Crow's Feet: What Causes Them and How to Care for the Eye Area

Crow’s feet are the fan-shaped lines at the outer corners of your eyes, created by the ring of muscle around the eye folding the skin every time you smile or squint. Over the years, sun exposure and thinner, drier skin make them stay visible even when your face is at rest. You can’t (and shouldn’t) stop smiling, but you can protect the skin with sunglasses and sunscreen, support it with good night care and look after the area with very gentle massage. Below: the causes, what helps most and a 3-minute routine.

What crow’s feet are

Crow’s feet are expression lines at the sides of the eyes, also called laughter lines or, by clinicians, lateral canthal lines. They form over the orbicularis oculi, a ring of muscle around each eye that closes your eyelids, from a gentle blink to a tight squeeze (StatPearls, orbicularis oculi). When you smile broadly or squint, its outer part contracts and the skin at the eye corner pleats into a small fan.

That skin is some of the thinnest on your face, which is why lines show early and why care here should be gentle. For more, see our guide to your face muscles.

Why they appear (and why some people get them early)

Crow’s feet start as a sign that your face moves, then become more permanent as the skin loses its bounce.

Crow’s feet when smiling are normal

At first, crow’s feet are dynamic: you see them when you laugh or squint, and they disappear when your face relaxes. Crow’s feet when smiling are a normal part of an expressive face, and many people find them warm and attractive.

Over many years, they can become static, staying visible at rest. The American Academy of Dermatology (AAD) explains that when you contract the same facial muscles again and again for many years, those expression lines can become permanent (AAD).

What makes eye wrinkles show sooner

• Sun exposure. UV damage is one of the biggest drivers of premature aging, and the outer eye is easy to miss with sunscreen.
• Squinting. Bright light, glare and uncorrected vision fold the same skin over and over.
• Smoking. The AAD lists smoking among the habits that speed up skin aging.
• Genetics. Skin type, thickness and how expressive your face is all run in families.
• Dryness. Dehydrated skin makes fine lines look more noticeable.

Prevention that works best

The habits with the most support are protective: they slow new damage and keep the skin in better condition.

Sunglasses and SPF around the eyes

Sunscreen has the strongest evidence of any anti-aging habit. In a randomised trial in Nambour, Australia, adults under 55 who were asked to apply sunscreen every day showed no detectable increase in skin aging over four and a half years, while the group using sunscreen as they chose aged measurably more (Hughes et al., 2013). It measured the backs of the hands, but your eyes face the same sun.

The AAD recommends a broad-spectrum, water-resistant sunscreen with SPF 30 or higher, reapplied about every two hours outdoors, plus shade and a wide-brimmed hat (AAD, Practice Safe Sun). For the eye area:

• Go right out to the corners. Pat sunscreen along the outer eye and up to the temples, staying on the bone rather than close to the lash line.
• Try a mineral formula if your eyes sting. Sunscreens with zinc oxide or titanium dioxide, or a sunscreen stick, may feel more comfortable near the eyes for some people.
• Wear sunglasses with UV protection. They protect the skin and reduce squinting, and the AAD notes that sunglasses can reduce lines caused by squinting.

If you squint at screens or road signs, book an eye test; glasses can take away a reason to squint all day.

Night care

Retinoids are the best-studied skincare ingredients for fine lines. The AAD explains that they speed up skin cell turnover and boost collagen, which can soften fine lines, and that retinol is a milder over-the-counter form (AAD, Retinoid or retinol?). A clinical review found irritation such as burning, scaling and redness to be the main drawback, with retinol and retinaldehyde less irritating than tretinoin (Mukherjee et al., 2006).

Around the eyes, go especially slowly:

• Start a little way out. Apply your retinoid to the rest of the face first and use only a thin layer near the outer eye, staying off the eyelids.
• Begin two or three nights a week, buffered with moisturiser, and build up only if your skin stays comfortable.
• Pair it with morning sunscreen, because retinoids can make skin more sensitive to the sun.
• Skip retinoids during pregnancy or while trying to conceive, and ask a dermatologist before using prescription strengths.

An eye cream is optional; a gentle face moisturiser patted around the eyes does the same job for many people. Hydrated skin makes fine lines look softer in the short term, but no cream changes the muscle movement behind crow’s feet.

Gentle eye-area care at home

Eye-area massage is about comfort and relaxation, not wrinkle treatment, and it needs the lightest touch on your face. A few rules before you start:

• Use your ring finger. It’s the weakest, so it’s hard to press too hard.
• Glide, don’t drag. A little moisturiser helps your fingers move with the skin, not pull it.
• Stay on the bone. Work along the brow bone and the bone under the eye, never on the eyelid or eyeball.
• Stroke outward, from the inner corner toward the temple.

Times are suggestions.

1. Temple press (about 30 seconds)

1. Place your ring and middle fingertips on your temples, just outside the outer corners of your eyes.
2. Close your eyes and relax your brows.
3. Press very lightly and make small, slow circles, as if moving the skin over the bone rather than sliding over it.

Common mistake: pulling the skin toward your ears. The Gluvy app’s Temple Lift is a similar slow move.

