Not all face wrinkles are the same, and that single fact explains most of the confusion patients bring into a consultation. The vertical creases between your eyebrows and the deep lines running from your nose to the corners of your mouth look superficially similar, but they have almost nothing in common. One is a muscle problem. The other is a volume and gravity problem. Treat them the same way and you will waste money on a disappointing result.
This guide names every common facial wrinkle by both its anatomical term and its street name, explains what causes it, and identifies the treatment that genuinely addresses it. The organizing framework — dynamic, static, and folds — is the one aesthetic clinicians use to build a treatment plan.
The Three Types of Wrinkles: The Framework That Matters
Every line on the face falls into one of three categories, and the category determines the treatment:
- Dynamic wrinkles — caused by repeated muscle contraction. They appear when you animate and, early on, disappear at rest. Primary treatment: neurotoxin (Botox®, Dysport, Xeomin, Jeuveau, Daxxify).
- Static wrinkles — caused by collagen and elastin loss, photoaging, and skin laxity. They are visible at rest, even when the face is completely still. Primary treatment: dermal filler, resurfacing, and energy devices.
- Folds — caused by gravity plus deep volume loss and descent of the fat pads. They are structural, not superficial. Primary treatment: filler, thread lifting, or surgical lifting.
The three are related. A dynamic wrinkle that has folded the same skin thousands of times a year for twenty years eventually etches in and becomes static — it gets “stuck” even at rest. That transition is why the same anatomical line can need a different treatment at 30 than at 55, and why many patients need a combination approach rather than one product.
Dynamic Wrinkles
Dynamic wrinkles cluster around the busiest muscle groups: the forehead, the eyes, and the mouth. Squint, frown, or raise your eyebrows a few hundred thousand times and the overlying skin folds along a predictable axis perpendicular to the muscle fibers underneath.
Because the cause is muscle contraction, relaxing the muscle is the fix — which is exactly what a neurotoxin does. It blocks the nerve signal telling the muscle to fire, the muscle stops pulling, and the skin above it smooths. See our guide to what Botox is and how it works.
Static Wrinkles
Static wrinkles often appear in the same territory as dynamic wrinkles and make them worse, but they are not driven by movement — they are driven by slow degradation of the skin’s structural scaffolding:
- UV exposure. Ultraviolet radiation breaks down collagen and elastin prematurely. This is the largest modifiable contributor to facial aging, and it is why sun-exposed areas — face, neck, hands, chest — age faster than covered skin.
- Smoking. Nicotine and free radicals in cigarette smoke damage structural proteins and impair the skin’s ability to repair itself. Smokers develop deeper wrinkles faster, particularly around the mouth — both directly and indirectly, via compromised circulation.
- Intrinsic aging. Collagen and elastin production slows with age regardless of behavior, and skin loses the ability to snap back.
- Genetics. Variation in collagen production and maintenance means wrinkles can appear early even without meaningful environmental damage.
- Pollution, harsh weather, poor nutrition, and chronic dehydration, all of which raise oxidative stress and inflammation and accelerate the same breakdown.
Because the problem is the skin itself rather than the muscle, the treatments differ: chemical peels, dermabrasion, laser resurfacing, microneedling, energy-based tightening, and filler for deeper etched lines. Neurotoxin does very little for a true static wrinkle — the most common point of failure in consumer expectations.
Folds
Folds are the third category and the one most often misdiagnosed. They are not creases in the skin — they are the visible edge where descending tissue stacks against a fixed retaining ligament. Collagen loss, fat pad atrophy and descent, bone resorption, and loss of muscle tone all contribute, and they are most prominent in the mid and lower face. Folds do not respond to muscle relaxation, because muscle contraction never created them. They respond to volume replacement, structural support, or lifting.
Face Wrinkles by Name: Anatomical Term, Common Name, Cause, and Treatment
Every commonly discussed facial line, with its real name and its real fix.
