Does the Facial-Fitness Gum Teen Boys Love Actually Work?

The Sephora Tween girls may be interested in skin care, but some boys their age want a different product designed to improve their appearance: facial-fitness gum. The chewing gum, from brands like Rockjaw, Jawz Gum, and Stronger Gum, promises to “build the most attractive jawline” and “tone and tighten 57+ facial and neck muscles, anytime, anywhere.” The companies making these products promise that chewing their gum is akin to a facial workout because it’s between two times (Jawliner “medium hard”) and ten times (Magic Gum “hard”) tougher than regular gum.

“My 12-year-old asked me for it and I was like, ‘What are you even talking about?’” says board-certified dermatologist Kavita Mariwalla, M.D., who brought up the trend during a recent Allergan Aesthetics panel about social-media ethics in aesthetic medicine. “He told me he heard it would do the same thing as mewing,” she said, naming another facial-fitness trend. (Proponents of mewing think the technique — which involves placing your tongue on the roof of your mouth — will make their jawlines look sharper.) “As a mom, it made me wonder why he was so obsessed with his jawline at age 12, and what social media was feeding him.”

Facial-fitness gum, mewing, jaw trainers — we can thank looksmaxxing for all these trends. The movement to change or “maximize” one’s looks so they’re in line with gendered beauty standards got its start in the fringe incel community but has since infiltrated mainstream discourse online. On the “For You” pages of teens and young men, proponents often tout hard-to-chew gum as an alternative to more extreme measures like jawline surgery. “Most kids my age want a sharp, defined jawline because of promotion of looksmaxxing on TikTok,” says Henry Dixon, a 14-year-old in Charlotte, North Carolina. “People want these jawlines because they want to look like models and potentially more attractive.” (He wants to make it clear he is not one of these people: “I personally don’t care much about that stuff.”)

Paul Jarrod Frank, M.D., a celebrity cosmetic dermatologist, says he’s heard about the gum but doesn’t think it will do anything to sharpen jawlines. He explains that it’s marketed on the hypothetical promise that chewing a tough piece of gum will grow the masseter muscles. Even if it did, he points out that people with overgrown masseter muscles (he cites those with temporomandibular-jaw disorders, or TMJ, as an example) could end up with a more square-shaped or wider-looking face, but they “may not necessarily sharpen the undersurface of the jawline if the bone structure is not there.”

Still, a wide, square look may be what some teens want. I showed Frank before and after photos on Jawliner’s Instagram page, and he was still skeptical. “If it’s not Photoshopped, then there’s a dramatic difference in lighting, giving an impression of greater definition,” he says.

So, if the gum can’t actually reshape a jawline, are there downsides to chewing it? The obvious one is cost. Jawliner’s Ultra Touch Facial Fitness Gum is about 47 cents a piece, whereas Wrigley’s Doublemint is only eight cents a piece. And the ingredients in these gums vary widely between brands and aren’t always easy to find in online product descriptions, so you have to do some research to know what you’re getting. Most varieties I researched didn’t contain sugar, which can lead to cavities, but some contain caffeine (as a “pre-workout” boost), and others featured vitamin B5, which may have a laxative effect if consumed in high doses. Then there’s the potential for jaw pain (the American Dental Association recommends those with TMJ disorders avoid gum). And if someone is chewing obsessively, it may cause inflammation in the area, says Frank. “But in general, your average chewing gum does not have any problems whatsoever.”

Facial-fitness gum, however, is not your average gum. Besides, Frank points out, the sharper jawline some boys are after may develop naturally as they get older. “Younger people tend to have more natural fat volume in their face,” he says. “For men that are thin and fit, as they age into their 20s and 30s they will naturally, likely, see more definition.” If they don’t, they can look into more effective treatments like cosmetic fillers (to build out a jaw), micro-liposuction (to remove fat), and/or radiofrequency (to tighten skin) if they so choose.

I ordered a box of Jawliner’s softest product, the “medium hard” strips, and chewed two pieces together, as directed. Within five minutes, my jaw was sore and clicking each time I chomped down on the putty-like wad. Clearly, I’m not the intended customer (and I’m sure the looksmaxxers will have something to say about my weak, undeveloped girl muscles), but I’d still suggest teens not waste money on this stuff.

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Jennifer G. Sullivan , 2024-06-12 14:00:48

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