Question
Do Threads Leave Visible Marks?
Whether the ridge at the temple or the dimple at the hairline is the usual result of a thread lift or the unusual one.
The worry behind this question is specific. A reader has seen a photograph, or a face across a room, where a thin ridge ran from the temple toward the mouth, or where a dimple sat at the hairline for weeks.
They want to know whether that is the usual result of a thread lift or the unusual one, and whether it can be predicted before the needle goes in.
It comes up around Hancock Park more than the other thread questions, perhaps because the neighborhood has a good number of thin-skinned, fair-skinned faces in which any irregularity shows.
This page is part of the thread lift and lifting topic and deals with marks alone: entry points, ridges, dimples and puckers, what causes each and how long each lasts.
The short answer
The short answer
Most thread lifts leave no lasting mark. Entry points fade within a month, bruising within two weeks, and early puckering at the anchor settles within one to three weeks as part of the normal course.
Visible ridges and persistent dimples do occur, mainly in thin skin and mainly with barbed lifting threads placed too shallow, and they can usually be corrected. Skin thickness, thread type and the injector's experience decide the risk, and all three show at a consultation.
Inside this answer
About us
About these answers
This answer was read against thread-lift consent forms and the published complication series, which record thread visibility and dimpling by thread type and operator, by independent editors in Hancock Park.
The desk holds no medical license and sells no treatment. Where a page and a licensed clinician who has examined you disagree, the clinician is right.
What decides the answer
Four kinds of mark are possible, and they have different causes. The entry point is where the cannula or needle went in, usually in front of the ear or in the temple hairline.
It leaves a small puncture that scabs and fades over a week or two, and in most people it is invisible within a month. A ridge is the thread itself showing through the skin as a raised line along its path.
A dimple or pucker is the skin gathering where a barb or cone has caught the dermis rather than the layer beneath it.
Bruising is the fourth, and while it is the most visible in the first week it is also the one that resolves on its own.
Skin thickness decides most of it. In thick skin the thread sits well below the surface and the barbs engage fat rather than dermis, so ridges and dimples are uncommon.
In thin skin the margin is small, and a thread placed a millimeter too shallow shows. Thin skin is more common in older patients, in people with significant sun damage, and in some fair complexions regardless of age.
A clinician who pinches the cheek and temple before quoting is checking exactly this.
Placement depth and technique come next. Threads are meant to run in the subcutaneous plane, and an injector who has done many of them feels the plane through the cannula.
Puckering at the anchor point is normal on the day and is often deliberate; the injector over-corrects slightly because the gathering settles over one to three weeks.
A pucker that persists past six weeks is a placement issue, and the thread can usually be released or trimmed.
Thread type also matters. Smooth threads used for skin quality rarely mark at all. Barbed and coned lifting threads mark more, because they grip.
The consent form for lifting threads lists thread visibility, dimpling and asymmetry as known risks, and a form that does not mention them is incomplete.
Public agencies have spent years working out how to write a warning that a reader will understand, and the federal plain-language guidelines are a fair standard to hold a consent form to.
If the risks are buried in a paragraph of Latin, the clinic has not done its job.
Expert note
The professional literature on thread lifts reports visible or palpable threads and dimpling as among the more common minor complications, with rates that vary widely by thread type, operator and how carefully the series recorded them. Most resolve within weeks with massage or minor adjustment.
Extrusion, where a thread end works through the skin, and infection along the thread track are less common and need a clinician's attention rather than time.
Absorbable threads are made of materials such as polydioxanone, polylactic acid or polycaprolactone, and they dissolve over six to eighteen months depending on the material. A mark caused by the thread itself therefore has a natural end date even without intervention.
Scarring at the entry point is unusual, though people who form keloids or thick scars elsewhere should raise that history before booking, because the same tendency applies to a puncture at the temple.
Next steps
The single most useful question at consultation is how the injector handles a visible thread or a persistent dimple.
The good answers are specific: massage in the first two weeks, release of the barb with a needle, trimming a thread end that has surfaced, or removal in the rare case where the thread is infected or extruding.
A vague answer, or a promise that it never happens, is a reason to look elsewhere.
The reader can also ask to see photographs at one week and at six weeks, since the day-of images that clinics prefer show neither the bruising nor the settled result.
Anyone with thin skin should ask whether a smooth thread or an energy device would suit them better than a lifting thread, and should expect a straight answer.
It is a small decision compared with the ones neighborhood groups make about land and housing, and the community work described by the Los Angeles Neighborhood Land Trust is a reminder that the durable choices are the ones made with the full picture in view.
Before booking
Ask how a visible thread is handled
The good answers are specific: massage in the first two weeks, release of a barb, trimming a surfaced end. How long the threads themselves last is covered at the realistic lifespan of a thread lift.