Last Updated on April 20, 2026 by Giorgia Guazzarotti
Best places to get botox on face? If you’re anything like most people, that’s the first question that pops into your head when you start thinking about it. Where does it actually go? Can they do anything about my frown lines? What about my crow’s feet? You start mentally running through your face like a checklist, wondering which bits are even treatable and which bits you’ve just got to make peace with. And the honest answer is that there’s more on that list than most people expect. Some of it might surprise you. Some of the places you’re probably most self-conscious about are a good candidate. Others are trickier than they look. And a couple of things people assume botox can fix actually need something else entirely. So let’s go through all of it: the areas of the face that work, the ones that need a careful hand, and the ones where you might be barking up the wrong tree.
Botox Treatment: What Does It Do?
Your facial wrinkles aren’t really about your skin. They’re about your muscles. Every time you frown, squint, raise your eyebrows, or scrunch your nose, the muscles under your skin are contracting. Do that thousands of times a day for years and the skin above those muscles starts to crease – and eventually those creases stop going away when your face relaxes. Botox essentially blocks muscle movement. It gets injected into a specific muscle, it stops the nerve from telling that muscle to contract, and the muscle relaxes. The skin above it smooths out.
You start seeing results after 2 to 5 days and the effects last 2 to 4 month. Then the muscle wakes back up and you’re back to where you started – unless you keep going, in which case the muscle gradually gets weaker over time and results can last a bit longer. Now. Where on your face does this actually work? What botox doesn’t do: it doesn’t add volume, it doesn’t lift sagging skin caused by fat loss, and it can’t address static wrinkles that are present when your face is completely at rest. For any of those concerns, you’d be looking at dermal fillers or other cosmetic treatments. But that’s a separate conversation. This article is purely about botox.
Related: Can You Have A Facial After Botox?
Horizontal Forehead Lines
This is one of the most common areas people come in asking about, and also one of the trickier ones to get right. The horizontal lines across your forehead come from the frontalis, a muscle that runs up your forehead and is responsible for raising your eyebrows. Every time something surprises you or you’re trying to read something in bad light, that muscle fires.
Here’s the thing though: it’s the only muscle that lifts your brows. So if someone injects too much botox into your forehead, your brows drop and you end up looking heavier and more tired than you did before. Which is very much the opposite of what anyone wants.
When done right, the injector watches you raise your brows and frown before deciding placement and then combines forehead treatment with glabellar injections. The reason is simple: if you treat the forehead without also treating the glabella, the frontalis muscle compensates for the depressors still pulling the brow down, and you can end up with brow heaviness. Most skilled injectors will assess the full upper face before treating any one area in isolation. Follow this protocol and forehead botox softens those horizontal lines while keeping your brow where it belongs for natural-looking results.
The Frown Lines (The “11s”)
If there’s one area with the most clinical evidence behind it, it’s this one. The vertical lines between your brows (sometimes called glabellar lines or the “11s”) are caused by two muscles that pull your brows together when you concentrate, squint, or frown. They’re often what makes someone look permanently stressed or a bit angry even when they’re not. The glabellar area is the most studied injection site in cosmetic medicine, and the results are consistently good. There’s also an interesting bit of research showing that relaxing these muscles seems to have a small but real positive effect on mood, the theory being that when the muscles you use to frown are relaxed, your brain gets slightly less of the signal associated with frowning. Interesting, right? The main risk here is eyelid droop, which can happen if the product moves somewhere it shouldn’t, which can mess up your facial expressions. It’s rare (only been reported in 0 to 5.4% of cases in systematic reviews) when done by a plastic surgeon who knows what they’re doing – and it’s temporary.
Crow’s Feet
They’re the lines that fan out from the corners of your eyes when you smile or squint. The skin around the eyes is thinner than anywhere else on the face, so these lines tend to show up early and deepen fast. Great. Botox here works really well because the goal isn’t to freeze anything – it’s just to soften the depth of the lines when you smile, giving you a more youthful appearance. The good news: it’s one of those areas where a good result is genuinely hard to spot because it looks like you just… don’t have those lines anymore. Not like you’ve had something done. Most people retain the ability to smile fully; the lines simply don’t etch as deeply.
