It was a regular Tuesday in August 2023 when Siena Gagliano made a split-second decision to change the shape of her jaw. A viral before-and-after video documenting an aesthetic treatment that took an influencer’s face from boxy and bulked-out to slim and heart-shaped had flashed across her screen. Forty-eight hours and $600 later, Gagliano and her numbed-up face sat in a medspa leather recliner, patiently awaiting the same procedure.
She didn’t view the neurotoxin injections she was about to receive in her jaw muscle (the masseter muscle, in official terms) as a Super Big Deal. Though none of the five available neurotoxins on the U.S. market—Botox, Xeomin, Jeuveau, Daxxify, and Dysport—are currently FDA-approved for use on the jaw, the 25-year-old writer had “heard so many good things” about the off-label treatment, which works by relaxing the overworked muscle and, in turn, slims down the area between the bone and skin.