2. Outer-eye smoothing (about 30 seconds)

1. Rest your ring fingers on the bone under each eye, near the inner corner.
2. With feather-light pressure, glide outward along the bone to the outer corner of the eye.
3. Continue a little way onto the temple, lift your fingers off and start again.

Common mistake: working on the soft skin of the lower lid. Stay on the firm ridge. For fine lines under the eye itself, see under-eye wrinkles. This is close to the app’s Under-Eye Slide; see the steps in our face yoga exercises guide.

3. Eye-closing relaxation (about 1 minute)

1. Warm your palms and cup them over your closed eyes without pressing.
2. Breathe in through your nose for about four counts and out for about six.
3. With each out-breath, let the corners of your eyes, your brows and your jaw soften.

Common mistake: squeezing your eyes shut. Let your eyelids rest closed, as if you were falling asleep.

Skip moves that have you squint hard or squeeze your eyes against your fingers: they repeat the movement that folds the skin. Here, relaxation makes more sense than strengthening.

Stop any move that causes pain, stinging or watering, take out contact lenses if they feel uncomfortable, and check with your clinician first if you’ve had recent eye surgery, injectables or other procedures on your face.

Follow along instead of reading: Gluvy guides the gentle eye-area massage step by step, with a timer. The Eye Area Revitalizing Massage and Cheek & Eye Area Massage courses are part of the guided face yoga video workouts, and you can download Gluvy for iPhone.

Does face yoga help crow’s feet?

There’s no good research on face yoga for crow’s feet specifically, so it’s best treated as a relaxation and routine habit rather than a treatment.

The best-known study of facial exercise is a 2018 pilot in JAMA Dermatology. Twenty-seven women aged 40 to 65 enrolled and 16 completed it, doing 30 minutes of facial exercises a day for 8 weeks and then every other day until week 20 (Alam et al., 2018). Dermatologists rating standardised photos saw fuller upper and lower cheeks, and the average estimated age fell from 50.8 to 48.1 years. Crow’s feet weren’t a main finding, there was no control group, and larger controlled studies are needed.

A small 2025 study in Medicina found lower tone and stiffness in several facial muscles, including the orbicularis oculi, after 8 weeks of face yoga in 12 women (Medicina, 2025). It had no control group and didn’t measure wrinkles. For the full picture, read our guide to whether face yoga works.

Professional options

If static crow’s feet bother you, a board-certified dermatologist or other licensed clinician can explain treatments that work very differently from home care:

• Neuromodulator injections (such as botulinum toxin) temporarily relax the muscle at the outer eye. The AAD notes that results for wrinkles typically last a few months and repeat treatments are needed (AAD, botulinum toxin).
• Laser resurfacing works on the skin’s texture and fine lines.
• Chemical peels remove surface layers of skin so new skin can replace them.

Each is a medical decision with its own costs, risks and upkeep. Face yoga is an exercise habit with limited evidence; the two aren’t interchangeable. Our face yoga vs Botox comparison explains the differences in more detail.

See a doctor promptly for a sudden drooping eyelid, one side of your face not moving, or new swelling or pain around the eye.

A 3-minute eye-area routine

Morning (about 1 minute)

1. Cleanse and pat your skin dry.
2. Moisturise, then apply broad-spectrum SPF 30+ out to the corners of your eyes and temples.
3. Keep your sunglasses by the door so they go on whenever you head outside.

For puffiness on waking, see puffy eyes in the morning; the morning skincare routine covers the full order of steps.

Evening (about 2 minutes)

1. Remove eye makeup gently, without rubbing.
2. Apply your retinoid on the nights you use it (staying off the eyelids), then moisturiser.
3. Do the temple press, outer-eye smoothing and eye-closing relaxation, about 2 minutes in total.

For heavy upper lids, see our guide to hooded eyes; how to prevent forehead wrinkles covers the area above.

Care for your eye area with Gluvy

The face yoga video workouts include eye-area moves like Temple Lift and Under-Eye Slide, plus massage courses like Eye Area Revitalizing Massage, each with a timer on every step and sessions of 5–10 minutes a day. Morning and night routines with reminders help you keep up sunscreen and night care, and the skincare lessons include a short course on how to use retinol. For other areas, browse our face exercises guides.

Sources

• StatPearls. Anatomy, Head and Neck: Orbicularis Oculi Muscle. NCBI Bookshelf.
• American Academy of Dermatology. 11 ways to reduce premature skin aging.
• American Academy of Dermatology. Practice Safe Sun.
• American Academy of Dermatology. Retinoid or retinol?
• American Academy of Dermatology. Botulinum toxin therapy: overview.
• Hughes MCB, Williams GM, Baker P, Green AC. Sunscreen and prevention of skin aging: a randomized trial. Annals of Internal Medicine, 2013.
• Mukherjee S, et al. Retinoids in the treatment of skin aging: an overview of clinical efficacy and safety. Clinical Interventions in Aging, 2006.
• Alam M, et al. Association of Facial Exercise With the Appearance of Aging. JAMA Dermatology, 2018.
• Effect of Intensive Face Yoga on Facial Muscles Tonus, Stiffness, and Elasticity in Middle-Aged Women: A Pre-Experimental Clinical Trial. Medicina, 2025.