How to Get High Cheekbones Naturally


High cheekbones are a mark of beauty and facial attractiveness in today’s time. However, not everyone is born with the modelesque appearance of perfectly sculpted cheekbones. Thus, people want to learn how to get high cheekbones without any cosmetic procedures.

You can get high cheekbones naturally by losing weight through proper diet and exercise. You can also try facial exercises, though they will not alter your bone structure. Mewing is the best long term strategy to get high cheekbones naturally.

High cheekbones can do a lot to elevate someone’s facial attractiveness. Many of the beautiful faces we’ve come to recognize in modeling and Hollywood have excellent cheekbones that bring out the rest of their facial features. High cheekbones don’t always have to mean that someone has an excellently sculpted and angular face. Sometimes high cheekbones are plump and full.

The line between high cheekbones that look attractive and those that look gaunt and aged is obvious. High cheekbones do not necessarily mean that you have to lose all of your face’s fullness and risk looking much older. Your cheekbones should suit your facial appearance, and that doesn’t always mean your cheekbones need augmentation.

Regardless, high cheekbones look great on everyone, and it is a coveted feature. However, getting high cheekbones is quite challenging without any cosmetic procedure. The options you have for natural improvement are limited, and there is little conclusive research done on how to make your cheekbones higher naturally.

What Are High Cheekbones?

High cheekbones refer to the physical location of the “bulge” created by the cheekbone. High cheekbones are cheekbones that are higher, and start closer to the eye than the tip of the nose. True high cheekbones such as these are rare:

See how the cheekbone starts almost by her eye? This is in contrast to low cheekbones, which start closer to the base of the nose.

High cheekbones tend to be more prominent, and so many people confuse prominent cheekbones with high cheekbones, which aren’t the same thing.

What Determines High Cheekbones?

zygomatic bones
Zygomatic Region

The cheekbone area and its degree of definition depend on several things. For one, your bone structure makes up most of how well-defined your cheekbone area is. Another term for the cheekbones is the zygomatic bone. This area determines, in part, how your cheekbones look like from an external perspective. But bone structure is not the end-all of cheekbone definition. 

Apart from the zygomatic bone, your soft tissues also influence how high your cheekbones look. Your muscles and fat play a major role in determining how prominent your cheekbones are. This influence is why facial exercises seem to work on some people despite not changing their bone structure. 

Is It Possible to Get High Cheekbones Naturally?

Yes, it is possible to get high cheekbones naturally. However, you have to manage your expectations. Don’t expect incredibly major changes from just natural methods. Plus, it’s quite challenging to change such a major part of your appearance without the assistance of any cosmetic procedure. Notably, it will also take time and patience for these improvements to take effect. There is no quick, overnight fix that you can implement to get high cheekbones. As an additional consideration, much of the natural methods to get higher cheekbones don’t have conclusive proof of working, so you will find little in terms of research.

Despite all that, it is possible. But you have to be ready to be patient and do the exercises diligently. Even then, you may not get the results you want. You must attempt natural methods with appropriate expectations of what you will need to do and the possible results. 

Do Facial Exercises Work to Create High Cheekbones?

There is a lot of dispute regarding facial exercises and whether they are worth the time or not. Although facial exercises do show some promise based on some initial studies, these won’t do anything for your bone structure at all. Mostly, facial exercises focus on facial rejuvenation and combating aging. Though you can’t do anything about bone structure, your facial muscles are an entirely different story. Many books and websites promote the idea that proper facial exercises will work facial muscles in the right way to achieve the desired result. In this lens, facial exercises have some merit, and we can’t just discount them completely. 

Let’s take a look at this small study of middle-aged women. The researchers found that a 30-minute daily facial exercise over 20 weeks improved the facial appearance (Alam et al., 2018). The cheeks of the study participants were fuller, and the participants were satisfied with the results. Despite the promising results, studies like this one have major blind spots. For this one, there was no control group as to which comparison is available. Furthermore, the sample was quite limited, and the participants were part of a particular age group. Hopefully, the rise in popularity of facial exercises will spur more scientific approaches to these claims. 

