Minor surgical or injectable · neck
Submental liposuction and deoxycholic acid
Taking the fat out from under the chin. The cheapest thing on this list that changes a jawline, and the right answer surprisingly often, because a soft jaw is more often fat than bone.
Not medical advice. This page explains what a procedure is and what is known about it. It is not a recommendation, and it says nothing about whether you are a candidate for anything. Only a licensed provider who has examined you can tell you that.
What it maps to in LooksRatio
- Gonial anglethe angle at the corner of the jaw, which soft tissue under the chin visually blurs
What it is
Two ways of removing the fat pad under the chin. Submental liposuction is a small operation, usually under local anaesthetic with sedation, through one incision under the chin and sometimes two behind the ears. Deoxycholic acid, sold as Kybella and Belkyra, is an injectable bile acid that destroys fat cells in place and lets the body clear them, given as a grid of injections over two to four sessions a month apart.
How it works
The gonial angle LooksRatio measures is bone. Nothing on this page changes it. What changes is how visible it is, and that is the honest way to describe this procedure: an angle that already exists under a layer of fat becomes an angle you can see. That is also why it has a much lower ceiling here than jaw contouring surgery, which changes the bone itself.
Both routes destroy fat cells permanently. Neither tightens skin, and that is the limit that decides who this suits: skin with good elasticity redrapes over the new contour, and skin without it can end up looser than before.
Recovery
Liposuction: a compression garment for roughly a week, swelling and bruising for one to two weeks, and a contour that keeps refining for three months.
Deoxycholic acid: substantial swelling for several days after each session, which is expected rather than a complication and is often described as the hardest part of the treatment, plus bruising, numbness and firmness that resolves over weeks. Several sessions means several rounds of this.
Risks and what actually goes wrong
For both: contour irregularity, numbness, and a result limited by skin quality rather than by the fat removal itself. For deoxycholic acid specifically, injury to the marginal mandibular nerve causing a temporary uneven smile, and ulceration if the product is placed too superficially or into a salivary gland; correct mapping of the injection area is the whole safety story of this treatment.
The commonest disappointment is neither of those. It is that the fat came out and the jawline still is not sharp, because the problem was a low hyoid, a short ramus or a receding chin. That is a different diagnosis and a different page.
Lower-commitment alternatives
Overall fat loss. Submental fat responds to a caloric deficit like fat anywhere else, it just cannot be targeted, and the improvement plan says so rather than selling face exercises that do not work.
What LooksRatio assumes
This procedure is listed as a lower-commitment alternative rather than as a primary route, and it is credited with reaching roughly 45% of what jaw contouring surgery does for this measurement. That is the honest split: one changes the bone, the other uncovers it. The app cannot tell from a photograph which of the two your jawline needs.