Also searched as pebble chin, orange peel chin, golf ball chin, dimpled chin, cobblestone chin. Same thing. One muscle causes all of it.
It is not your skin. It is the mentalis.
People come in convinced the dimpled texture on their chin is a skin quality problem, and start buying retinol for it. It is not. That pitted, orange peel surface is the mentalis, a small paired muscle that sits under the chin pad and pushes the soft tissue upward. When it contracts, it bunches the overlying skin into that pebbled texture and often deepens the horizontal crease between lip and chin at the same time.
You can prove this to yourself in a mirror. Relax completely and the texture usually smooths out or disappears. Push your lower lip up into a small pout and it appears instantly. Skin conditions do not switch on and off with an expression. Muscles do.
Why some people get it and others do not
Three things drive it, often together.
Habit. The mentalis is a stress muscle. People who concentrate hard, hold tension in the jaw, or are trying not to say something tend to hold it. Years of that builds tone the same way any repeated movement does.
Volume. As the fat pad over the chin thins with age, there is less padding between muscle and skin, so contraction shows through more clearly. Identical muscle activity, more visible result.
Anatomy. Some people simply have a strong or high-inserting mentalis. It shows up early, sometimes in people who have never had a wrinkle anywhere else.
What treatment does
A small dose placed low on the chin, into the belly of the muscle rather than up near the lip. That placement detail is the whole treatment. Too high and you interfere with the muscles that control the lower lip, which affects speech and the shape of your mouth when you talk. Placed properly, the chin softens, the surface smooths, and the mental crease usually eases as a bonus because the upward push stops.
From our injection team: chin is a low-unit, high-consequence area. We would rather see you back at two weeks for a top-up than have you spend three months talking around a lower lip that does not fully cooperate.
Expect onset at about two weeks and roughly three to four months of effect. If you are a habitual chin clencher, there is a useful secondary effect: with the muscle quieter, a lot of people break the habit and need less over time.
When toxin alone is not enough
If your chin also looks recessed or the crease under your lip is deep at complete rest, relaxing the muscle will only get you partway. That is a volume issue and a small amount of filler in the chin does the other half of the job, restoring the padding that used to hide the muscle. The two are frequently done together, and in that order, because toxin first tells us how much of the problem was movement.
Straight answers
Will it change how I talk?
It should not, and that is entirely down to placement being kept low and central. If you have had a bad experience with this area before, say so, and we will dose lower than standard.
Is this the same as a chin filler appointment?
No. Toxin quiets a muscle. Filler adds structure. Different problems, sometimes present in the same chin.
How many units?
Few. It is one of the smallest treatments we do, priced per unit like the rest. Current rates are on the Toronto price index.
Will it come back?
Movement returns as the toxin wears off. But because a good part of this is a tension habit, plenty of people find each round needs a little less than the last.
Not sure whether yours is muscle, volume or both? That is exactly what the free consultation is for. Book online or call 416-923-1200.