Note that exercises for your facial muscles can also bring about negative results such as wrinkles. When you constantly work your facial muscles, this eventually stretches out the skin. Sure, the skin is elastic, and wrinkles don’t happen overnight. But over time and as we age, the skin loses its elasticity, and the movements we make eventually catch up to us. This reasoning is why some people refrain from laughing too much or making extreme facial expressions because they’re scared it might worsen their wrinkles. 

Regardless, facial exercises can still be worth trying. 

Facial Exercises to Try Out

1. 3-Finger Resistance

This facial exercise will help work your cheek muscles by making it more challenging to do a simple movement.

  • Start by placing your index, middle, and ring fingers on the hollows of your cheek. Make sure that you are pressing down on it enough to feel some pressure.
  • Next, open your mouth wide and try to smile. Essentially, what you’re trying to do is exert force on your cheek hollows so that smiling wide won’t be as easy. This movement will force your cheek muscles to work harder.
  • After you attempt to smile, go back to the initial open-mouthed position.
  • Repeat the process of opening your mouth and smiling for 20 to 30 repetitions.

It might be uncomfortable at first, so start with shorter bursts of this exercise before fully diving into 30 repetitions.

2. Fish Face

Doing the fish face is one of the more common facial exercises, plus they are straightforward.

  • The first step is to suck your cheeks in to scrunch your lower face and imitate fish lips.
  • Next, attempt to smile while holding that initial position. As you try to smile, you will feel some resistance, which will help work your facial muscles more. It is crucial to hold this smile for around 6-8 seconds before relaxing.
  • Do this for several repetitions.

Like with the first exercise, you will experience some discomfort. That’s a sign that you are working your facial muscles. However, you should be careful when you do facial exercises as you don’t want to accidentally make one side of your face more toned than the other. Symmetry is one of the most important things in facial attractiveness, so you should keep it well in mind. 

3. V-Resistance

Like the first exercise, this one will try to create resistance so that your facial muscles have to exert more effort.

  • Begin by placing your middle finger on your smile line.
  • Next, forming a v, place your index finger at the edge of your cheekbones to create a v-shape that cups your cheekbones. Do this on both sides of your face.
  • Once you are in the correct position, smile, and hold for about 3-5 seconds.
  • Once you smile, you will feel your muscles working. Do these steps for 15 repetitions.

4. Left and Right Pout

This exercise focuses on making movements that will strengthen your cheek muscles.

  • To start, pucker up your lips in a pout; this will help you better move your cheeks in the next step.
  • After that, slowly drag your lips to one side of your face. This motion will make the other side stretch but constrict the muscles on the side your lips are currently leaning towards.
  • Hold this position for 15 seconds.
  • Next, do the same for the other side.
  • You will have to perform three repetitions of this exercise.

You can also do more if you wish, but it will feel uncomfortable as you exert your facial muscles more than they are used to. Over time, you should see changes in the contour of your cheekbone.

5. Chin Up

This one also promotes changes in the chin area as well as the cheekbones.

  • To do this exercise, you first have to tilt your head upward.
  • Then pull your lower lip upward to the point that you will feel some strain in your lower chin.

This exercise will marginally lift your lower lip and help lift your cheeks as well. The key to this is creating tension in your face’s lower area to lift your cheek muscles. 


Remember that it will take time for these exercises to work. You should do them for at least a few weeks before you start to see results. And again, none of these exercises are proven to work. If you want to try it out, you might find the results worthwhile, but there are no guarantees. Do not forget that these facial exercises’ main goal is to work the facial muscles, not change your bone structure. Manage your expectations of the results, as not all of the exercises may work for you. 

Losing Weight

Losing weight is one of the best ways to achieve a higher-looking cheekbone, especially if your soft tissues prevent your cheekbone area from popping out. Though there are high cheekbones that are plump, excess fat near the zygomatic area could bury your cheekbones even if you have good bone structure. Your bone structure and soft tissues all have to work together and create harmony. Thus, losing that fat is also essential in achieving a prominent, high-looking cheekbone area.

