A double chin ISN’T always fat – you can reduce it in an hour with this $760 needle-free treatment. It made me look five years younger

For years, the beauty industry sold women the idea that looking fresher meant needles, swelling, recovery time and, increasingly, faces so frozen and overfilled they no longer looked natural.

Now, a different kind of cosmetic treatment is taking over social media feeds, facial rooms and high-end skin clinics – and this one doesn’t involve a single injection.

Known as buccal and sculptural lifting, the treatment, which lasts for 60 to 90 minutes, combines deep facial massage, lymphatic drainage and intraoral massage – yes, inside the mouth – to help create a sharper jawline, more lifted cheekbones and a visibly less puffy lower face.

Fans say the technique leaves their face looking more sculpted and defined without filler, surgery or the frozen look many women are actively trying to avoid.

The treatment has been linked to celebrities including Meghan Markle, Margot Robbie, Jennifer Lopez and Gwyneth Paltrow, and has become especially popular among women wanting subtle facial refinement without injectables or aggressive cosmetic procedures.

The Duchess of Sussex has spoken publicly about facial sculpting massage, once saying: ‘On the days I do it, my cheekbones and jawline are way more sculpted.’

At first glance, the concept sounds slightly confronting. A therapist wearing gloves massages the muscles deep inside the cheeks and jaw while simultaneously working the outer face.

But devotees insist the strange-sounding treatment delivers results you can notice almost immediately.

‘I noticed the changes straight away’

One of those devotees is 62-year-old Brisbane woman Michelle Funge, who says she observed visible changes immediately after the treatment.

Michelle says she originally booked The Intrinsic Facial at Skinformé Clinic in Sydney hoping to soften the marionette lines around her mouth and reduce puffiness and inflammation through her face.

‘My face just felt so much tighter and there was such a reduction in the inflammation immediately,’ she tells the Daily Mail. ‘My skin texture was also a lot more even and dewy.’

Michelle says she was initially drawn to the treatment because it felt completely different to anything else being offered in Australia at the time.

‘The uniqueness of the treatment immediately intrigued me,’ she says. ‘The experience itself was incredibly relaxing. Beyond the immediate sense of calm and release, I also noticed a beautiful feeling of uplift afterwards, both externally in the way my face looked and internally in the way I felt.’

‘There was no discomfort at all’

Amanda Tempest, a 38-year-old beauty business owner and mother-of-three from regional Victoria, recently tried the treatment for the first time while training under dermal therapist Isabella Loneragan, founder of Skinformé Clinic.

Amanda, who runs By the Bay Skin and Beauty, says she became interested in facial sculpting as part of a broader shift towards more holistic, touch-led beauty treatments.

She admits she initially felt apprehensive about the intraoral component.

‘I’m quite protective with my body,’ Amanda tells the Mail. 

‘I was a little bit like, “Am I going to enjoy that pressure and the inside-the-mouth work?” But honestly, it felt really relaxing. There was no discomfort at all.’

Unlike injectables or more invasive facial contouring treatments, Amanda says one of the biggest drawcards was the fact the treatment was entirely needle-free.

‘I’ve never really gone down the road of Botox,’ she says. ‘But definitely now that I’m in my late 30s, I’ve noticed a shift in my face. Botox probably was a road I was eventually going to go down.’

Instead, she found herself drawn to a treatment promising facial sculpting without dramatically altering her appearance.

‘I think there’s a real shift happening where women still want to feel youthful and confident, but they don’t necessarily want to look overdone,’ she says.

‘And for me personally, I liked that it wasn’t invasive.’

‘The modern aesthetic is no longer about looking done’

According to Isabella, who travelled to Paris to train in the technique before introducing it to Australia, the growing popularity of buccal and sculptural lifting reflects a broader beauty movement.

‘Women today are seeking refinement rather than dramatic transformation,’ she says.

‘The modern aesthetic is no longer about looking “done”. It’s about looking healthier, more lifted and naturally defined.’

She says many clients are actively moving away from excessive filler and more aggressive cosmetic procedures in favour of treatments that preserve facial movement and authenticity.

