Dimples why

The information on this site should not be used as a substitute for professional medical care or advice. Contact a health care provider if you have questions about your health. Are facial dimples determined by genetics?

From Genetics Home Reference. Topics in the Genetics and Human Traits chapter Are fingerprints determined by genetics? Is eye color determined by genetics? Is intelligence determined by genetics? Is handedness determined by genetics?

Is the probability of having twins determined by genetics? Is hair texture determined by genetics? Is hair color determined by genetics? Is height determined by genetics? The deeper the cleft, the more pronounced your chin dimple will be. Another cause of dimples is weight gain. As you lose weight, those dimples disappear or fade away.

Scientists have noticed that having dimples is an irregular hereditary trait. Some individuals who are born with dimples find that they fade away as they get older due to losing their baby fat. Children who were not born with dimples may develop them later in childhood. Technically, dimples are a birth defect. Shorter facial muscles are associated with an issue in the way embryos develop in the uterus.

Surgeons came up with a procedure that allows you to get dimples, called a dimpleplasty. A plastic surgeon creates a small incision where the patient wants a dimple, removes a tiny amount of tissue and fat, and uses a suture called a sling to join the cheek muscles and skin together, creating a permanent dimple.

Luckily, this is an outpatient procedure, so patients can return home the same day of their dimpleplasty. Equally, dimples might be an aid to sexual attractiveness: if people notice your face more, there's an added chance they might want to make babies with you. Dimples are also popularly associated with youth and childhood — which, in this youth-obsessed society, is perceived as an extra incentive for potential partners to swipe right on your Tinder picture.

In the children's classic What Katy Did by Susan Coolidge , from , the character of Clover has lovely dimples, "partly natural, and partly, I regret to say, the result of a pointed slate-pencil, with which Clover was in the habit of deepening them every day while she studied her lessons.

It looks like the answer is, erm, no. Not that it's stopped people from trying: witness the Dimple Machine, invented in also the year that Shirley Temple's film Dimples came out — not a coincidence by Isabella Gilbert of New York.

It now regularly makes lists of bad beauty inventions, but at the time, the headgear—— which pressed on the sides of the face at the two normal dimple-points — fueled a popular belief that you could "make" dimples yourself with willpower and something pointy.

And the myth continues today: Just search YouTube and you'll find a plethora of disturbing videos like this one. Of course, you can make temporary indentations by pressing hard on the skin not recommended or doing magic with make-up. But permanent dimples, much like fetch, just aren't going to happen without a bit of surgical intervention or a piercing.

Dimple piercings are common cheek piercings to "fake" the appearance of a dimple, with a little bulb or flat piece of metal pinching the dent in place. Not satisfied with that? In , some plastic surgeons published an article reporting a huge boom in the amount of patients wanting artificial dents, and proposing a new way of "tethering" the skin to the facial muscles using some fancy stitching.

The really interesting bit? They reported that the average age of patients, both male and female, was So it's not quite midlife crisis time, but it's definitely the prime twenties-are-over-oh-god-I'm-losing-my-youthful-glow period.