the shape of the chin. Today, the implants are made of silicone or porous polyethylene, though their predecessors had a distinctly different origin. “The first kind of implants were used as early as the 1950s and were made out of bovine cartilage. In the ’60s, synthetic chin implants came about,” Chang says.

Despite how common they are, chin implants still fly more under the radar than most other surgeries and don’t have mass virality. One reason is because it’s uncommon for a patient to self-diagnose themselves as needing a chin implant to balance their features. It’s way more apparent to a lay person to clock that they need, say, a rhinoplasty to fix a crooked nose, or a facelift to lift sagging skin. Most people only realize they need a chin implant when a plastic surgeon suggests it.

Chang says it’s rare for patients to come in requesting a chin implant, even at a time when plastic surgery education among the general population is at an all-time high. “It’s not often that anyone truly sees their side profile, unless they’re modeling and getting those images,” she explains. “So, the majority of people that come in actually don’t request a chin implant because they’re not seeing their whole facial balance from their profile view.” The exceptions are people with severely recessed chins who needed orthodontics in adolescence, and were informed by their dentists and orthodontists, and thus had knowledge of the recession. “But most people aren’t aware of that, and that’s where going to a facial expert is really helpful, because chin implants are a very powerful tool to balance facial features,” Chang adds.

What Issues Does A Chin Implant Address?

The main issue an implant in the chin area can help fix is microgenia, or an underdeveloped chin. “The biggest candidate is somebody that has a mild to moderate recession of the chin,” says Chang. A recessed chin is a small chin that doesn’t project or stick out far enough from the face. When viewed from the profile angle, the chin seems out of sync with other facial features.

“Some patients have a mental recession, meaning the most prominent point of their chin is too far behind the most prominent point of their lips. In these patients, increasing volume helps restore facial balance,” says Dr. Michael Stein, M.D., a board-certified plastic surgeon based in New York City.

Apart from microgenia, another issue related to underdevelopment in this part of the face is micrognathia, or an undersized jaw. “In this case, the whole mandible is underdeveloped. If the patient doesn’t want to have invasive surgeries like osteotomies that will cut and reposition the bone, then we just put in a chin implant,” Levine says.

Another type of prime candidate, surprisingly enough, is the rhinoplasty patient. “They think there’s a problem with their nose — and their nose might have a problem — but really the issue is that the lower face is not balanced with the nose, making a chin implant critical,” says Levine. This is because how we decide how the nose looks has to do with how it relates to the other features of the face. “It’s really helpful to balance the nose, since the chin and the nose in relation really help to create harmony in the face,” Chang says. “If someone has a slightly over-projecting nose and also has a recession, placing a chin implant can make the nose appear less pronounced and less prominent.” Putting in a chin implant sometimes allows patients to skip a rhinoplasty, which is a decidedly more invasive, complex, and expensive surgery.

Very often, Levine says, patients who think they need a rhinoplasty actually need a chin implant instead. She cites a study that found that nearly 81% of female patients seeking a rhinoplasty would benefit from a chin implant, while that number was 62% for men.

Lastly, a chin implant is a good option for people who want to improve definition in their jawline. The jowls, neck, and the area under the chin are some of the first spots to show aging-related skin laxity. An implant in that area helps push the chin outward, tightening up some of the laxity. And that goes double if you have a genetically weak chin. “If you have a double chin or a weak jawline in addition to a recession, an implant will definitely help, and it will actually also help tighten jowling,” Chang says.

Chin Implants Are Need-Based, Not Age-Based

Like a rhinoplasty, a chin implant is performed in people of all ages: “In younger people, you want to do it because the person’s always been deficient there,” Levine says.

In older patients, bone resorption often leads to needing an implant. “As we get older, we also lose bone. So, someone whose chin was sufficient when they were younger is not so any more now that they’re losing bone, and they would really benefit from an implant in that area,” Levine says.

“The most common combinations are a chin implant with a rhinoplasty, or with a face and neck lift,” Chang adds. “I also often do a chin implant with sculpting of the under chin areas.”

Implants are a sort of middle-ground between non-invasive chin-augmentation procedures (tightening devices, filler, liposuction, and fat-dissolving injections like Kybella) and the intensive surgical intervention of a full-blown neck lift.

“I think what has happened, especially since COVID when everyone was on Zoom, was an increased focus on the lower face and jaw line, leading to many people getting filler in those areas,” says Levine. Injecting the chin requires a large volume of filler, and after a few successful sessions, Levine says patients start wanting a more permanent solution that will cost less in the long run. “You also don’t want to keep putting more and more filler in that area, because it leads to distortion over time,” she cautions.

Stein also follows this trajectory. “I typically [enhance the chin] with filler first, since it’s temporary, to see if the patients like the result. Once they get two or more rounds of filler and love the difference, we typically transition to a chin implant,” he says. While chin implants can be permanent, they can also be removed at any time.

How Chin Implants Are Custom Fit

Most surgeons use premade implants, which come in a variety of shapes and sizes that can be further tailored by the surgeon to the patient’s anatomy, ensuring the right fit. Depending on the surgeon and the city they’re located in, these start from $3,000 going up to $25,000, which includes the surgery and all related charges.

Chang is one of the few plastic surgeons in the United States who offers a completely customizable chin implant that is uniquely designed for each person’s anatomy, created using computer-aided design. She had to undergo special training to be able to offer this option. It starts with the patient first getting a specific CAT [or CT] scan that has “fine cuts,” aka detailed cross-sectional images of the body’s internal structures. Those help create a very accurate 3D version of the skull, showing all the surface irregularities, which are taken into account when the implant is created.

“It can also account for asymmetries: Often there’s one side of the jaw or chin that’s slightly wider, or where the angle is different, or there’s one side that’s weaker,” Chang says. “I can find that difference and make up for the bony deficiency with the implant, so that the chin looks more symmetric. And that’s something you definitely can’t do with a regular implant out of the box.”

It also allows her to create really small implants. “There’s a misconception, especially for women, that a chin implant will masculinize the face. That is true if you place too big of an implant,” Chang says. This technology allows her to create tinier implants, some as small as 2 millimeters or even less. “The smallest out of the box implant ranges between 3 to 5 millimeters, which for some patients are just too big,” she says. Costs for surgery using custom implants can go up to $50,000 to $60,000.

The Surgery And Recovery Process

After the size and shape of the implant has been decided on, surgeons have two methods to get it in there. Most advise taking the external or extraoral approach. “This means placing the implant through a small incision under the chin in the submental fold,” Stein says. Levine, too, prefers this method, as opposed to the intraoral approach, in which the incision is made inside the mouth. “I would not recommend an intraoral insertion, even though it avoids an outer incision,” Levine says. “The mouth is dirty, and putting a sterile implant through that area increases chances of an infection. You also have to cut through muscles that are more important.” In the external insertion, surgeons place the incision in a little crease that occurs naturally under the chin, which results in it being camouflaged well after it heals.

The surgery can be performed under local anesthesia, sedation, or under general anesthesia.

Chang says most patients can go out in public by day two post-surgery. “You will have some mild swelling, and will have stitches under the chin that typically come out in a week,” she says. She likes patients to wear a compression garment around their face to help with swelling for the first few days.

Chin implants are easy to remove if patients so desire, though they don’t need to be switched out after a decade like breast implants. Once they’re in, they’re in. The only long-term side effect is an impossibly snatched jawline.