How to Get Cheekbones? What You Can and Cannot Change

If you’re wondering how to get cheekbones, the honest answer is that you can’t change the bone itself: the height and width of your cheekbones are set by genetics. What you can influence is how visible they look, through puffiness, posture, lighting and makeup, and possibly a little through cheek exercises and massage. Below you’ll find what actually shapes the cheek area, four gentle cheek moves, a massage sequence, quick makeup tricks, and the trends worth skipping.

Can you get higher cheekbones?

No, not in the sense of moving or growing bone. High cheekbones come from the shape of your zygomatic bone, the paired bone that forms the front and side of the face and helps shape the contour of the cheeks (StatPearls: Zygomatic anatomy). No exercise, massage or tongue posture changes it in adults.

How visible they look is a different question. That depends on the soft tissue over the bone, how much fluid your face holds that day, your posture and the light, which is why your cheekbones can look sharper in one photo than another.

Exercise and massage work only on the soft-tissue side, and modestly. The best-known study of facial exercise, a small 2018 pilot in JAMA Dermatology, found that dermatologists rated upper and lower cheek fullness as improved after 20 weeks of practice (Alam et al., 2018). That’s fuller cheeks, not higher bones, and the study had no control group and only 16 finishers, so larger controlled studies are needed.

What makes cheekbones look defined

Cheekbone definition is the result of several layers stacked on top of each other, and only some of them can change.

• Bone. The zygomatic bone sets the height, width and projection of your cheekbones. It’s genetic, and it changes slowly with age: a review by Mendelson and Wong describes how parts of the midface skeleton are resorbed over the decades (Mendelson & Wong, 2012).
• Fat pads. The cheeks hold several fat compartments that shift over a lifetime. Fuller cheeks when you’re younger are normal, and so is a flatter look in midlife.
• Muscle. The zygomaticus major and minor, the muscles that lift the corners of your mouth when you smile, attach to the cheekbone. Our face muscles guide maps them out.
• Fluid. Puffiness from a salty dinner, a drink, a short night or allergies softens the area around the cheekbones for a few hours or a day.
• Body composition and age. Facial fullness follows overall body composition, genetics and age. That’s just variation between faces, not a problem to fix.

Of these layers, fluid is the one you can affect day to day, muscle a little, and bone not at all. Posture matters too: a forward head tilt shortens the neck and flattens the angles of the face in photos.

Cheek exercises to try

These four moves work the muscles around the cheekbones with slow, controlled holds. They take about three minutes. Holds and reps are suggestions; adjust them to what feels comfortable, and use a mirror the first few times.

Safety first: stop any move that causes pain, clicking or strain. Check with a doctor or dentist before starting if you have jaw joint (TMJ) problems, recent dental work, or recent facial surgery, fillers or other injectables in the cheeks.

1. Cheekbone press walk (about 30 seconds)

1. Rest your fingertips just under your cheekbones, beside your nose.
2. Press in gently, hold for a breath, then release.
3. Move a finger-width toward your ears and repeat until you reach the front of the ears.

This helps you find the line of the bone before you start.

2. Cheek lift smile (about 45 seconds)

1. Place your fingertips lightly on the tops of your cheeks.
2. With lips closed, smile slowly and lift the corners of your mouth up toward your fingers.
3. Hold for about 5 seconds, then release slowly.
4. Repeat 5 or 6 times.

Your fingers keep the skin smooth, they don’t push it. Keep your eyes soft so you’re not squinting into crow’s feet.

3. Gentle fish face smile (about 40 seconds)

1. Lightly draw your cheeks in between your teeth, lips pushed slightly forward.
2. Try a small half-smile while keeping the shape.
3. Hold for about 3 to 5 seconds, then relax completely.
4. Repeat 3 or 4 times.

Keep it soft: a short muscle exercise, not a long hollow-cheek hold (more below).

4. O-Shape Pump (about 40 seconds)

1. Shape your lips into a firm O, as if saying “oh”.
2. Keeping the O, slowly lower your jaw, then raise it.
3. Continue in a slow, even rhythm for about 10 pumps.

Open only as far as your jaw joint is comfortable.

Common mistakes: going too hard (a third of your maximum effort is plenty), tensing your shoulders or forehead, and expecting new bone. These moves work muscle only.

For a longer cheek routine with a three-week progression table, see our guide to face exercises for sagging cheeks. If you’d like to follow along, the cheeks plan in Gluvy’s face yoga video workouts turns moves like these into short guided videos, 5 to 10 minutes a day.

Massage and gua sha along the cheekbone

Light massage along the cheekbone is a calm way to finish, and it may make the face look less puffy for a while. Use clean fingers or a gua sha stone, a few drops of facial oil and gentle pressure.

1. Under-cheekbone glide. Starting beside your nose, glide your fingertips or the flat edge of the stone along the underside of the cheekbone toward the ear. Repeat 4 or 5 times per side.
2. Top-of-cheekbone sweep. Sweep from the side of the nose across the top of the cheekbone toward the temple, staying well below the thin skin under the eye. Our guide to under-eye wrinkles explains why that area needs an even lighter touch.
3. Finish down the neck. Sweep from below the ear down the side of the neck toward the collarbone.

