The area under the chin frustrates people more than almost anywhere else. It shows in every photograph taken from below, it responds poorly to weight loss in a lot of people, and it can appear on someone who is otherwise lean.
Fat freezing is one of the treatments used there. Before booking it, though, there is a question worth answering that most people skip: whether what you are looking at is actually fat.
Is it fat, skin, or muscle?
Three different things create a fuller profile under the jaw, and they need different answers.
Submental fat is a distinct pad sitting beneath the chin. It pinches between finger and thumb. This is the one fat freezing is designed for.
Skin laxity is loose tissue rather than volume, and it becomes more common from the forties onward as collagen declines. Nothing you can pinch as a discrete pad, but the outline softens. Removing fat here can make the appearance worse, because the skin that was draped over it has less to sit on.
Platysmal banding is muscle, visible as vertical cords when the neck is tensed, and it responds to neither fat reduction nor skin tightening.
People often have two of these at once. Establishing which is dominant is the single most useful thing a consultation does for this area, and it is why anyone recommending a treatment before examining you is guessing.
How does fat freezing work under the chin?
A small applicator is fitted to the area and draws the tissue in against cooling plates. Fat cells are more vulnerable to cold than skin, nerve or muscle, so they can be damaged at a temperature the surrounding tissue tolerates. The body clears the affected cells gradually over the following weeks and months.
The chin applicator is smaller and shaped differently from those used on the abdomen or flanks, because the area is smaller, curved, and sits over structures that require care. A session there is shorter than a body session.
Who is a good candidate?
Someone with a pinchable pad of fat beneath the chin, reasonable skin quality, and a stable weight. Those three together predict a good outcome more reliably than anything else.
Two situations tend to disappoint. Very little fat with noticeable laxity is a skin problem wearing a fat problem’s clothing, and freezing what little fat is there rarely improves the profile. And fat that sits deeper, beneath the muscle layer rather than just under the skin, is not reachable by a treatment applied at the surface.
The assessment also covers anatomy that has nothing to do with fat at all. A receding jawline changes the profile in a way no fat treatment addresses, and it is a common reason someone’s chin looks fuller than their weight would suggest.
What does it feel like there?
Intensely cold for the first few minutes, with a firm pulling sensation as the applicator draws the area in. That gives way to numbness for the remainder. The massage afterwards is brief and briefly uncomfortable, and it is part of the treatment rather than optional.
Afterwards the area is often swollen, tender and numb, and swelling under the chin is more visible than swelling on an abdomen. It settles over the following days, but numbness in that area can persist for a few weeks, which is worth knowing before rather than after.
When do results show?
Gradually. Change typically begins to be noticeable after several weeks and continues developing for a few months, since the body clears the treated cells on its own schedule.
Photographs are more useful here than anywhere else on the body, because the chin is the area people are least able to judge in a mirror. Take them from the side and from below, in the same light, before anything starts.
Whether a second session is needed depends on how much fat was there and what you are aiming for, and it is decided after seeing how the first has settled rather than booked upfront.
What it will not do
Tighten skin. This is the most common source of disappointment with the area, and it is predictable rather than bad luck. If laxity is part of the picture, fat reduction alone leaves the outline softer than you hoped.
Where that is the case, skin tightening treatments address the part fat freezing cannot, and the two are often planned together rather than chosen between. Morpheus8 and HIFU both work on that side of the problem.
How it compares with the alternatives
Fat dissolving injections treat the same pad by a different route, using an injected compound rather than external cooling, and they typically involve more visible swelling for several days afterwards. Surgical options remove tissue directly and sit in a different category of commitment entirely.
Which is appropriate depends on how much fat there is, what the skin is doing, and how much downtime you are willing to accept. Fat freezing occupies the middle ground: no injection, no incision, no real downtime, and a gradual result rather than an immediate one.
Other areas
The chin is one of several areas an applicator can treat. The abdomen and inner thighs are the most commonly requested, and the same principle applies everywhere: the fat has to sit in a defined pocket an applicator can hold, and it has to be the actual cause of what you want to change.
Getting it assessed
For this area more than most, the assessment decides the outcome. Fat, skin and muscle all present as a fuller jawline, and treating the wrong one produces a disappointing result from a treatment that worked exactly as intended.
Pulse Light Clinic is CQC-registered and doctor-and-nurse-led, and has been treating patients in London since 2001. You can read more about how fat freezing works in general.
Book a consultation to have the area assessed before booking any treatment.
