Lines around the mouth come from the orbicularis oris, the muscle that purses your lips, folding skin that has thinned. You cannot stop the muscle. You can stop feeding it and soften how they catch light in about 3 minutes.
Look at your upper lip in a mirror, in daylight, and purse as if you were sipping from a straw. The lines that appear are the lines. What changes with time is whether they leave when you relax.
What are lip lines, exactly?
Doctors say perioral lines. Perioral means around the mouth. Vertical lip lines are the short creases that run up from the lip edge toward the nose, and down from the lower lip toward the chin. They are sometimes called smoker's lines, though plenty of people who never smoked have them, and the name has done more harm than good. It blames people for a face that simply moved a lot.
Two neighbors get confused with them. Marionette lines run from the mouth corners toward the jaw. Nasolabial folds run from nose to mouth, and they have their own article.
One muscle does the work. The orbicularis oris is a ring of muscle around the mouth. It purses, it puckers, it closes the lips around a straw, a cigarette, a kiss, a word with a P in it. Every contraction folds the lip skin into the same vertical pleats. Decades of that, on skin that has thinned, and the pleats stop leaving.
What causes vertical lip lines?
Ranked by how much difference each one makes.
Repetition. The orbicularis oris fires every time you speak, drink, eat, or purse. That is not carelessness. It is a face that has been used.
Thinning skin. The skin over the lip is some of the thinnest on the face, and it thins further as collagen and elastin decline from your mid-twenties onward. Thin skin creases sharply and recovers slowly. Many women notice this area change around menopause.
Sun. UV breaks down collagen faster than time does, and the mouth gets sun all day and almost never gets sunscreen. Look at how many people apply SPF to the cheeks and stop at the lip.
Pursing habits. Straws, sports bottles, vaping, chewing on a pen. Small, but daily.
Dehydration and a short night. They don't cause the line. They make it read harder on the day, because dry skin throws a sharper shadow.
Do you get lines around the mouth from smoking, and what if you've quit?
Smoking works on the lip two ways. Mechanical first: drawing on a cigarette is the orbicularis oris at full contraction, and a pack a day is several hundred extra hard purses. Then chemical: nicotine narrows the small blood vessels in the skin, and smoke degrades collagen and elastin, so the skin being folded is thinner and slower to recover.
If you've quit, the chemistry stops that day. The muscle habit is the part people miss. Many former smokers still purse at the same moments, with a straw or a pen, and the pleat keeps getting folded. Notice it. That is worth more than any cream.
What quitting does not do is unfold a set line. What changes is the rate, the skin quality, and how sharply the crease reads, which is very much still in play.
Do drinking straws really cause lip lines?
They contribute, and it's an easy fix, so take it seriously without overselling it.
A straw is a purse. So is a sports bottle with a narrow spout, a coffee lid, and a vape. Each is a hard contraction of the orbicularis oris that a cup does not require. One straw is nothing. A straw with every drink, for 20 years, is tens of thousands of extra folds in the same place.
Sun does more damage than straws. Thinning skin does more than both. But those take months to influence. A straw takes one decision. Drink from the cup.
Why does lipstick bleed into lip lines?
Because a vertical line is a tiny channel, and lipstick is an oil.
The oils in a creamy or glossy formula wick up the crease and carry pigment with them, and you get feathering: color in the lines above your lip where you did not put it. Women mention it before the lines themselves, because it is what other people can see across a table.
Three fixes, in order of how much they help.
Even the surface first. Product that fills the channel is product that lipstick cannot travel up. A thin, tinted smoothing veil on clean dry skin around the lip edge, set for about 3 minutes, gives lipstick a flatter surface. Then line and fill.
Use a liner. A lip pencil at the edge is a wax barrier. Pigment stops at the wax.
Go less emollient. A matte or long-wear formula has less oil to wick. Gloss over the center of the lip only, never at the edge.
Can you get rid of lines around the mouth overnight?
No. Nobody can, and every honest page says so, usually after suggesting a peptide serum, an olive oil massage, or a honey mask.
Here is what overnight actually does. A full night on your back means 8 hours of the lip not pressed into a pillow. Water, and less salt and alcohol the evening before, means skin that scatters light more evenly. Both make an existing line read softer in the morning. Neither shortens the line.
What you usually want is not overnight. It is today. There is a lunch, a photograph, a reunion this afternoon, and the question underneath "overnight" is "what can I do that I will actually see." That answer takes about 3 minutes, not 8 hours.
What actually softens the look of lip lines?
If you've used a lip cream twice a day for a year and the lines look the same, that is not you failing the routine. The routine was never aimed at the muscle. Here is what is.
Stop making them worse
Sunscreen down to the lip edge. Every day. A balm with SPF, and your regular sunscreen brought all the way to the mouth. Unglamorous, and where the long-term return is.
Drop the straw and the spout. One decision.
Notice the purse. Most people hold their lips slightly contracted while concentrating. You can't stop talking. You can stop clenching.
Sleep on your back, or notice which side. If the lines on one side of your mouth are deeper, that's the side you sleep on.
Improve the skin they sit in
A topical does not stop a muscle. What it can do is improve the condition of the skin the muscle is folding, and better-conditioned skin creases less sharply and recovers a little better. A Vitamin-A botanical used twice a day, consistently, is the reasonable version of this. Months, not days, and gentle enough on thin lip skin to keep using.
Change how the lines read today
A vertical lip line is visible mostly because of shadow. Light comes down, the crease drops a small line of shadow, and your eye reads shadow as depth. Even the surface so light doesn't break across it, and the line reads softer while the product is on.
