--- title: Smile Lines: Does Smiling Cause Wrinkles? description: Whether you’re scowling or smiling, a groove forms on your skin the moment you move one of your facial muscles—and with time forms a wrinkle canonical: https://time.com/collections/guide-to-happiness/3665763/does-smiling-cause-wrinkles/ article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2015-01-14T13:00:06.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-03-31T05:06:23.250Z article:section: Health og:title: You Asked: Can Smiling A Lot Really Cause Wrinkles? og:description: Whether you’re scowling or smiling, a groove forms on your skin the moment you move one of your facial muscles—and with time forms a wrinkle og:url: https://time.com/collections/guide-to-happiness/3665763/does-smiling-cause-wrinkles/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt1097f3d006b9739d/6988d85e656a3f7079bd11e7/can-smiling-lot-really-cause-wrinkles.jpg?branch=production&width=3840&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 675 og:image:alt: You Asked: Can Smiling A Lot Really Cause Wrinkles? og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: You Asked: Can Smiling A Lot Really Cause Wrinkles? twitter:description: Whether you’re scowling or smiling, a groove forms on your skin the moment you move one of your facial muscles—and with time forms a wrinkle twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt1097f3d006b9739d/6988d85e656a3f7079bd11e7/can-smiling-lot-really-cause-wrinkles.jpg?branch=production&width=3840&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 --- Jan 14, 2015 # You Asked: Can Smiling A Lot Really Cause Wrinkles? by [Markham Heid](/author/markham-heid/) ## Markham Heid Markham Heid is a contributor at TIME. He is the author of The Habit Trap, due out in early 2027.  Getty Images Whether you’re talking, scowling or smiling, a groove forms on your skin the moment you move one of your facial muscles. That groove is perpendicular to the movement of the underlying muscle, explains Dr. Anthony Rossi, a dermatologist at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center. “For example, forehead grooves are horizontal because our forehead muscle pulls up,” Rossi says. When it comes to your smile, the largest of the lines that form are the “nasolabial folds”—those big parentheses of skin that arc downward from the sides of your nose to the corners of your mouth, explains Dr. Marc Glashofer, a New York-based dermatologist. Those folds appear every time you smile. And as you grow older, those happy-face grooves don’t fade away once you stop beaming, Glashofer says. But don’t blame your smile. The real culprit is your skin’s diminishing elasticity. Rossi calls the biological changes that hurt your skin’s rebound abilities “intrinsic aging.” These include breakdowns to the underlying structure of your skin due to factors like fat loss and muscle atrophy. Rossi says your genetic makeup also affects how your hide holds up to years of smiling. “We know different ethnicities age differently,” he says, adding that your skin’s natural melanin concentrations and oil production also play a role in how quickly your smile groves will start to leave their mark. Unfortunately, many of those variables are out of your hands. ### You Asked: Your Top 10 Health Questions Answered  You Asked: Are Cleanses Healthy? Potions that claim to clear your body of toxins might sound alluring, but do they deliver? Illustration by Peter Oumanski for TIME  You Asked: Is Eating Dessert Really That Bad For Me? Bad news for sweet-eaters—except if you end your meals with this kind of treat. 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Illustration by Peter Oumanski for TIME  You Asked: Does Laughing Have Real Health Benefits? Here's proof that everybody could use a belly laugh. Illustration by Peter Oumanski for TIME  You Asked: What Is My Poo Telling Me? If you listen hard enough, you'll hear all kinds of health stories from #2. Illustration by Peter Oumanski for TIME But here’s one factor you can control: ultraviolet radiation exposure from sunlight. “This is actually the number-one cause of wrinkles,” Glashofer says. The more sun your skin soaks up, the more its connective tissue breaks down, leaving it less firm and less elastic. For that reason, Glashofer and Rossi recommend the daily use of a sunscreen that guards against both UVA and UVB rays. Both dermatologists also advise keeping your skin well hydrated, which starts with drinking plenty of water. Rossi says H2O is a major component of your dermis—the layer of skin that houses many of the structural proteins that keep you looking youthful. He also suggests using a skin moisturizer, which helps your skin lock in water. Retinol-based creams are also aces at fending off age lines, Rossi says. “They not only promote the formation of new skin cells, but they also increase collagen production, which improves the appearance of wrinkles and slows their formation,” he explains. Of course, you could also try to limit your smiles. But you’d be forgoing the immune system-boosting, stress-lowering [benefits of a good laugh](http://time.com/3592134/laughing-health-benefits/ "undefined"). “I would never tell anyone to avoid smiling,” Glashofer says. “You are truly blessed to have an abundance of smiles in your life.” _Read next:_ [_You Asked: Does Laughing Have Real Health Benefits?_](http://time.com/3592134/laughing-health-benefits/?xid=time%5Freadnext "undefined") ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"Article","@id":"https://time.com/collections/guide-to-happiness/3665763/does-smiling-cause-wrinkles/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/collections/guide-to-happiness/3665763/does-smiling-cause-wrinkles/"},"headline":"You Asked: Can Smiling A Lot Really Cause Wrinkles?","datePublished":"2015-01-14T13:00:06.000Z","dateModified":"2026-03-31T05:06:23.250Z","description":"Whether you’re scowling or smiling, a groove forms on your skin the moment you move one of your facial muscles—and with time forms a wrinkle","url":"https://time.com/collections/guide-to-happiness/3665763/does-smiling-cause-wrinkles/","keywords":["Aging","You Asked topic"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt1097f3d006b9739d/6988d85e656a3f7079bd11e7/can-smiling-lot-really-cause-wrinkles.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Markham Heid","jobTitle":"","url":"https://time.com/author/markham-heid/"}],"creator":"Markham Heid","articleSection":"Health","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt1097f3d006b9739d/6988d85e656a3f7079bd11e7/can-smiling-lot-really-cause-wrinkles.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/health/","name":"Health"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"/tag/aging/","name":"Aging"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/collections/guide-to-happiness/3665763/does-smiling-cause-wrinkles/","name":"You Asked: Can Smiling A Lot Really Cause Wrinkles?"}}]}] ```