What we treat / Forehead lines
Forehead Lines
The horizontal lines across your forehead are made by one broad muscle whose only job is to lift your eyebrows. Every time you raise them, in surprise, in conversation, or to see something better, the skin folds in the same places. A neuromodulator relaxes that muscle so it pulls less hard. The dose matters more here than almost anywhere on the face, because the same muscle is the only thing holding your brows up.
Why they happen
A single sheet of muscle runs up the front of the forehead and lifts the brows. Nothing pulls the other way, so the lines it makes run straight across rather than gathering in one spot. The skin above the brow is also thinner than the skin lower down, so it gives way sooner.
Most people raise their brows far more than they realize, and many do it to compensate for upper lids that have started to feel heavy. That is why forehead lines and a heavy brow so often arrive together, and why treating the forehead without looking at the brow is how people end up feeling weighed down instead of refreshed.
How Dr. Mauer treats it
The main treatment
Botox & Neuromodulators
Units placed across the forehead in a pattern matched to how your own brow actually moves. Because this muscle holds the brow up, Dr. Mauer treats it conservatively and reviews you rather than chasing a completely still forehead at the first appointment.
Read about BotoxSometimes, afterward
Laser & Skin Resurfacing
If a line is still visible when your forehead is completely relaxed, the crease has set into the skin and relaxing the muscle will not remove it. Resurfacing treats the skin itself. It is a second conversation, not a first one.
Read about laser and skin treatmentsWhat to expect
- Appointment
- 15 to 30 minutes
- Discomfort
- Most people describe a mild pinch
- Downtime
- None that stops you going back to work
- Visible
- 7 to 14 days for the full effect
- Lasts
- About 3 to 4 months
Results for this concern
Individual results vary. Photographs are published only with each patient’s written consent.
Questions about forehead lines
Will my forehead look frozen?+
Not if the dose is judged rather than standardised. The aim is a forehead that still moves and lines that are softer when it does. Dr. Mauer's patients say in their own reviews that keeping their expression is the reason they stayed with him.
Why do people say this makes your brows drop?+
Because the muscle being treated is the one that holds them up. Treat too much of it, or treat it too low, and the brow sits heavier than it did. That is a technique problem rather than a reason to avoid the treatment, and it is the specific thing experience prevents.
Can I have just a little, to start?+
Yes, and for a first appointment that is often the sensible approach. Adding a small amount at a two-week review is straightforward. Waiting out a dose that was too strong takes months.
My lines are there even when I am not moving. Is it too late?+
No, but it changes the plan. A line that stays at rest has etched into the skin, so relaxing the muscle stops it deepening and something that works on the skin addresses what is already there.