That is exactly what the 3 Minute Wrinkle Solution does. One thin coat on clean, dry skin around the mouth, nothing underneath, left alone for about 3 minutes while it sets. It smooths the look of fine lines by evening the surface, and it holds moisture at the skin so the area looks plumper. It's tinted, which is why it reads as skin rather than as product.
For the lip lines specifically: less than you think. Sweep it upward along the lip edge with a fingertip. Don't press it into the lines; product packed into a crease gathers there and does the opposite of what you wanted. Keep the coat thin, because the pack warns a white film can result if it goes on too thick. Keep your face still while it sets, which around the mouth means no talking. Then liner and lipstick, and the lipstick stays where you put it.
When you get it home, try it on one side of your mouth first. Look at that side against the other.
Immediate, visible results: around the mouth, that is a fair description. It does not remove a line or change the muscle. It changes what you see in the mirror before you leave the house.
What did women actually ask about their mouth?
In 40 years of consultations, the woman who sat down about her mouth almost never led with the lines. She led with the lipstick. The feathering, the color in the creases by lunchtime, the photograph where her mouth looked older than the rest of her face. Then she'd tell me she never smoked, before I had asked.
I never thought it. I said it plainly on a review call: "some people were smokers, some weren't smokers, but they still have lines." What they wanted was the same thing: not surgery on the lip, not a needle, but to stop seeing the creases before the creases were the whole conversation. Almost none of them had a spare 12 weeks. They had a date.
That is why the veil is tinted. As I've said on air, "I put a tint in this product that helps you to blend with all skin tones." The last thing a woman fixing her lip line wants is a pale line where the fix went.
Do Botox or fillers get rid of lines around the mouth?
The injectable that relaxes muscle is used around the mouth in very small doses, because too much and you can't sip, whistle, or say your Ps clearly. Hyaluronic acid filler adds volume behind the crease. Resurfacing lasers, peels, and microneedling work on the surface and on collagen, with recovery that varies by depth. Each has real effects, real cost, real maintenance, and each is a conversation with a qualified practitioner, not a decision from an article.
Here is how the options compare.
| Option | What it changes | When you see it | The honest ceiling |
|---|---|---|---|
| Sunscreen on the lip, daily | Slows collagen loss | Months | Doesn't soften a line already there |
| Drop the straw, notice the purse | Fewer daily contractions | Weeks to months | Doesn't unfold a set line |
| Vitamin-A botanical, twice daily | Skin quality around the line | Months | Not muscle, not volume |
| 3 Minute Wrinkle Solution | How the line catches light | About 3 minutes | Optical, while it's on; nothing structural |
| Filler, resurfacing, muscle relaxant | Volume, surface, or muscle | Days to weeks, with recovery | A procedure, with maintenance |
Most of the women I saw wanted the first four and were still deciding about the fifth.
The short version
Lip lines come from a ring muscle you use every time you speak, folding skin that is thin, gets sun, and recovers less well than it used to. Smoking accelerates it. Straws add to it. Nobody gets rid of them overnight.
What you can do: sunscreen down to the lip edge, drink from the cup, sleep off your face, something gentle with Vitamin A for months. On the day it matters, one thin coat around the mouth, about 3 minutes, and lipstick that stays where you put it.
If the date is this week, the 7-day plan sequences it.
Written by Dr. Sheldon J. Sevinor, MD, board certified by the American Board of Cosmetic Surgery, Fellow of the American Academy of Cosmetic Surgery, Senior Mentor at Harvard Medical School, 40 years in practice.
This article is general information, not medical advice.
Read next: Do Instant Wrinkle Fillers Work? A Plastic Surgeon on Film-Formers, How Long They Last, and Why Application Is Everything and Needle-Free Ways to Soften the Look of Lines: What Actually Helps, Ranked by a Plastic Surgeon.
Frequently asked questions
What causes vertical lip lines?
A ring of muscle around the mouth, the orbicularis oris, folds the lip skin into vertical pleats every time you speak, sip, or purse. Early on the pleats leave when you relax. Once the skin has thinned with age and sun, and lost the collagen that lets it spring back, they stay. Smoking, straws, and sleeping face-down speed it up.
Can you get rid of lines around the mouth overnight?
No. A full night of sleep on your back and proper hydration make an existing line read softer in the morning, because rested, hydrated skin scatters light more evenly. They don't shorten the line. For a visible change the same day, a thin tinted smoothing veil around the mouth softens how the lines catch light in about 3 minutes.
Why does lipstick bleed into lip lines?
Because each vertical line is a tiny channel, and lipstick is mostly oil. The oils wick up the crease and carry pigment with them, so color ends up above your lip edge where you didn't put it. Evening the surface first with a thin smoothing veil, using a lip liner as a wax barrier, and choosing a less emollient formula all help.
Do drinking straws cause lip lines?
They add to them. A straw, a narrow sports-bottle spout, and a vape all make the orbicularis oris contract harder than drinking from a cup does, and each contraction folds the lip skin the same way. Sun and thinning skin matter more, but they take months to influence. A straw takes one decision. Drink from the cup.
Do lines around the mouth from smoking go away after you quit?
The set lines don't vanish, but the two things driving them change. The chemistry stops the day you quit, so your skin stops losing collagen at that rate. The muscle habit is the part to watch: many former smokers still purse at the same moments, with a straw or a pen. Stop that, protect the lip from sun, and soften how the lines read.