Frown lines, crow's feet, and nasolabial folds: the guide

Dynamic vs. static wrinkles: understand before you act

Quick answer: not all wrinkles respond to the same approach. Dynamic wrinkles — frown lines, crow's feet — come from repeated muscle contractions. Static wrinkles — nasolabial folds, gravity lines — come from lost volume and elasticity. This distinction matters: confuse the two and you apply the wrong fix in the wrong place.

Facial skin rests on a network of collagen and elastin fibers that give it resistance and bounce. From 25 on, collagen production drops by about 1% a year. By 40, the cumulative loss starts to read on the surface: less dense skin marks more easily. The expression zones — between the brows, around the eyes, around the mouth — take the hit first.

Knowing what kind of wrinkle you have already maps the route to the right answer.

The frown line: between the brows, a line to defuse

Quick answer: the frown line is a vertical dynamic wrinkle, carved by repeated contraction of the corrugator muscles (the ones that knit your brows). It can show up as early as 25-30 and deepens with stress, concentration, or screen time.

What makes the frown line so stubborn is where it sits: the skin between the brows is thin, low in oil, and routinely skipped in skincare routines. It gets little passive benefit from creams applied elsewhere on the face.

Non-invasive solutions, in rising order of effect

• Retinol patches: applied locally overnight, they speed cell turnover and gradually thicken the dermis.
• Firming peptides: hexapeptides like argireline mimic what neuromodulators do, easing surface muscle contraction without a needle.
• Pressure massage: hold two fingers between your brows for 60 seconds each evening to release chronic muscle tension.
• LED light therapy: red wavelengths (630-660 nm) reach the dermis and stimulate fibroblasts to rebuild the extracellular matrix. According to a study published in Photomedicine and Laser Surgery, 91% of patients saw fine lines improve after 9 weeks of combined red and near-infrared LED sessions.

Crow's feet: when smiles leave their mark

Quick answer: crow's feet are fine fan-shaped lines at the outer corner of the eye, caused by contraction of the orbicularis — the muscle that rings the eye. Sun, dehydration, and smoking make them sharper.

The periorbital zone is the most fragile on the face: skin there runs 4 times thinner than elsewhere, holds almost no sebaceous glands, and absorbs more than 10,000 muscle movements a day. No surprise it's often the first to give your age away.

Good news: it's also one of the zones where LED light therapy shows the best-documented results. A randomized, double-blind trial published in Medicine in 2025 assessed an LED mask combining 630 nm and 850 nm on crow's feet. The result: a measurable 15.6% reduction in wrinkle depth within the first month, with effects persisting 28 days after the sessions stopped — a sign that tissue genuinely rebuilt rather than got masked.

81% of subjects reported significant improvement in periorbital wrinkles at 12 weeks, and 52% showed a 25 to 50% gain in their overall photoaging score.

The crow's feet protocol

• Fan out around the eyes: apply your care by tapping with your ring fingers, never by rubbing.
• Multi-weight hyaluronic acid: light molecules sink in, heavy ones form a hydrating film. The combination softens the look of surface lines within days.
• Daily SPF 50: 80% of periorbital aging comes from light — the sun is the first enemy of crow's feet.
• Sunglasses from spring on: every squint under bright light digs a little deeper.

Nasolabial folds: hollow out or fill in?

Quick answer: nasolabial folds are the creases that run from the edge of the nostrils to the corners of the mouth. Unlike dynamic wrinkles, they come mainly from lost volume in the cheeks and from gravity — not from muscle contraction. Acting on their cause calls for a different strategy.

From 35-40 on, the subcutaneous fat in your cheeks slides downward under gravity, hollowing the fold by gradual collapse. A dermatologist can restore that volume with hyaluronic acid fillers — effective and reversible. But for anyone who prefers a non-invasive route, other paths exist.

Bioactive peptides — pentapeptides that stimulate type I and III collagen synthesis in particular — significantly improved perioral firmness in a study published in the Journal of Cosmetic Dermatology, with a visible reduction in nasolabial wrinkles after 12 weeks of daily use of a hyaluronic acid and peptide serum.

Light therapy, for its part, acts on the quality of the underlying skin tissue: by restoring dermal density and switching on fibroblasts, it partly offsets the loss of support. For light to moderate folds, LED + a peptide-rich serum makes a solid strategy — read more in our article serum + LED: the synergy that multiplies your skincare results.

The complete protocol, zone by zone

Here's how to line up the solutions zone by zone, in one coherent routine:

To anchor this protocol in a real routine, read our guide the 5-step evening anti-aging routine — and to understand in detail how LED rebuilds the collagen behind all these wrinkles, the article how red light stimulates collagen is essential.