How do you get rid of smile lines?

The most useful thing to know first: nasolabial folds are mostly not skin ageing. They are a structural crease formed as the midface fat pads descend and the bone underneath them loses projection. That means **topicals can do relatively little** — skincare improves the surface texture and the fine lines crossing the fold, and does not change the volume beneath it. If the fold is what bothers you, fillers are the only thing that addresses it directly.

What causes smile lines, and are they like forehead lines?

A forehead line is skin folded by a muscle contracting underneath it (what to do about those). A nasolabial fold is not. It is an anatomical boundary that everyone has from childhood — the groove separating the cheek from the upper lip. It is shallow when you are young because the midface fat pads are full and sitting high enough to fill it.

With age those pads descend and shrink, while the maxilla and cheekbone behind them lose a little projection. Tissue stacks above the groove and falls away below it, and the fold deepens. The skin's own collagen loss contributes, but it is the secondary factor, not the primary one.

So the actives that help a forehead line deliver much less here. That is not a failure of the product; it is a mismatch of layer. The problem sits in the support structure under the skin, and a topical works on the skin.

Do creams and serums work on smile lines?

Three things, all real and all limited:

The fine lines crossing and surrounding the fold. The groove itself will not change, but the shallower lines around and over it do respond measurably to retinoids and signal peptides, which makes the whole area read as smoother.
Skin thickness and quality. Thicker, better-hydrated skin casts a softer shadow, and a large part of how deep a fold looks is shadow rather than depth.
Slowing the progression. Sun protection matters here as everywhere, because UV degrades exactly the fibres that keep skin resilient over the fold.

What they cannot do is fill the groove. Any claim that a topical eliminates a nasolabial fold is running ahead of the anatomy.

Do massage, facial exercises or fillers work?

Facial massage and lifting techniques. They can look better briefly as fluid shifts, but there is no evidence they reposition a fat pad. Harmless, and not a structural change.

Facial exercises. The evidence is weak, and there is a theoretical case against them: repeated contraction is precisely what creates dynamic lines elsewhere on the face.

Fillers. They address the actual cause, and the result is immediate and obvious. No topical substitutes for that, and it is worth saying plainly — a brand that sells serum telling you serum fixes a nasolabial fold is selling, not answering.

Keeping weight stable. Rapid weight loss accelerates facial fat loss, and the fold deepens with it. This gets overlooked and it matters more than most skincare.

Common questions

Does sleeping position deepen smile lines?: It does, and by far less than volume loss itself. Years of sleeping on one side press that half of the face into a pillow and set sleep creases, and one fold being deeper than the other is common. Sleeping on your back or using a silk pillowcase reduces friction and folding — at the cost of almost nobody managing to change how they sleep. Worth knowing, not worth worrying about.
Does makeup make smile lines more obvious?: Amount and texture do. Heavy foundation collects in the crease and turns a groove into a sharper line. Using less, applying thinly, and not building product up over the fold matters more than which brand you pick. This area also moves the most when you smile, so over-setting it tends to crack rather than hold.
How long do fillers last, and do they stretch the skin?: Hyaluronic acid fillers in a nasolabial fold typically last six to eighteen months, depending on how firm the product is and how deep it is placed. The claim that repeated filling stretches skin permanently is not well supported — tissue is expanded short-term, but the research does not show lasting laxity at normal volumes, and there is some evidence fillers stimulate local collagen. The real risks are overfilling and wrong-plane placement, which are about the injector rather than the material.
Does a hyaluronic acid serum help smile lines?: It does something completely different from injected hyaluronic acid, and the two get conflated constantly. Applied to skin, hyaluronic acid is a humectant that pulls water into the stratum corneum and makes fine surface lines look shallower — visible the same day, gone when you wash. It does not reach the dermis and it does not fill the groove. Injectables are a cross-linked gel placed at a specific depth. Two different things.
What is the best product for smile lines?: The honest answer is that no topical is especially effective on a nasolabial fold, because the cause is volume loss beneath the skin rather than the skin itself. Skincare improves the finer lines around it and the overall texture; it does not change the groove.
Do face exercises get rid of smile lines?: The evidence is weak and there is a theoretical case against it: repeated muscle contraction is precisely what creates dynamic lines elsewhere on the face. Not worth the time.
Do smile lines look worse after weight loss?: Yes. Rapid weight loss accelerates facial fat loss and the fold deepens with it. This gets overlooked and it matters more than most skincare.