Hold the stone almost flat. Mild pinkness that fades quickly is normal; marks mean you pressed too hard. Skip irritated skin, breakouts and recently treated areas. Our step-by-step gua sha routine shows the full face sequence, and hands-only facial massage techniques work if you don’t own a stone. In the app, the cheek-area gua sha and massage courses walk you through similar strokes with a timer on each step.

Reduce puffiness that hides definition

Day-to-day puffiness is often the biggest reason cheekbones look softer one morning than the next, and it’s the factor you have the most control over.

• Salt and alcohol. A salty or late meal and alcohol can leave the face looking fuller the next morning. Notice your own patterns rather than following strict rules.
• Sleep. Short or broken sleep often shows in the face. Adults are generally advised to aim for at least seven hours (CDC).
• Sleeping position. Some people wake less puffy with a slightly raised pillow.
• A morning de-puff. Cool water, a few minutes of gentle massage from the centre of the face outward and down the neck, and moving around after waking all help many faces settle. Our guides on why your face is puffy in the morning and how to debloat your face go into detail.

Swelling that comes on suddenly, affects one side, or comes with pain, a rash or trouble breathing is different: facial swelling has many possible causes (Cleveland Clinic), so see a doctor, urgently if breathing is affected. Gluvy’s gua sha video courses include a morning de-puffing massage if you’d like a guided version.

Makeup and lighting tricks

Makeup is the fastest, most honest cheekbone trick, because it simply plays with light and shadow.

• Contour under the bone. Find the hollow under your cheekbone with your fingers. Apply a matte contour shade one or two tones deeper than your skin, from just in front of the ear toward the middle of the cheek, stopping roughly in line with the outer corner of your eye. Blend upward so there’s no hard line.
• Highlight on top of the bone. A little highlighter on the highest point of the cheekbone catches the light and makes the bone look more lifted.
• Blush slightly higher. Placing blush on the upper cheek and blending it toward the temple draws the eye upward.
• Light from above or the side. Soft overhead or side light casts a gentle shadow under the cheekbone. Flat light from straight ahead, like a ring light, tends to flatten it.
• Mind the camera distance. Close-up selfies distort facial proportions (Ward et al., 2018). Stepping back and zooming in gives a truer picture.

What doesn’t work (and what to avoid)

Some popular cheekbone tips don’t hold up, and a few can do more harm than good.

• Long cheek-sucking holds. Sucking your cheeks in creates hollows for a few seconds, which is why it’s a photo trick. Holding it hard for minutes doesn’t change the bone and can leave you biting your cheeks or tensing your jaw.
• Extreme dieting for “cheekbones”. You can’t choose where your body loses fat. Spot reduction isn’t supported by evidence: in one randomised trial, six weeks of abdominal exercises improved muscle endurance but didn’t reduce belly fat (Vispute et al., 2011), and there’s no reason to expect the face to work differently. Our double chin exercises guide explains this in more detail. Restrictive dieting for a facial look isn’t worth the risk to your health.
• Mewing claims. Pressing the tongue to the roof of the mouth is popular online, but there’s no good evidence that it reshapes an adult’s cheekbones or jaw. Our guide to a more defined jawline covers mewing and what actually affects the lower face.
• Hard chewing. Jaw trainers and very hard gum load the jaw joint without good evidence of a better-looking face, and can aggravate jaw pain.

Medical options in one paragraph

If you want to change the actual contour of your cheeks, that’s a medical decision, not an exercise one. Dermal fillers and surgical procedures are carried out by licensed clinicians such as board-certified dermatologists and plastic surgeons, who can explain what’s realistic for your face, plus the risks, recovery and costs. Face exercises are a different thing entirely and aren’t a substitute for them.

Look after your cheeks with Gluvy

You can’t choose your cheekbones, but you can build a calm routine around the cheek area. Gluvy’s face yoga video workouts include a 3-week cheeks plan among more than 200 guided exercises, with a timer on every step and sessions of about 5 to 10 minutes a day. The AI face analysis gives you a starting-point look at which areas you might focus on (it’s not a diagnosis), and a progress journal with selfies keeps your photos in one place. If the lower face is your focus too, the chin and jawline plan pairs well with the cheek moves. When you’re ready, you can download Gluvy for iPhone, or browse more face exercises by area.

Sources

• Yu M, Wang SM. Anatomy, Head and Neck, Zygomatic. StatPearls, NCBI Bookshelf.
• Alam M, et al. Association of Facial Exercise With the Appearance of Aging. JAMA Dermatology, 2018.
• Mendelson B, Wong CH. Changes in the facial skeleton with aging: implications and clinical applications in facial rejuvenation. Aesthetic Plastic Surgery, 2012.
• Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. About sleep.
• Cleveland Clinic. Facial swelling.
• Ward B, et al. Nasal Distortion in Short-Distance Photographs: The Selfie Effect. JAMA Facial Plastic Surgery, 2018.
• Vispute SS, et al. The effect of abdominal exercise on abdominal fat. Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research, 2011.