Glabellar Lines (“11 Lines,” Frown Lines)
Type: Dynamic. Anatomy: Corrugator supercilii and procerus muscles.
The vertical, roughly parallel creases between the eyebrows, above the bridge of the nose. Two side by side look like the number 11, which is how the nickname stuck. They form from a lifetime of frowning, squinting, and concentrating, deepening and lengthening until they persist at rest — giving an unintentionally angry or worried appearance.
Best treatment: Neurotoxin. Glabellar lines were the first cosmetic indication FDA-approved for Botox and remain the most-treated area in aesthetic medicine. Deeply etched ones may need a small amount of filler in addition, but toxin comes first — filling a line a muscle is still actively folding treats the symptom.
Horizontal Forehead Lines
Type: Dynamic. Anatomy: Frontalis muscle.
Horizontal bands that appear whenever you raise your eyebrows. The frontalis is the only elevator of the brow, and it runs vertically, so it creases the skin horizontally. Over time the lines get stuck in that position, lending a permanently world-weary look.
Best treatment: Neurotoxin — with the most technique-dependent caveat in the field. Because the frontalis is the sole brow elevator, over-treating it drops the brow. Injectors dose conservatively, stay well above the orbital rim, and almost always treat the frontalis in balance with the glabellar depressors rather than in isolation. Our Botox injection sites guide covers the anatomy.
Lateral Canthal Lines (Crow’s Feet, Smile Lines, Laugh Lines)
Type: Dynamic early, mixed later. Anatomy: Orbicularis oculi muscle.
Fine lines radiating outward like a fan from the outer corners of the eyes. The orbicularis oculi is a sphincter muscle circling the eye, so every smile and squint pleats the skin at the lateral corner. They are the earliest wrinkle most people notice, often appearing in the late twenties.
Best treatment: Neurotoxin for the dynamic component. Because the skin here is the thinnest on the face, crow’s feet develop a significant static, photoaged component earlier than other areas — so resurfacing or microneedling is frequently paired with toxin in patients over 40.
Bunny Lines
Type: Dynamic. Anatomy: Nasalis muscle.
Slanted lines fanning across the bridge of the nose when you scrunch it. Like other dynamic lines, they can etch in permanently. They are also frequently compensatory: when the glabellar complex is relaxed with toxin, some patients unconsciously recruit the nasalis harder, and bunny lines appear or worsen after treatment.
Best treatment: Neurotoxin, off-label, in small doses — often at the same visit as the glabella, specifically to prevent that compensation.
Nasolabial Folds
Type: Fold. Anatomy: The nasolabial crease, defined by the underlying nasolabial ligament and the descent of the medial cheek fat.
These run from the sides of the nose down to the corners of the mouth, sometimes forming a parenthesis around it. Confusingly, they are also called laugh lines — the same nickname used for crow’s feet, which is part of why patients and providers talk past each other. They can become very deep, and are one of the most requested corrections in aesthetic medicine.
Best treatment: Dermal filler — and this is the correction consumer content most often gets wrong. Nasolabial folds are not a Botox indication. No muscle contraction creates them, so no amount of neurotoxin will improve them, and injecting toxin into the surrounding musculature to chase them risks a distorted smile. Hyaluronic acid fillers are the workhorse; calcium hydroxylapatite (CaHA) is also indicated here. The most effective approach often treats the fold indirectly, by restoring the deflated cheek above it rather than injecting the crease. For deep folds with significant tissue descent, a PDO thread lift or surgical cheek lift is the more honest answer.
Marionette Lines
Type: Fold, with a dynamic contributor. Anatomy: Labiomandibular fold; the depressor anguli oris (DAO) muscle contributes.
These extend downward from the corners of the mouth toward the jawline, framing the chin like a ventriloquist’s dummy — hence the name. They frequently appear as a continuation of the nasolabial folds and, like them, deepen with age as the jowl descends.
