Microcurrent for Nasolabial Folds, What Changes and What Does Not
Medically reviewed by
4 independent reviewers
Andrew Conrad Barile, kinésithérapeute, DPT
Doctorat en physiothérapie (DPT), physiothérapeute agréé (PT)
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Le Dr Andrew Conrad Barile est docteur en physiothérapie et PDG ainsi que fondateur de Xtreem Pulse LLC. Il a obtenu son doctorat en physiothérapie à Daemen College et possède plus de vingt ans d'expérience clinique et entrepreneuriale en physiothérapie pédiatrique, thérapie craniosacrale et innovation en dispositifs médicaux. Sa profonde connaissance de l'anatomie humaine, de la physiologie musculaire et des technologies thérapeutiques offre une approche scientifique précieuse pour le rajeunissement du visage et les solutions anti-âge.
Bertica M. Rubio, M.D.
Directeur Médical, Clinique de Médecine Régénérative Anti-âge | Médecin Certifié par le Conseil | École de Médecine de Dartmouth
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Le Dr Bertica M. Rubio est une médecin certifiée et directrice médicale de la clinique de médecine régénérative anti-âge à Redlands, en Californie. Elle a obtenu son Bachelor of Science à l'Université Loyola Marymount et son Doctorat en médecine à la Dartmouth Medical School (Geisel School of Medicine). Elle a effectué sa résidence en pédiatrie au UC Irvine Medical Center.
Forte de plusieurs décennies d'expérience clinique, le Dr Rubio est spécialisée en médecine de gestion du vieillissement, médecine régénérative, cicatrisation des plaies et thérapies par facteurs de croissance. Sa pratique intègre la science médicale fondée sur des preuves avec des traitements esthétiques et régénératifs avancés, aidant les patients à atteindre une santé optimale et une vitalité juvénile.
Le Dr Rubio est passionnée par l'éducation des patients sur la science derrière les soins de la peau, le rajeunissement du visage et les technologies non invasives comme l'EMS (stimulation électrique musculaire) pour le tonus facial. Ses articles pour PureLift LAB allient connaissances médicales rigoureuses et conseils pratiques pour obtenir des résultats réels et durables.
Daniel Grinberg, MD, FACS
Otolaryngologiste et chirurgien de la tête et du cou certifié par le conseil | Membre, American College of Surgeons | Professeur clinique adjoint, Mount Sinai School of Medicine
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Daniel Grinberg, MD, FACS, est un oto-rhino-laryngologiste certifié par le conseil et chirurgien de la tête et du cou chez ENT and Allergy Associates à West Nyack, NY. Il a obtenu son diplôme de médecine au Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons, a effectué sa résidence en oto-rhino-laryngologie au New York University Medical Center, et est professeur clinique adjoint à la Mount Sinai School of Medicine. Il est membre de l'American College of Surgeons et de l'American Academy of Otolaryngology.
La perspective chirurgicale de la tête et du cou du Dr Grinberg offre aux lecteurs de PureLift LAB une vision clinique élargie — reliant la pratique EMS à domicile à l'anatomie médicale sous-jacente avec la même rigueur scientifique que celle que nous appliquons à chaque spécification d'appareil.
Prof. Dr med Ivo Buschmann
Président d'Angiologie, Hochschule Medizinische Brandenburg | Directeur de clinique, Clinique universitaire d'angiologie, Hôpital universitaire de Brandebourg | Ancien consultant principal, Charité Universitätsmedizin Berlin
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Le Prof. Dr. med. Ivo Buschmann est titulaire de la chaire d'angiologie à la Medizinische Hochschule Brandenburg Theodor Fontane (MHB) et directeur de la clinique universitaire d'angiologie à l'hôpital universitaire de Brandebourg. Il a effectué sa formation médicale à l'Université de Hambourg, a été boursier de la Société Max-Planck à l'Institut Max-Planck de recherche sur le cœur et les poumons, et a occupé des postes de consultant principal à la Charité Universitätsmedizin Berlin Campus Virchow avant d'être nommé titulaire de la chaire à la MHB en 2016.
Le Prof. Buschmann est l'une des principales autorités européennes en arteriogenèse — la croissance et le remodelage des vaisseaux sanguins induits par le flux — avec plus de 150 publications évaluées par des pairs et plusieurs brevets américains et européens sur des dispositifs stimulant la croissance des vaisseaux collatéraux par une thérapie contrôlée du taux de cisaillement. Ses recherches relient la stimulation mécanique et électrique à l'adaptation vasculaire, à la microcirculation et à la perfusion tissulaire.
