Facial Dimples the Delightful Defect for People Who Have Them

What is it about dimples that causes people to smile? Have you ever wondered why your mother, brother, and grandfather has dimples but you don't? Dimples are really just a delightful deformity. As a young child my coaches, friends, and family members would talk about my dimples when I smiled. Although I have dimples, my sister does not. If you ever wondered what dimples are, why some people have them and others don't, or if there is a way to create dimples through cosmetic surgery here is some information you might find useful.

• Shortened Muscle. First of all dimples are really just a malformation or birth defect. The defect occurs because the zygomaticus major muscle, in the face of a person with dimples are shorter than the muscles in a face of a person without dimples. So when a person with dimples smiles the shortened muscle in the face pulls upward and forms the dimple. This is why dimples are not often noticeable at rest.

• Disappearing Act. Another interesting fact I uncovered about dimples is that many babies are born with dimples that disappear as they age. The fading occurs because some muscles lengthen with age due to loss of elasticity. This is probably why dimples tend to appear more like lines or facial wrinkles with age.

• Genetic Trait. Dimples are thought to be a dominate trait where it only takes one gene to inherit them. If one parent has dimples you have a 25-50% chance of having them. If both of your parents have dimples your chances of having them increase to 50-100% depending on how your parents inherited the trait.

• Dimple Creation Surgery. Believe it or not there is a demand for surgically created dimples called dimple creation surgery. People pay plastic surgeons to create dimples in their cheeks or chin, under local anesthesia. You can go into your plastic surgeon's office without dimples and in 20 minutes come out with as many dimples as you like. The surgeon creates a dimple through a small incision inside your cheek, passes a suture through the inside of the cheek, and grasps the base of the skin where the dimple is preferred. Then the physician ties the suture leaving a dimple. Initially the created dimple is present, even when not smiling. After a few days or weeks the dimple becomes more natural where it can only be seen when the face is moving, thus creating a permanent dimple through dimple creation surgery.

• Beauty and Youth. Many people associate dimples with youth. People with dimples are often referred to as having a “baby face”. In the Western culture dimples are considered to be an attractive feature on both women and men. In Shakespeare’s ‘Venus and Adonis’, Adonis, the God of beauty and desire in Greek mythology was described as having “in each cheek a pretty dimple”.

• Good Luck and Prosperity. In some cultures dimples are a sign of good luck and prosperity. Cleopatra is said to have had dimples. In the Indian culture, dimples that are present on a woman when they are smiling is an indication that the woman is liked by her husband. Both the Asian and Greek culture views dimples as a sign of attractiveness and authenticity.

Dimples can form anywhere over the face where there are facial muscles. The most common facial dimples form on the cheeks or the chin. Dimples on the cheeks are more common than dimples on the chin. So if you have dimples you can be thankful for the delightful defect you inherited from your parents. However, if you have always desired dimples like Anne of Green Gables who said, "Lovely dimples, like little dents in cream. I have given up all hope of dimples. My dimple-dream will never come true” you can fulfill your dimple dream through dimple creation surgery.