High cheekbones, full lips, a defined jaw, a projected chin, a slim nose: certain aesthetic features have become ubiquitous on social media. As the same characteristics are repeatedly celebrated and reproduced, an impression emerges: faces gradually starting to look alike.
Yet it would be too simple to blame injections alone. Facial standardisation results from several influences: social media, filters, selfies, aesthetic trends, patient expectations, but also how treatments are proposed and performed.
This development raises an essential question in aesthetic medicine: are we still enhancing individual faces, or are we gradually seeking to bring them closer to the same ideal?
Why do we see facial standardisation in aesthetic medicine?
Faces begin to become standardised when the same aesthetic characteristics are sought and reproduced without sufficient regard for the original anatomy.
High cheekbones can give one face structure and completely unbalance another. A sharply defined jaw may be harmonious in certain facial shapes and appear artificial in others. The same applies to lip volume, chin projection or nose shape.
The problem is therefore not necessarily the treatment. It arises when treatment becomes a formula reproduced from one patient to another.
A harmonious face does not conform to a succession of identical measurements. It rests on subtle relationships between volumes, contours, profile, expressions and the anatomical characteristics that give it its identity.
How does social media influence beauty standards?
Social media plays a major role in spreading contemporary aesthetic standards because it continually exposes users to the same celebrated physical features.
This phenomenon is not entirely new. Every era has had its beauty ideals. What has changed, however, is the speed at which these models circulate and how frequently we encounter them.
When sharply defined lips, a slim nose, high cheekbones or a well-defined jawline appear on a screen dozens of times a day, these characteristics gradually cease to be perceived as belonging to a particular face. They can become references against which everyone compares their own face.
Celebrities and influencers contribute to this phenomenon, but algorithms also amplify it by regularly exposing users to similar content. A physical characteristic previously accepted without difficulty can then begin to feel like an imperfection simply because it differs from the dominant model.
How do filters change the perception of your face?
Filters can profoundly change facial perception by offering an idealised and sometimes anatomically unrealistic version of oneself within seconds.
The skin becomes more even, the nose slimmer, the lips fuller, the cheekbones higher and the jawline sharper. These transformations seem harmless because they are instant and reversible. Yet when we look at this modified version of ourselves every day, the real face may gradually seem less satisfying.
In consultations, I sometimes see patients who no longer bring only a celebrity's photograph, but their own filtered face. This is an important development: the aesthetic reference is no longer necessarily someone else, but a digital version of oneself.
Do selfies distort facial proportions?
Yes, because a close-up selfie does not accurately reproduce facial proportions as perceived in real life.
The distance between the lens and face, its position, the shooting angle and lighting can alter facial elements and, more broadly, the relationships between different structures.
We therefore increasingly observe our faces through images that do not correspond exactly to how others see us.
In this context, deciding on treatment from a single phone photograph would be a mistake. Assessment must concern the real face, both static and in movement, and take all its proportions into account.
Do aesthetic trends encourage facial standardisation?
Trends become problematic when a fashionable aesthetic feature is turned into a universal objective regardless of the patient's facial morphology.
Some periods have celebrated very full lips, others particularly projected cheekbones or extremely defined jaws. Even today, certain requests are directly influenced by images circulating on social media.
But an aesthetic trend is not a medical indication.
A pronounced jawline can structure some faces and weigh down others. Augmenting the cheekbones can restore lost volume and facial harmony, but become unnecessary — or even counterproductive — when the malar structure is already naturally present.
Can hyaluronic acid injections standardise faces?
No, hyaluronic acid or botulinum toxin injections do not standardise faces themselves. Repetitive use following the same aesthetic model can lead to uniformity.
Hyaluronic acid can restore lost volume, improve certain proportions or address age-related changes. Botulinum toxin acts differently by modulating certain muscles' activity, notably those responsible for certain expression lines.
These treatments are tools. Their results depend on the indication, amount used, treated area and technique, but above all on the vision guiding their use.
When the same areas are systematically augmented and every face receives the same volumes or projections, individual characteristics gradually fade.
Personalised aesthetic medicine specifically seeks to determine which characteristics should be improved, which should be preserved and, sometimes, which areas should simply not be treated.
What is the doctor's role when faced with requests for facial transformation?
The doctor's responsibility is not to automatically turn a request into treatment, but to assess whether it is consistent with the face's anatomy and harmony.
In my practice in Geneva, I consider knowing when not to inject as important as knowing how to inject. A treatment can be perfectly feasible technically yet undesirable aesthetically.
The doctor's role is therefore not only to master a procedure. It also involves establishing an indication, anticipating its impact on the whole face and, when necessary, knowing how to say no.
How can you avoid transforming your face through repeated injections?
To avoid gradual transformation, each new treatment must be reassessed in the context of the whole face rather than simply added to the previous result.
This is a particularly insidious phenomenon. When change develops gradually, the eye becomes accustomed to it. Volume that seemed substantial a few months earlier becomes the new normal. The temptation may then be to add more.
Through successive corrections, the patient can lose their perception of their original anatomy.
Standardised medical photographs are truly useful here. They allow comparison of the face over time and help create distance from this visual habituation.
Consistent follow-up therefore does not necessarily mean doing more as the years pass. It means regularly reassessing what deserves correction, what should be retained and what would be better left unchanged.
Are there ideal proportions for a harmonious face?
No universal proportion can, on its own, define a face's beauty or harmony.
Certain anatomical references and relationships between different structures can guide medical assessment. But they must never become rigid rules applied indiscriminately.
Age, sex, bone structure, volume, expressions and individual characteristics profoundly alter the perception of harmony.
Above all, a face has distinctive features. A slight asymmetry, an individual nose shape or a particular lip contour can be precisely what contributes to its identity.
Paradoxically, systematically correcting everything that differs from a theoretical ideal removes what makes a face interesting and recognisable.
How can you preserve your identity and achieve a natural result after injections?
Preserving facial identity means correcting what genuinely creates imbalance, without seeking to change every distinctive feature.
Before any hyaluronic acid or botulinum toxin injection, assessment should not be limited to the area prompting the consultation. It considers the whole face: proportions, profile, volume, expressions, movement and age-related changes.
This approach is particularly important when several treatments are considered successively. The aim is not to accumulate corrections, but to preserve facial harmony and its natural evolution.
This approach guides my practice in Geneva. Current techniques allow many facial elements to be changed. The challenge is therefore to determine what is appropriate to correct and how far to intervene.
Avoiding standardisation therefore means adapting treatments to each face rather than seeking to reproduce the same aesthetic model.
Article written by Dr Valeria Romano
Dr Valeria Romano supports each patient through a comprehensive approach to facial, body and intimate aesthetics, as well as skin and hair quality. Every treatment is based on a personalised medical assessment.
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