Of course, this does not necessarily apply to everyone. Losing fat is an optimum choice if the issue you have is that your face fat prevents your cheekbones from showing up properly. Otherwise, you have to look for other options.

There are no exercises that specifically target face fat. When you want to lose excess fat in your face, you’ll have to burn fat throughout your whole body. Every human body is different, and we all store fat in different ways. Because of that, the way we react to exercises and diet varies as well. 

body fat and facial aesthetics
Christian Bale Weight Loss

To lose fat as fast as possible, you need to focus on fat-burning exercises such as HIIT, cardio, and strength training. Maximizing your physical activity and improving your endurance and strength is also important in long-term fat loss. Losing fat does not only entail that you do a lot of cardio and burn it off in your workout sessions. Building up strength and muscle will also improve your metabolism, and you burn more calories even when you are just resting.

A huge part of losing weight is watching what you eat. Generally, you should be in a calorie deficit if you want to lose weight, but remember to still eat the proper amount of food per day. Cutting out around 500-1000 calories from your diet is fine as long as you stay within the safe amount of calories for your height and age. At that rate, you will lose around 1-2 lbs. a week. Remember that weight loss is also a process that takes patience and time. You cannot rush it and still be healthy. If you go too fast, you will plateau. Try to lose around a pound per week. Prioritizing your health above all is incredibly important for long-term weight loss and achieving your goals with a healthy mind and body.

For more info on the best way to lose weight, check out our article on how to shred fat.

Mewing

Mewing is the use of proper oral posture to improve facial appearance. While there is little research on mewing itself, the ideas behind mewing are already in full use in some areas of orthodontics. Because mewing is related to how proper oral posture changes facial appearance, research on the topic may not come for some time yet. Even so, there are plenty of anecdotal results that prove just how much mewing can change a face.

The idea behind mewing is that you place your tongue on your hard palate and exert a very light yet constant pressure. Additionally, you should also keep your teeth together, breathe through your nose, and keep your lips sealed. Mewing is a largely habitual fix that takes time and lots of patience. It needs to become a habit first before it works. Simply mewing when you remember it is not helpful. A person needs to be fully committed to it 24/7, except during eating. Even while asleep, proper oral posture should be maintained. This is what differentiates it from regular exercises and why it can actually move bone over a long enough time span.

Mewing expands your upper palate and moves your maxilla (upper jaw) up and forward. This motion will also bring your mandible upward, following the movement of the maxilla. The effect of a wider upper palate is a better set of teeth since the teeth have more space to settle in. Because of the palate expansion, the cheekbones also start to move outward and create a more defined appearance. Though improvements to the cheekbones are not the main goal of mewing, it certainly is a welcome addition.

Mewing Effects
Effects of Mewing and Forward Growth

This idea can be difficult to imagine in theory, but today, some devices use the same mechanism. For example, a maxillary skeletal expander (MSE) works to ‘break’ the midpalatal suture to create more space in the upper palate. If we look at the formation of the skull, the maxilla connects to the zygomatic area. If you try to expand the maxilla laterally, you will also be moving the cheekbones outward.

With proper mewing, a person can achieve the outward, lateral expansion of their cheekbones. Ideally, this will then result in higher and more defined cheekbones. However, one of the major issues with mewing is that it works best on younger people, such as children or teens. While it still works for adults, it will take a considerably longer time. With mewing, it will usually take years, or even decades, for very obvious results.

For more info on mewing, check out our ultimate mewing guide.

What if None of These Work?

It is understandable to seek natural remedies for aesthetic problems. After all, who wouldn’t like an improved face just from activities they can do at home? But there are people whose cheekbones are more stubborn, and the previously suggested fixes won’t work for them. Remember that doing exercises to improve your facial appearance will take effort and patience. Try to give it some time. Even still, some people may have additionally stubborn fat on their face that they can’t get rid of. Some may be too old for mewing to work as effectively as possible. In these cases, the best option would be to go for cosmetic enhancements.

Check out our article on how to get cheek hollows for more info.

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