The heart line, combining a soft impression with a V-line, has been drawing attention lately. The heart line refers to the facial contour forming a heart shape when the face is viewed from the front, running from the cheekbones down to the tip of the chin. Among celebrities, baby-faced stars such as Im Soo-jung, Shin Min-a and Han Ga-in are known for heart-shaped facial contours.
The heart-shaped facial contour is characterized by cheekbones that lift slightly when smiling and plump cheeks. It refers to a face with a smooth contour and V-line like a child's, with fuller cheeks toward the top, giving an innocent and lovely image.
Unless you are born with it, this kind of heart-line face shape is not easy to create through effort alone. Facial fat is the first to go the moment a diet begins, which makes it hard to pursue alongside body management, and as you age the facial fat in the areas you need it naturally decreases.
So when the cheekbones stand out relative to the cheeks and give a strong impression far from a youthful face, or when the cheeks and forehead are particularly hollow and the face has little fat, leaving a person self-conscious about an 'aged-looking face,' some consider heart-line fat grafting after much thought.
Dr. Junmo Bang of TheLINE Plastic Surgery advised, "Heart-line fat grafting has the advantage of being an injection procedure rather than surgery, with no need to shave bone," adding, "It is a relatively simple procedure and recovery tends to be short, but as with any procedure we recommend having a consultation with a specialist medical team first."
Heart-line fat grafting creates volume in the forehead and the apple zone of the cheeks and grafts autologous fat into areas such as the upper eyelids and nasolabial folds that can make the face look older, so the face appears younger. Graft survival is improved through 5-stage micro-fractionated fat grafting, which places fat at multiple levels within the skin layers, and LipoKit fat grafting, which minimizes the exposure of fat cells to air.
Because it is autologous fat grafting, the facial contour looks more natural, and as a semi-permanent procedure the effect lasts relatively long. With the right amount of volume, the face looks three-dimensional not only from the front but also from the side and three-quarter views, and rather than stopping at simple fat injection, repositioning, redistribution and injection maintain overall facial balance.
Dr. Junmo Bang of the clinic advised, "If you want to restore volume to a face that lacks it and create a slim, younger-looking face shape, heart-line fat grafting can be one option," adding, "Because it is a procedure using your own fat, a natural, youthful face is possible and recovery tends to be quick, but everyone's facial contour is different, so it is best to have a consultation with a specialist and get the procedure tailored to your own facial contour."
