A mouth that naturally turns down at the corners can make you look unhappy even when you’re not. This “resting frown” is caused by a combination of muscle pull, volume loss, and habits that shift the balance of your lower face over time. Fixing it ranges from simple daily exercises to professional treatments, depending on how pronounced the downturn is and what’s driving it.
Why Your Mouth Turns Down
Two muscles are primarily responsible. The depressor anguli oris sits on each side of your chin and actively pulls the corners of your mouth downward. The platysma, a broad sheet of muscle running from your jaw down your neck, also tugs the mouth corners and lower lip down. When these muscles are overactive or when the tissues above them lose volume, the corners of the mouth gradually sink below the horizontal line of your lips.
Aging accelerates this. As fat pads in the midface shrink and bone density in the jaw decreases, the skin and soft tissue around the mouth lose their structural support. Gravity does the rest, deepening the creases that run from the corners of your mouth toward your chin (called marionette lines). But age isn’t the only factor. Chronic stress, habitual frowning, and even the way you hold tension in your jaw all train these muscles to stay shortened and tight.
How Jaw Tension Makes It Worse
If you clench or grind your teeth, your lower face may look heavier and more downturned than it otherwise would. Bruxism, the unconscious habit of clenching and grinding, causes the chewing muscles to thicken over time. This increased bulk and tension in the jaw changes facial appearance, contributes to chronic facial pain, and keeps the muscles around your mouth in a state of constant contraction. Many people don’t realize they’re doing it, especially during sleep or periods of concentration.
Addressing the clenching can visibly soften the lower face. A night guard reduces grinding forces. Consciously checking your jaw position throughout the day helps too: your teeth should be slightly apart with your tongue resting on the roof of your mouth. Massage along the jawline and below the cheekbones for a few minutes daily can release some of the accumulated tension in these muscles.
Facial Exercises That Help
Targeted exercises can retrain the muscles that lift the mouth corners and counterbalance the ones pulling them down. These won’t produce dramatic results on their own, but consistent practice over several weeks can improve resting muscle tone in the lower face.
- Corner lift hold: Smile gently, focusing on lifting just the corners of your mouth. Hold for 10 seconds, relax, and repeat 10 to 15 times. The goal is to strengthen the muscles that oppose the downward pull.
- Resistance smile: Place your index fingers lightly on the corners of your mouth. Try to smile against the resistance of your fingers. Hold for 5 seconds per rep, aiming for 15 reps.
- Platysma stretch: Tilt your head back slightly and press your tongue to the roof of your mouth. You should feel a stretch along the front of your neck. Hold 10 seconds and repeat 5 times. This helps release the muscle that pulls your lower lip and mouth corners downward.
The key is consistency. Doing these once won’t change anything, but a daily routine of 5 to 10 minutes can gradually shift your resting expression over 4 to 8 weeks.
Neurotoxin Injections for the Mouth Corners
The most targeted professional fix for a downturned mouth is a small dose of a neurotoxin (the same type used for forehead wrinkles) injected into the depressor anguli oris muscle on each side. This partially relaxes the muscle’s downward pull, allowing the corners of your mouth to sit in a more neutral or slightly upturned position.
The doses involved are small. A typical treatment uses 2 to 3 units per side at a single injection point, or 4 to 6 units per side if the provider uses multiple injection points to cover a broader area of the muscle. Results usually become visible within 3 to 5 days. The effect lasts 3 to 6 months, so you’d need repeat treatments two to four times per year to maintain the lift.
Precision matters here more than in many other injection areas. The depressor anguli oris sits close to other muscles that control your smile and lower lip movement. An experienced injector places the product at a very specific point, roughly where a vertical line from your pupil meets the midpoint between your mouth corner and jawline. Too much product or misplaced product can temporarily affect your smile symmetry, so this is not an area for bargain treatments.
Dermal Fillers for Structural Support
Where neurotoxin addresses muscle pull, fillers address volume loss. If your downturned mouth is partly caused by thinning tissue around the chin and jaw, restoring that lost volume can physically prop up the mouth corners from below.
Treatment typically works in layers. A firmer filler goes deep, placed against the bone to replace lost chin projection and fill the hollow areas along the jawline (the prejowl sulcus). If the marionette lines are still visible after that deeper work, a softer filler is layered into the fat just under the skin, fanning out from the mouth corner down toward the chin crease. This layered approach rebuilds the scaffolding that originally held the mouth corners in place.
Results are visible immediately and last 6 to 18 months depending on the filler type and how quickly your body metabolizes it. Thicker, firmer fillers placed deep tend to last longer than softer ones placed closer to the surface. Most people need a touch-up once or twice a year.
Combining Approaches for Best Results
The most effective strategy usually involves more than one method. A neurotoxin relaxes the muscle pulling down while filler provides the structural lift from underneath. Together, they address both causes of the downturn rather than just one. Some providers treat both in the same appointment.
Layering daily habits on top of professional treatments extends and enhances results. Releasing jaw tension through massage or a night guard keeps the lower face from tightening back up. Facial exercises maintain the tone of the lifting muscles between appointments. Even something as simple as becoming aware of your resting expression and gently lifting your mouth corners throughout the day can gradually retrain muscle memory.
For mild cases, exercises and tension management alone may be enough. For a more pronounced downturn, especially one that has deepened with age, professional treatments provide the structural changes that exercises can’t achieve on their own. The combination of both gives you the most natural and lasting improvement.