[By Wu Pei-Ni]

In recent years, riding on the popularity of the K-pop wave, the perfect V-shape face has become the coveted benchmark of beauty and sought after by both everyday women and the rich and famous. Also known as the V-Line face shape, it refers to a slim and oval face that narrows down to a sharp end at the chin. The V-shaped face is ideal simply because it tends to make the face look more feminine… and younger. Forget about slimming face creams, massages and facial exercises. Instead, check out our 5 “must-dos” for guaranteed facial slimming, to pare pounds off your face for those impossibly fresh and enviable celebs’ contours,without the need to seek out “Seoul-searching” surgery.

Cut it right

I don’t know about you, but if you ask me, I’ll be more likely to break up with my latest beau-in-tow before I end my relationship with my hairstylist. Yes, that’s how important it is to find someone who understands your coiffure needs and hang on to him! To help slim down the face, one got to achieve the illusion of an oval shaped mien, whose length is about one and a half times its width, with the jawline being slightly narrower than the forehead.

Layering is key as it creates a wide crown with tapering ends towards the nape of your neck. Getting either a full or side-swept bangs will help de-emphasize one’s natural circular symmetry as well. Resist falling for fashion trends no matter how big they may be, and avoid blunt bobs and pixie cuts which can make a face look unflatteringly harsh and broad. Besides a Vidal Sassoon-worthy cut, try playing with creative coloring and highlights to help make your face appear thinner. Contrast is good as it creates shading which translates into the illusion of slimming. Ombré is another cool hair trend which you can experiment with, to create depth and movement with different shades to flatter and frame your face.

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Contouring with colors

If you’ve ever find celebrities without makeup shockingly unrecognizable, then you know how transformative certain techniques can be! Well applied makeup can create astounding optical illusions that can give you that elusive V-shaped face. Reality TV sensation Kim Kardashian can certainly be crowned the poster girl for facial contouring, and there are hundreds of YouTube tutorials to guide you through. When it comes to makeup, always bear in mind that dark shades recede while light colors bring features forward. Use this principal to your advantage. To make your face appear slimmer, highlight the features in the center and contour around the perimeter, working with professional quality cream or powder contour colours and matte bronzers. Unless like Kim you are blessed with an entourage of beauty elves fussing around you, start practicing now to hone your makeup skills, such that influencer caliber selfies are no longer a rare sighting on your Insta page!

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Shrinking with science

Apart from prominent mandibular or jaw bones, a broad squarish face can be due to over-sized jaw muscles also known as the masseters, sitting on both sides of your jaw. People who grind their teeth while asleep, or have a habit of chewing gum or crunching ice since young may develop a square jaw appearance by the time they hit adulthood. To get round this Botox for slimming as part of a V-Sculpt Facial Program is a lunchtime procedure whereby Botox microinjections can be administered to the muscle bulk to relax and shrink them down, resulting in a slimmer face that up one’s quotient of attractiveness.This treatment truly surpasses all other forms of jaw reduction methods, including painful surgeries where a small piece of one’s jawbone is sawed off just for a slimmer face. Visible improvement can be seen as early as 2 weeks after just one single treatment, while the second session should be timed a month later, with regular touch-ups every 4 to 6 months for optimal results.

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Sculpting for perfection

It is a well-known fact that Asian faces are generally pretty flat and lack anterior projection. Henceforth, injectable filler is a godsend invention to sculpt them to 3D perfection. However, not all dermal fillers serve the same purpose and this is certainly not an aesthetics treatment whereby “one size fits all”.

“To create the perfect V-shaped face, I would work with different FDA approved fillers to achieve the desired outcome.” Explains Dr. Toby Hui, senior medical consultant with the SW1 Clinic. “Chin enhancement is best done with a firm Hyaluronic Acid (HA) Natural Filler while Dream Sculpture works best to achieve natural looking contours with a youthful lift for the Asian countenance.”

Dream Sculpture is the latest cutting edge technique of using Sculptra, a biocompatible and biodegradable compound made of Poly-L-lactic acid, to boost your skin’s own collagen reserves to allow it to stay young, supple and lifted for a longer period of time. The concept behind Sculptra is that it is a natural collagen stimulator, working in overdrive after being introduced as a ‘natural fertilizer’ to jumpstart collagenesis over the next 4 to 6 weeks. Unlike the effects of HA fillers which are reversed once they get metabolized, collagen that is stimulated into production stays for a long time, long after the Sculptra introduced is gone. Depending on your age and the number of treatments you have undergone, results can last from 2-3 years, appearing as if you have a time travel machine at your beck and call!

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Lifting without cutting

Gravity’s a bitch and causes everything to slide southwards with age and weight gain. If saggy skin, double chin and jowls are beauty nemeses that stand in your way to a V-shaped face, you would be glad to learn that there are currently non-surgical options to treat these woes of aging. Predicted to reach an eventual standing on par with the popularity of Botulinum toxin and dermal fillers, the Infinity V-Lift is a minimally invasive treatment which uses 100% bio-absorbable threads strategically placed under the skin to lift and restore facial contours to the right place. Targeted and meant for those who embrace graceful aging, this procedure when properly executed will provide sufficient volume at the right tension, but not too much to steer clear of those ridiculously over-inflated balloon liked faces that filled the pages of tabloids and gossip columns.Depending on the amount of skin laxity, more or less threads (usually 4 to 8) are inserted to give the best outcome. There are little to no downtime and generally, it shouldn’t prevent from returning to work after a day or two. Slight swelling secondary to the anesthetic injections made for the procedure to be almost pain-free can last between 6 to 24 hours. As with all procedures that involved needles and injections, small pin-prick marks and bruises can happen at times. However, as these are usually placed on the underside of the jawline, visibility is much reduced unless closely scrutinized.

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