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Best treatment: Primarily dermal filler for the fold, often combined with chin and jawline support to rebuild the underlying structure. This is one of the few lower-face areas with a legitimate combination indication: a small off-label dose of neurotoxin into the DAO releases the muscle actively pulling the mouth corner downward, softening the shadow and improving the resting expression. Filler rebuilds; toxin stops the pull. Neither alone does the whole job.
Perioral Lines (Smoker’s Lines, Lipstick Lines)
Type: Mixed — dynamic and static. Anatomy: Orbicularis oris muscle plus significant photoaging and dermal thinning.
Fine vertical lines running perpendicular to the vermilion border of the lips, caused by the pursing action of the orbicularis oris combined with sun damage and collagen loss. Smoking accelerates them through both mechanisms — repetitive pursing and chemical damage — hence the common name, though plenty of non-smokers develop them.
Best treatment: A combination; this area punishes single-modality thinking. Laser resurfacing or a medium-depth peel addresses the photoaged skin quality; a soft, low-viscosity filler addresses the etched lines and vermilion border. Micro-dose neurotoxin can soften the pursing action, but the margin for error is small — too much and the patient cannot form words or drink from a straw.
Mental Crease and Chin Dimpling
Type: Both, depending on which you mean. Anatomy: Mentalis muscle; labiomental sulcus.
Two distinct findings get conflated here. The mental crease is the horizontal groove between the lower lip and chin — structural, deepened by volume loss and chin recession. Chin dimpling, sometimes described as a golf-ball or peau d’orange texture, is the cobblestoned appearance of an overactive mentalis muscle.
Best treatment: Neurotoxin for the dimpling, which is purely dynamic. Filler for the crease and chin projection, which is structural.
Platysmal Bands (Neck Bands, “Turkey Neck”)
Type: Dynamic, over a background of laxity. Anatomy: Platysma muscle.
Vertical cords standing out from the neck, most visibly when you grimace or strain. The platysma is a broad, thin sheet of muscle spanning the neck; with age it separates into distinct bands and loses tone and attachment.
Best treatment: Neurotoxin, off-label, works well for the visible cording — but be honest about the ceiling: toxin softens bands, it does not remove skin. When the underlying problem is laxity rather than muscle activity, energy-based tightening, thread lifting, or a surgical neck lift is the answer, and no injectable will substitute.
Tear Troughs (Nasojugal Grooves, Under-Eye Hollows)
Type: Volume loss and structural, not dynamic. Anatomy: The tear trough ligament and atrophy of the medial suborbital fat.
The hollow shadow under the inner corner of the eye that reads as chronic exhaustion. It is caused by fat pad atrophy and descent above a fixed ligament, sometimes compounded by pseudoherniation of orbital fat creating a bulge above the hollow.
Best treatment: Carefully placed hyaluronic acid filler — one of the highest-risk areas on the face. The skin is thin, the vasculature is unforgiving, and overcorrection is highly visible and long-lasting. Not a beginner’s injection, and emphatically not a neurotoxin indication. Some patients are better candidates for surgery than filler here, and a good injector will say so.
Fine Lines vs. Deep Wrinkles: Why the Distinction Changes the Plan
Fine lines are shallow, light creases visible mainly when the face moves. They respond to prevention and conservative intervention: sun protection, a retinoid, topical hyaluronic acid, and early low-dose neurotoxin where the cause is dynamic. Deep wrinkles are pronounced grooves visible at rest, already etched into the dermis by years of movement, sun damage, and collagen loss. They need an aggressive, multi-pronged approach, and no single treatment erases them completely. Address fine lines early — the intervention required scales sharply once a line becomes static.
Treatment Modalities: What Each One Actually Does
Botulinum toxin (Botox®) temporarily blocks nerve signals to the treated muscle, relaxing it and smoothing the skin above. Results typically last three to six months. It treats dynamic wrinkles only, and does not fill, lift, or resurface. A Botox face chart maps which muscles are in scope.