‘There’s growing fatigue around overfilled faces,’ Isabella says.

‘People still want rejuvenation and definition, but they also want to look like themselves.’

The treatment itself works on much deeper layers than a traditional facial. Using both external massage and gloved intraoral techniques, practitioners target the muscles, fascia and lymphatic pathways through the cheeks, jawline and lower face.

The idea is not to ‘remove’ fat, but rather to release chronic muscle tension, improve circulation and reduce fluid retention, all of which can contribute to heaviness and puffiness in the face.

‘Stress and jaw clenching play a huge role in the appearance of the lower face,’ Isabella explains.

‘When the jaw muscles are constantly activated through clenching or grinding, they can become enlarged and overworked, while also restricting lymphatic flow.’

That combination, she says, can make the jawline appear broader, tighter or more congested, particularly in a world where many people spend hours hunched over laptops and phones.

‘I walked out feeling like I’d had a big warm hug to the face’

Amanda says she was shocked by how much tension she had unknowingly been carrying.

‘You don’t really realise how tight everything is until somebody starts working through it,’ she says. ‘I walked out feeling like I’d had a big warm hug to the face.’

Immediately afterwards, Amanda says she noticed her cheekbones looked more lifted, her jawline appeared more defined, and the puffiness through the lower half of her face had visibly softened.

Michelle says she experienced similar changes, particularly through the lower half of her face.

‘I definitely felt more sculpted,’ says Amanda. ‘Everything felt lifted upwards, almost against gravity.’

She also noticed something else she hadn’t expected: calm.

As someone who describes herself as ‘highly anxious’, Amanda says the nervous system effects of the treatment were just as noticeable as the cosmetic ones.

‘I was actually really interested in whether there would be some kind of nervous system shift,’ she says. ‘And there absolutely was.’

Isabella says emotional reactions during treatment are surprisingly common.

‘I’ve seen clients cry on the massage bed because long-held stress and jaw tension is physically unwound,’ she says.

‘Once the body feels safe to let go of that stored tension, it can bring an unexpected emotional release followed by a profound sense of calm.’

The luxury wellness treatment women are squeezing into busy lives

Of course, not everyone is ready to swap injectables for fingers inside their mouth.

The internet remains divided over whether buccal massage is genius, bizarre or simply another expensive wellness trend for women chasing subtle cosmetic tweaks. And it certainly isn’t cheap.

At Isabella’s clinic, first-time treatments cost between $760 and $775, while repeat appointments are priced from around $460.

Still, clients continue to book in.

Part of the appeal is the convenience. Unlike more invasive cosmetic procedures, there’s no hiding indoors afterwards waiting for swelling or bruising to subside.

‘There’s generally no downtime,’ Isabella says. ‘Clients usually return to normal activities immediately.’

Amanda believes that practicality is one of the reasons treatments like this are exploding in popularity, particularly among busy women balancing work, children and packed schedules.

‘Most women can’t disappear for a week,’ she says. ‘We’re mums, businesswomen, we’re working, going to the gym, socialising. We don’t have time for huge recovery periods.’

And while she stresses she isn’t anti-injectables, she believes many women are becoming more thoughtful about how they approach ageing.

‘There’s a market for everything,’ she says. ‘But I do think people are looking for alternatives now. They want to feel confident and refreshed without having to completely change their face.’

Looking refreshed rather than transformed

That softer, less-is-more approach appears to be reshaping the beauty industry more broadly. Instead of chasing dramatic transformations, many women are now investing in treatments focused on subtle lifting, facial contouring, and healthier-looking skin without the frozen or overfilled appearance that dominated cosmetic trends for years.

The appeal is obvious. A sharper jawline. More lifted cheekbones. Less puffiness through the lower face. Skin that looks fresher, more rested and naturally defined rather than obviously altered.

Perhaps that’s exactly why buccal and sculptural lifting is resonating so strongly right now.

Because in an era of filler fatigue and beauty burnout, the promise of walking out of a treatment looking subtly lifted, sculpted and more like yourself again is becoming increasingly hard for women to ignore.

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