Chin Surgery Turkey

You can check the question in our heading with a phone and a friend. Get a side-on photo with your face relaxed and imagine a line dropping straight down from your lower lip. Most balanced profiles have the chin touching it, or in women sitting just a fraction behind. If yours sits well back, that's what people usually mean by a weak or receding chin.

A lot of people who ask about chin surgery in Turkey have never thought about their chin at all. They came in about their nose, or a soft jawline, or a double chin, and the chin turned out to be part of the answer. This page is about working out whether that's true for you, and which kind of chin surgery fits.

Bone, implant or fat?

Both operations are described above. Put simply, a chin implant sits on the bone you've got and pushes the profile forward, and genioplasty means cutting the bone and moving it. Fat under the chin is a third, unrelated issue.

What decides it is the direction. We look at whether your chin needs to come forward and nothing else. If so, and if it's straight and a decent shape, an implant usually covers it. A chin that's too big, too long or sitting to one side is a bone job, and the genioplasty page goes into those cases. Your photos give us a first answer, and the examination confirms it.

When the problem is really the jaw

Now and then the chin isn't really the problem. The whole lower jaw sits back, and the chin just comes along with it. In those cases your teeth usually don't meet properly either, with the lower front teeth sitting well behind the upper ones. A chin operation on its own can improve the profile, but it won't fix the bite.

That's why the bite gets checked early. If the jaw is the real issue, jaw surgery with an orthodontist involved may be the better long-term route, and we'll say so before any chin procedure is planned.

The chin and the nose

This is probably the most common surprise. Seen side-on, a short chin exaggerates the nose, so some people asking for a nose job would actually get more from chin augmentation, or from doing both together. Our rhinoplasty pages talk about the same balance from the other direction.

When both are planned in one trip, they're usually done under the same anaesthetic. The chin settles well before the nose does, so the profile improves in two goes.

Is it a double chin, or a short chin?

Lots of people have a bit of both. When the chin is set back, there's less to hold the skin under it taut, which makes the area look fuller. Bringing the chin forward can tighten the whole look without removing any fat.

If there's genuinely too much fat there, chin liposuction deals with it, and it's €2,500 on our list. Of the three, liposuction has the shortest recovery, with about three nights in Istanbul. Loose skin or neck bands are a different problem again; a neck lift, €4,000 here, deals with those. Some people need one of these, some need two. Looking at the profile photo with your chin slightly raised usually tells us which.

Chin filler: worth trying first?

For a small change, filler can bring the chin forward a little without surgery. It takes a few minutes and lets you see roughly what a stronger chin would do for your face. Then it wears off over months, and the top-ups add up. Filler only adds, so shortening or straightening a chin is beyond it.

Plenty of people use filler as a trial run before an implant or genioplasty. That's a perfectly sensible way to decide.

Chin surgery for men

Most men ask for a chin with more presence, something that matches a defined jaw. If yours sits back, the lower face can look soft next to the rest. Here genioplasty sometimes has the edge, since bone can be moved to widen or lengthen the chin as well as bring it forward. A beard can hide a weak chin, but plenty of men tell us they're tired of relying on it. Most chin operations are done through a cut inside the mouth, so there's usually no outside scar to worry about either.

Chin surgery for women

For women, a chin that's too strong can look heavy, so we usually go for a narrower implant or move the bone only a little. Quite a few women plan it with rhinoplasty or a lip lift so the lower face is done as one piece.

Age and chin surgery

We generally wait until the face has finished growing, which for most people means the late teens or later. At the other end, plenty of patients in their forties and fifties have chin surgery. Jowls make a short chin look shorter, and that tends to show more each year. Some of these patients have chin augmentation at the same time as a facelift, which deals with the jawline and the chin together.

Chin surgery risks

Bruising and swelling under the jaw last a week or two. Most people also get some numbness or tingling in the lower lip, because the mental nerve sits right next to where we work. We locate it before starting, and the feeling usually returns within weeks to a few months. Infections are rare, though a little less rare with an implant. Once the swelling settles, a slight asymmetry sometimes shows.

Smokers will need to stop for a while around the operation. Mention any dental infection too, because an implant placed from inside the mouth has to wait until it's cleared.

Dental work and chin surgery

If you're planning braces, dental implants or other work on your lower teeth, mention it early. It's usually better to get that done first, since changes to the teeth can shift how the chin looks and where the surgeon needs to work.

How the planning works

It starts with your photos, which a surgeon looks at before anyone talks about prices. If the answer is clear, you'll hear which chin surgery we'd suggest and why. Then comes a video call if you want one, and finally the examination in Istanbul the day before surgery, where the plan is confirmed or changed. We'll show you before and after examples from patients with a similar starting point along the way.

Recovery after chin surgery

You'll spend half a night in hospital and around five nights in Istanbul. For the first few days your lower face feels tight, and the lower lip can feel wooden when you talk. Eat soft things and chew carefully, and sleep propped up on an extra pillow for the first week.

On the flight home after chin surgery in Turkey, a neck pillow is worth having, so your head doesn't drop forward if you nod off. Most people are back to light activity after seven to ten days and feel normal again at four to six weeks. Genioplasty takes longer. You'll be on soft or liquid food while the bone knits, with light activity from two to three weeks and full recovery somewhere around six to eight weeks. The final shape settles over the following months either way.

Combining chin surgery with other operations

Because the chin affects the whole lower face, it's often planned with something else. Rhinoplasty is the most common partner, at €3,000 on our list. A lip lift, chin liposuction or a neck lift are others. When two procedures are done together under one anaesthetic, you recover from both at once, and pairing a chin implant with rhinoplasty brings a combination discount on the total price. Expect a night or two more in Istanbul than for chin surgery in Turkey on its own.

Judging chin surgery before and after pictures

Profile shots come first in any set of chin surgery before and after photos. The chin should line up with the lips; if it juts past them, it's gone too far. In the front view, the lower face should look proportionate, with nothing that looks stuck on. Finally look at the neck angle, which often sharpens even though nobody touched the neck.

It helps to see chin surgery before and after pictures of people like you, implant or bone, man or woman. Their reviews tend to mention the numbness, and how long it took to go.

Chin surgery cost in Turkey

A silicone chin implant fixed with two screws costs €4,200 with us. Genioplasty doesn't have a single list price, because the amount of bone movement varies, so it's quoted after your imaging has been reviewed. Either way, anaesthesia, the hospital stay and a year of video follow-up are covered, along with transfers and a translator.

Abroad, an implant costs €4,650 to €7,600 in the UK and €5,750 to €9,350 in the US (see the table above), with Germany sitting between €5,500 and €7,500. Genioplasty prices vary even more, from €5,600 to €11,200. Make sure any chin surgery prices you're comparing include the screws and the anaesthetic. A lower price that leaves them out isn't really lower.

Choosing a surgeon for chin surgery in Istanbul

Check one thing before anything else. Plenty of clinics place chin implants. Far fewer move bone. Ask how many genioplasties a surgeon does, ideally before they've recommended anything, so the answer isn't coloured by what they sell. Here both operations are routine; Dr Emre Gönenç, for one, trained in reconstructive as well as aesthetic surgery.

Photos for your chin surgery plan

We need two photos: one facing the camera and one in true profile, lips relaxed and closed. If fullness under the chin bothers you, add a side photo with your head tipped back. Let us know if your bite is off or you've had jaw or dental surgery, and our team will come back with the type of chin surgery in Turkey that fits, the cost, and whether pairing it with anything is worthwhile.