Les contributions du Prof. Buschmann apportent aux lecteurs de PureLift LAB une perspective en biologie vasculaire qui complète notre expertise clinique, en physiothérapie et en anatomie chirurgicale — expliquant comment la stimulation EMS engage non seulement les muscles faciaux mais aussi la microcirculation qui les alimente, et pourquoi une administration intelligente est aussi importante au niveau du flux sanguin qu'à celui de la contraction musculaire.
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Microcurrent does little for a nasolabial fold itself, because the fold is caused by volume sliding downward rather than by muscle losing tone.
This article sets out what to check before you start, such as:
- what actually creates the fold
- why toning the muscle underneath does not erase it
- the one thing a device genuinely helps with here
- what fills a fold and what flattens it
- when the honest answer is an injector
and many more!
We would rather tell you this is the wrong tool for the job than take your money and watch you be disappointed in twelve weeks.
Key Points:
The nasolabial fold is the crease from the side of the nose to the corner of the mouth, and it deepens when the cheek fat pad descends and the skin above it folds over the fixed crease below.
Muscle tone is not the primary driver, which is why the strongest result in this literature, an 18.6 percent cheek muscle thickness gain, does not translate into a filled fold.
Lifting the cheek slightly can soften how the fold reads in certain light, and that is a cosmetic improvement rather than a correction.
Dermal filler placed in the cheek rather than in the fold is the standard correction, and it addresses the cause instead of the crease.
Anyone promising fold removal from a handheld device is selling you something the device does not do.
What actually creates the fold
The nasolabial fold is not a wrinkle in the usual sense; it is the boundary between two zones of the face that sit at different depths.
Above the line sits the cheek fat, which is mobile and which drifts downward over decades as the ligaments holding it loosen and the bone beneath remodels.
Below the line the tissue is tethered more firmly, so it does not move with the cheek, and the mismatch creates a crease that deepens as the gap widens.
That is a structural change in where tissue sits, and no amount of stimulation puts descended fat back where it started.
Why toning does not erase it
Kavanagh and colleagues in 2012 followed 108 women over twelve weeks and reported an 18.6 percent increase in cheek muscle thickness measured by ultrasound at the cheek, which is the strongest finding in this field.
A thicker, better-toned muscle underneath can lift the overlying tissue a little, which is a real effect and a small one relative to the volume that has moved.
The muscle most involved in the area, the levator labii superioris group, lifts the lip rather than supporting the cheek fat pad.
So you can improve the platform without closing the crease, and most people who expected the crease to close end up disappointed by a device that was working as designed.
The one thing a device does help with
Cheek position. A more toned cheek sits marginally higher and fuller, which changes how light falls across the upper edge of the fold.
In practice that reads as a slightly softer transition rather than a shallower crease, and photographs in flat lighting will show less of it than your bathroom mirror does.
The effect builds over the twelve week horizon and reverses when you stop, as we cover in our article on stopping.
If your expectation is set at softer rather than gone, a device is a reasonable part of the routine.
What actually corrects a fold
Dermal filler placed in the cheek to restore the volume that descended, which addresses the cause rather than the crease. Filling the fold directly is a less sophisticated approach and can look heavy.
Fat transfer does the same job with your own tissue and is a surgical procedure.
A midface lift repositions the descended tissue rather than adding to it, which is the most direct correction and the most invasive.
Skin quality treatments, including retinoids and resurfacing, improve the texture around the fold without changing its depth.
Working the area safely
Work upward and outward across the cheek toward the temple rather than pressing into the fold itself.
Keep the level where you can see the cheek respond in the mirror, and no higher, because the tissue near the mouth is sensitive.
If you have had filler in the cheek or the fold, timing is set by your injector and not by us, which we cover in our article on injectable timing.
Our sessions run ten minutes with three minutes per side at most, on all five models.
What we would tell you to buy
If nasolabial folds are your single concern, book a consultation with an injector before you buy any device, because the honest answer is that filler does in twenty minutes what no handheld does in a year.
If folds are one concern among several, and jawline definition and overall tone matter to you too, a device earns its place as part of the routine rather than as the fix for this.
Face at $499 runs the same nanocurrent, microcurrent, EMS and Infuse sequence as every model above it, so the cheaper device is not the weaker one for this job.
The full picture of what each technology does is in our category overview.
This article sits inside our full map of the category, where we set out all 33 devices we track, what each one carries and what each brand publishes: Nine Technologies on One Dial, What the Rest of the Market Actually Carries.