Everyone has a different facial contour. One may not like his or hers because of different reasons. It can be considered as too little, too much, or too lax.

When there is too little we talk about augmentation. There are many different facial implants to boost any area, from nose-bridge, to cheeks and chin. These are the area of the plastic surgery and Cosmetic Physicians can provide an alternative solution by injecting fillers into these areas.

An example of how nose-bridge is augmented with Juvederm :

When there is too much we talk about reduction. The nose can be reduced, so are the cheek bones or the chewing bones. Again they are major plastic surgeries and carry significant risks. In the past few years, lots of Oriental people who have square or angular faces have tried having their chewing muscles injected with Botox. This has resulted in dramatic improvement with slimmer and oval faces, and many plastic surgeries have been avoided.

An example of how angular face is reduced with Botox :

When the facial skin is lax and saggy, giving the facial contour a puffy look, one talks about facial skin tightening. This is traditionally achieved by surgical face-lift but this procedure is losing its stand fast because of the many skin tightening treatments available. Apart from more people opting to the less invasive procedures even at the time when they need a face-lift, having these treatments as prevention at younger age probably make less demand for face-lifts 10 or 20 years later.

There are many skin tightening treatments available, including ablative laser, non-ablative laser, and radio-frequency. The newest advance in 2007-2008 would be the Fractional CO2 Laser skin resurfacing, which gives a result close to the gold standard of traditional CO2 laser skin resurfacing, and yet only has a downtime of 4-7 days.