Bunny Lines
These are the little expression lines that appear on either side of your nose when you laugh or scrunch your face up. Most people don’t even know they have them until they look at a photo. They’re caused by a small muscle that runs down the side of the nose. A tiny amount of botox injections here softens them without affecting how your face moves in any noticeable way. Worth knowing: if someone treats your frown lines heavily without touching these, the bunny lines can actually get worse because a different muscle starts compensating. A good injector will look at your whole upper face as one picture rather than treating things in isolation.
The Masseter Muscle (Your Jaw Muscle)
This one sits right at the intersection of looking good and actually feeling better. The masseter is the big chewing muscle along the side of your jaw. When it’s overdeveloped (from genetics, or from clenching and grinding your teeth) it gives the jaw a very square, heavy appearance. Botulinum toxin injections into the masseter muscles does two things. First off, it gradually reduces the size of the muscle over several weeks, which slims the lower face and gives more of an oval shape. Plus, it relieves a lot of the tension that comes with grinding – something a 2022 study confirmed, though it also noted that a different jaw muscle can compensate by getting tighter, which is worth being aware of. If you wake up with a sore jaw or headaches, or you’ve been told you grind your teeth at night, this is one of those areas where cosmetic benefits and medical benefits genuinely overlap.
The Chin
A dimpled or puckered chin (sometimes described as looking like orange peel) is caused by a small muscle called the mentalis. When it’s overactive it fires constantly, even at rest, creating that uneven texture. A small injection here relaxes it and smooths the surface. It’s subtle, but it’s one of those tweaks that makes the whole lower face look more polished without being identifiable as something that’s been done – and with minimal downtime too.
Areas That Need More Care
- Under the eyes: You can treat the fine lines here, but the muscle involved also helps support the lower eyelid. Get the dose wrong and you can end up with some drooping. A lot of practitioners prefer to use filler here for volume loss rather than botox for facial lines. Worth having an honest conversation with your provider about which issue you’re actually dealing with.
- Around the mouth: Fine vertical lines above the upper lip can be softened with a technique called a lip flip – a small amount of botox that relaxes the muscle so the lip rolls slightly outward. It needs a light hand because too much and you lose the ability to purse your lips properly, which affects normal activities like drinking, speaking, and other things you’d rather not compromise.
FAQs
What are the effects of Botox on muscle strength over time?
Botox doesn’t weaken you in a scary or permanent way. It just stops certain muscles from overworking for a while. So when a muscle has been chilled out for a few months, it comes back online a bit less “tight” than before. Think of it like if you stop clenching your jaw for ages – it doesn’t disappear, it just stops being so… dominant. And that’s actually part of why people get longer-lasting results the more consistently they do it.
What unwanted side effects do people actually get worried about?
Most side effects are small and temporary. A bit of bruising here and there, maybe slight unevenness while it settles, or one area kicking in a bit slower than another. The bigger fears people have – like looking frozen or unnatural – usually come from bad placement or overdoing it. And even then, it’s temporary because Botox always wears off. So worst case isn’t permanent damage. It’s just a few weeks of things adjusting.
What’s actually the best treatment approach?
There isn’t one “best” approach for everyone, which is why a skilled practitioner doesn’t follow a single map. It depends on how your face moves, how strong certain muscles are, and what your goal is. Some people need very minimal treatment. Others need a more balanced approach across multiple areas. The best plan is always the one that fits your face specifically – not a standard template.
Are medical uses of Botox actually important?
Yeah, they’re a big part of it. Beyond aesthetics, Botox is used for things like migraines, jaw tension, and excessive sweating. In those cases, it’s not about appearance at all – it’s about calming overactive nerves or muscles that are causing real discomfort. The cosmetic side just happens to be the part most people are familiar with.
Conclusion
Botox isn’t really about changing your face. It’s about stopping certain expressions from doing more than they need to. When it’s done well, nothing feels “different.” You just look a bit more rested, a bit less tense, like your face isn’t carrying every expression quite so heavily anymore. Just make sure you choose the right provider.