Dermal fillers replace lost volume and provide structural support, lasting six months to two years or more depending on location and formulation. Most use hyaluronic acid; calcium hydroxylapatite is indicated for nasolabial folds among other areas. Fillers are the answer for folds, tear troughs, and deeply etched static lines — not for a line a muscle is actively creating. Filler pricing varies by product and volume.
Resurfacing and energy devices — chemical peels, dermabrasion, laser resurfacing, microneedling — work by controlled injury, wounding damaged tissue to trigger a collagen-building repair response. They are the tools for photoaged skin quality, fine static lines, texture, and pigment; energy-based tightening addresses mild laxity. None replace volume, and none stop a muscle contracting.
PDO thread lifts use dissolving medical threads, sometimes alongside fillers, to reposition and tighten tissue and stimulate collagen along the thread path. Results typically last six to 12 months but vary with patient factors. They fill the gap between injectables and surgery — useful for mild to moderate marionette lines, nasolabial folds, and jawline laxity where filler alone is not enough but a facelift is too much.
Frequently Asked Questions
What are the 11 lines between the eyebrows called?
Glabellar lines, also called frown lines. They are created by the corrugator supercilii and procerus muscles pulling the brows inward and downward, and the nickname comes from the two vertical creases resembling the number 11. They are dynamic wrinkles and respond well to neurotoxin — glabellar lines were the first FDA-approved cosmetic indication for Botox.
What is the difference between dynamic and static wrinkles?
Dynamic wrinkles are caused by muscle movement and appear when you animate your face. Static wrinkles are caused by collagen loss, sun damage, and laxity, and are visible even at complete rest. The distinction determines treatment: dynamic wrinkles respond to neurotoxin; static wrinkles respond to filler, resurfacing, and energy devices. Dynamic wrinkles gradually become static as the skin loses its ability to rebound.
What are nasolabial folds?
The creases running from each side of the nose down to the corners of the mouth. They are folds, not wrinkles — caused by descent of the cheek fat pads over a fixed retaining ligament, compounded by collagen and bone loss. They are treated with dermal filler, thread lifting, or surgery — not with Botox, because no muscle contraction creates them.
Can wrinkles be reversed?
Partially, depending on the type. Dynamic wrinkles can be dramatically softened while a neurotoxin is active, though the effect is temporary. Static wrinkles and folds improve significantly with filler, resurfacing, and lifting — but the honest framing is improvement rather than reversal, since you are compensating for structural loss, not restoring lost tissue. Prevention outperforms correction at every stage, which is why sun protection is the highest-return intervention available.
What causes wrinkles?
Four forces, usually acting together: repeated muscle contraction from facial expression; UV damage that breaks down collagen and elastin; intrinsic aging that slows collagen production; and genetics, which set how early and how fast the rest happens. Smoking, pollution, poor nutrition, and dehydration accelerate all of it through oxidative stress and inflammation.
Which wrinkles does Botox treat versus filler?
Botox treats wrinkles caused by muscle movement: glabellar lines, forehead lines, crow’s feet, bunny lines, chin dimpling, platysmal bands. Filler treats wrinkles and folds caused by volume loss and gravity: nasolabial folds, marionette lines, tear troughs, deeply etched static lines. The two are complementary, not competing — most plans for a patient over 40 use both. If someone offers you Botox for your nasolabial folds, find a different injector.
Train to Treat Every Wrinkle Type Correctly
The difference between a good aesthetic result and a bad one is rarely the product. It is whether the injector correctly diagnosed what kind of line they were looking at before picking up a syringe. Dynamic, static, or fold — that assessment drives the entire plan, and getting it wrong means an unhappy patient no matter how good the injection technique.
Empire Medical Training has trained healthcare professionals in aesthetic medicine since 1998. Our Botox Training & Certification course covers facial muscle anatomy, dosing, and dynamic wrinkle correction. Our Complete Dermal Filler Training covers volume restoration, fold correction, and the high-risk anatomy of the midface and periorbital region. Both are CME-accredited and hands-on with live patients — because facial assessment is a skill you build under supervision, not by reading about it.
