Softmaxxing: What It Is, What It Can Change and a 12-Week Plan

Softmaxxing is looksmaxxing without surgery: you improve your appearance through body fat, skin, hair, grooming, clothes, sleep and how you show up in photos. It can change how your face reads within weeks, but it does not change your bone structure or eye tilt.

The word comes from looksmaxxing forums, an online self-improvement scene that grew out of the manosphere (Wikipedia). Hardmaxxing is the other half of the slang: mainly surgery, though forums also file steroids and extreme dieting under it. This guide sorts the softmaxxing levers by what they change and how long they take, then turns them into a 12-week plan you can start today.

Softmaxxing vs hardmaxxing

Most sources agree on the two ends. They disagree about injectables: some forum guides count only things you do yourself, while clinics call fillers and Botox "advanced softmaxxing". The table keeps injectables separate, because they need a clinician and carry medical risk.

	Softmaxxing	Middle zone	Hardmaxxing
Examples	Fat loss, skincare, haircut, brows, clothes, sleep	Fillers, Botox, thread lifts	Rhinoplasty, jaw or chin surgery, eyelid surgery, liposuction
Who does it	You	A licensed clinician	A surgeon
Reversible	Yes	Mostly temporary	No
Main risk	Wasted time, skin irritation	Complications that need a doctor	Surgery and recovery

Some trends sit outside all three columns. Bone smashing does not work, and the "peptides" sold in looksmaxxing spaces have unknown risks (Michigan Medicine). Forums also file mewing under softmaxxing. It aims at structure, not at the soft levers, and it does not deliver:

Does mewing work?

No. Mewing means pressing your tongue flat against the roof of your mouth for long periods to reshape the jaw. Cleveland Clinic says the research does not support it for teeth, jaw or face shape, and that it can make jaw tension and TMJ problems worse and push teeth out of line, especially in teenagers (Cleveland Clinic). A sharper jawline in a mewing video usually comes from a lower body-fat level, a raised chin or a better camera angle. The first of those is a real softmaxxing lever, and it is in the plan below.

What softmaxxing can change, and how long it takes

Every lever below changes something a viewer can see. The time column is when a change usually becomes visible, not when you are done.

Lever	What it changes	When you can see it	Evidence
Facial fat (how to lose face fat)	How defined the jaw and cheekbones look, if you start above a healthy level	Depends on how much you lose: at 1–2 lb a week, 10 lb takes 5–10 weeks	A middle level of facial fat is rated healthiest and most attractive; faces that look heavier, or very lean, are rated lower (Coetzee et al., 2009); people can judge body weight from the face alone (de Jager et al., 2018)
Skin evenness	Redness, dark spots, blotches	Acne treatment: several weeks to a few months (AAD)	Digitally evened skin made faces look more attractive, even when viewers did not notice the change (Sun et al., 2022)
Diet and skin color	A warmer skin tone	About 6 weeks in one small study	In 35 adults, eating about 3 more portions of fruit and vegetables a day changed skin color by more than viewers needed to see it as healthier (Whitehead et al., 2012); white participants only, industry-funded
Sleep	Swollen eyes, dark circles, pale skin	Visible after a night without sleep	After 31 hours awake, faces had redder, more swollen eyes and darker circles (Sundelin et al., 2013) and were rated slightly less attractive (Axelsson et al., 2010)
Haircut, brows, facial hair	How the outline of the face and the eye area read	Same day	Widely used, but the size of the effect has not been measured in studies
Makeup	Contrast and evenness	Same day	Raises attractiveness ratings, but the effect is small next to differences between people (Jones & Kramer, 2015)
Clothes that fit	How your build reads in photos and in person	Same day	No study measures fit; it is the one lever you can buy outright
Open poses in photos	How confident you look	Same day	On a dating app, profile photos with open, expansive postures were chosen more often, mainly because they looked more dominant (Vacharkulksemsuk et al., 2016)
Hair thinning	Hair density	About 6–12 months of daily minoxidil before you know if it works (AAD)	Minoxidil has long been used for male pattern hair loss and is approved for women; results last only while you keep using it
Daily sunscreen	Slower skin aging	Years, not weeks	Adults under 55 in high-UV Queensland who used sunscreen daily showed no detectable increase in skin aging over 4.5 years, measured on the back of the hand (Hughes et al., 2013)

Two things stand out. Fat and skin are the slow, high-value levers, so start them in the first week. Sunscreen will not show in a 12-week comparison at all: it protects the result you have, which is why it belongs in the plan anyway.

What softmaxxing cannot change

Adult bone does not move with a routine. That covers the spacing of your eyes, the length of your lower face, your jaw angle and the bony frame behind your canthal tilt. Left-right differences in bone position do not change either; the face symmetry test shows yours region by region.

Our own scoring formula shows where the split falls. The attractiveness test uses the same weights as the LooksLab app:

Factor	Men	Women	Can softmaxxing move it?
Averageness (face ratios)	50%	45%	Mostly no: set by bone and cartilage
Facial fat	15%	20%	Yes
Skin evenness	15%	12%	Yes
Feature placement and eye tilt	10%	3%	Mostly no; brows and a rested eye area change how it reads
Jaw proportion (men)	5%	–	A little, as fat along the jaw changes
Femininity (women)	–	15%	Not measured yet, so we cannot say
Symmetry	5%	5%	Mostly no: set by bone

In these weights, the two clearly changeable factors, facial fat and skin evenness, carry 30% for men and 32% for women. The weights are ours, but the evidence behind those two factors is independent: the fat and skin studies in the table above. The free front-photo tools measure proportions and angles, the part a routine hardly moves, so use them to understand your structure. Track the soft levers with same-setup photos, your weight and your waist.

