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Reviewed July 21, 2026
What is labiomental angle?
The labiomental angle is the bend at the mentolabial fold, the crease where your lower lip gives way to your chin. Also called the mentolabial angle, it is read from the side and describes how deeply the lower lip steps back into the chin. A soft, shallow crease and a deep, sharply folded one sit at opposite ends of the same measurement.
How It's Measured
How is the labiomental angle measured?
The labiomental angle is a side-profile reading. It is the angle that forms at the labiomental sulcus, the deepest point of the mentolabial fold, between the lower lip and the soft-tissue chin. Three points set it up (Akter, 2017):
- Labrale inferius (Li): the border of the lower lip, where the crease starts to turn in.
- Mentolabial sulcus (Sm): the deepest point of the labiomental groove, which acts as the vertex of the angle.
- Pogonion (Pg): the most forward point of the soft-tissue chin, where the second line ends.
Join Li to Sm to Pg and the angle at Sm is the labiomental angle. A wide, open angle reads as a shallow crease and a smooth transition into the chin; a tighter angle reads as a deeper, more sharply folded labiomental crease (Naini, 2011). The depth of that sulcus is one of the traits clinicians use to classify a profile (Tanikawa, 2014).
Deepening the fold and drawing the chin back moved the measured fold angle from 75.7 degrees to 83.7 degrees on the same face, same lighting, same framing.
Why It Matters
Why does the labiomental angle matter?
The mentolabial region is one of the most looked-at parts of the lower face, even by people who could never name it. The labiomental angle puts a number on it, and the reason it carries weight is that it reports on the balance between the lip and the chin rather than on either one alone (Naini et al., 2017).
Here is the part most diagrams skip: the same fold can deepen for opposite reasons. A strongly projecting chin pulls the angle tighter, while a thin, strap-like lower lip opens it back up, and an incomplete lip seal deepens it again (Naini, 2011). So a deep labiomental crease is a clue, not a diagnosis. You read it alongside chin projection and lip posture, never in isolation.
It also varies by sex and ancestry, which is why a single ideal misreads plenty of faces. In young Bangladeshi adults the mentolabial angle averaged around 124 degrees in men and 117 degrees in women, a split that a Western textbook mean would not predict (Akter, 2017). Treat the old canons as reference lines drawn from particular groups at particular times, and read your own profile with that context in mind. The card and table below give you the working numbers to compare against.
115°–145°
Men
120°–130°
Women
110°–130°
Typical Range
Fig 2. The labiomental angle read at the mentolabial fold. These values vary with individual chin and lip structure and background.
Demographic Variants
Ideal Labiomental Angle by Demographic
The ideal labiomental angle is not one number. It shifts with sex and ancestry, and most of the movement comes from how far the chin projects and how full the lower lip sits. Each row links to its source.
Population | Typical range | Source |
|---|---|---|
White / European reference | Men roughly 115 to 145 degrees, women roughly 120 to 130 degrees | |
South Asian (Bangladeshi young adults) | Men around 124 degrees, women around 117 degrees | |
Idealized aesthetic (panel study) | Preferences cluster near the adult mean; beyond a threshold the fold reads as over-folded |
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Your Questions
Frequently Asked Questions
There is no single ideal. In adults the labiomental angle usually falls between about 110 and 130 degrees, with women tending to sit around 120 to 130 degrees and men spread more widely from roughly 115 to 145 degrees (Naini, 2011). What reads as balanced depends on your sex, your ancestry, and how your chin and lip sit together.
You take a side-profile photo and mark three points: labrale inferius on the lower lip, the mentolabial sulcus at the deepest part of the fold, and pogonion at the front of the chin. The angle at the sulcus, Li to Sm to Pg, is the mentolabial angle (Akter, 2017). Fixing the landmarks this way lets the reading repeat cleanly from one photo to the next.
A deep mentolabial fold, meaning a tighter labiomental angle, is usually driven by a strongly projecting chin or a full, forward-set lower lip, and an incomplete lip seal can deepen it further. A thin, strap-like lower lip does the opposite and opens the angle out (Naini, 2011). The crease itself is a read on lip and chin balance, not a flaw on its own.
It can, and the right approach depends on why the fold is deep. When the chin sits back, chin implants or a bony genioplasty rebalance the labiomental angle; when the groove itself is the concern, soft-tissue filler can soften it (Chin & Sykes, 2019). Because the fold reflects chin projection and lip posture, correction starts by working out which of those is driving it (Naini, 2011).