A 12-week softmaxxing plan

Start the slow levers in week 1, then add one change at a time. One change at a time tells you what caused a skin reaction and keeps the plan easy to keep up.

Week	What to do	Why now
0	Take front and side baseline photos with a fixed setup (how to take them). Write down your weight and waist. Check your face shape with the face shape detector.	You need a fair "before" to compare against.
1	Start a simple skin routine: gentle cleanser, moisturizer and broad-spectrum sunscreen SPF 30 or higher every morning (AAD).	Skin changes take weeks, so the clock should start early.
1	If you have fat to lose, set a small calorie deficit for about 1–2 lb a week (CDC). Add strength training at least 2 days a week (CDC).	Fat loss is the slowest big lever, so it gets all 12 weeks.
1	Keep the same bedtime and get at least 7 hours of sleep (CDC).	A lost night shows around the eyes.
2	Get a haircut that suits your face shape. Tidy your brows. Decide on facial hair: clean-shaven, even stubble or a groomed beard. Women: settle on a simple everyday makeup look.	These change the day you do them.
3	Add about 3 portions of fruit and vegetables a day.	The skin-color change took about 6 weeks in the study above.
4	If your skin tolerates the basics, add one active ingredient at night, such as a retinoid. Retinoids improve sun-damaged skin but can irritate; retinol is milder than prescription tretinoin, and most of the evidence is for tretinoin (Mukherjee et al., 2006).	Irritation is easier to trace with one new product.
6	Checkpoint: new photos with the same setup. Compare them side by side with week 0.	Sleep, grooming and early skin changes should show.
8	Second haircut. Replace clothes that do not fit at the shoulders, waist or length.	Haircuts lose their shape after a few weeks.
12	Final checkpoint photos. Decide what to keep, what to drop and what to raise.	Fat loss and skin changes have had time to show.

See a dermatologist early for two things this plan does not fix: a thinning hairline or widening part, and acne that does not improve after a few months of basic care. Female pattern hair loss, for example, can progress without treatment (AAD).

How to track progress without fooling yourself

• Keep the setup fixed. Use the same camera, distance, light, head angle and expression each time. A change in setup can look bigger than 12 weeks of work.
• Check every 6 weeks, not every day. Daily checking mostly shows water, sleep and light.
• Track the slow levers separately. Weight and waist tell you about fat loss before the face does.
• Use scores for structure, once. The PSL scale test and the other free face tools describe proportions that softmaxxing does not change. Run them for context, not as a weekly scoreboard.

Keep one more limit in mind: people differ in what they find attractive. In three experiments, personal taste was about as strong as shared taste (Hönekopp, 2006). No plan, and no score, predicts how one particular person will see you.

When softmaxxing stops being healthy

Safety note. Stop and talk to someone you trust, or a doctor, if checking your face takes over your day, if you avoid people because of your looks, or if you are thinking about crash diets, stimulants or buying injectables online. Constant appearance-focused content may contribute to lower self-esteem and body dissatisfaction (Michigan Medicine). Fillers must be injected by a licensed provider; if accidentally injected into a blood vessel, which is rare, they can cause tissue death, vision loss or stroke (FDA).

Where LooksLab fits

The plan above is the same for everyone. The hard part is choosing which levers matter most for your face and keeping the routine going for 12 weeks. LooksLab starts with a selfie scan and questions about your skin routine, diet and hair, then builds a personal glow-up plan around the areas you want to improve. In the app, you re-scan every two weeks and the plan adjusts. If you want the 12 weeks organized around your own face, start your LooksLab plan.

Softmaxxing FAQ

Is softmaxxing worth it?

Yes, if you judge it by the levers that can change. Studies link facial fat and skin evenness to how attractive and healthy faces look, and both respond within weeks to months. It is not worth it as a way to change bone structure.

How long does softmaxxing take?

A haircut, grooming and clothes change how you look the same day. Skin changes usually take several weeks to a few months. Fat loss depends on how much you have to lose: at 1–2 lb a week, 10 lb takes 5 to 10 weeks. Hair-loss treatment takes 6 to 12 months.

Does softmaxxing work for women?

Yes. The levers are the same: facial fat, skin, hair, brows and sleep, plus makeup. In our formula, facial fat carries more weight for women (20%) than for men (15%). Our female looksmaxxing guide adds makeup and hair technique, a self-check and the risks of procedures.

Is mewing part of softmaxxing?

Forums often list it, but it does not work: research does not support mewing for changing the jaw or face, and it can cause jaw pain (Cleveland Clinic). Losing facial fat does more for how the jaw looks. The same goes for the other jaw trend, hard "jawline gum": in a 6-month trial it made the bite stronger but did not change the jaw muscle or jaw shape (does chewing gum help your jawline?).

Is softmaxxing the same as a glow-up?

Nearly. "Glow-up" usually describes the result, while softmaxxing describes the method: deliberate, non-surgical changes, tracked over time.