Turkey Neck: Causes, Exercises and Treatments That Work

Turkey neck is the everyday name for loose, sagging skin and slack muscle on the front of the neck, running from under the jaw towards the collarbone. It is one of the earliest signs of ageing, because the skin of the neck is thinner, has fewer oil glands and less structural support than the face, and it is one of the most searched cosmetic concerns in the UK. This guide explains what causes turkey neck, whether turkey neck exercises and creams do anything, how to tighten neck skin without surgery, and when a neck lift is the only treatment that will actually work.

The short version: a turkey neck is usually three problems at once, and they respond to different things. Loose skin needs to be tightened or removed, separated muscle bands (platysmal bands) need to be relaxed or repaired, and excess fat needs to be removed. Skincare and non-surgical neck skin tightening help with the first when it is mild. Only surgery deals with all three once they are established. At Centre for Surgery in London, neck rejuvenation is carried out by GMC-registered plastic surgeons at our CQC-regulated Baker Street clinic.

What Is Turkey Neck?

Turkey neck describes the wattle-like fold of loose skin and muscle that hangs from the front of the neck, so called because it resembles the loose skin below a turkey’s beak. Doctors usually describe the same appearance in terms of what has happened to each layer:

• The skin has lost collagen and elastin, so it is thinner, crepey and no longer recoils when stretched. This is the loose neck skin most people mean when they say sagging neck.
• The platysma, the broad sheet of muscle that runs from the chest up over the jaw, has slackened and its two front edges have separated, producing the vertical cords known as platysmal bands.
• Fat under the chin and along the jaw, sometimes above the muscle and sometimes below it, adds fullness and blunts the angle between chin and neck.
• Horizontal neck lines deepen with repeated movement and years of looking down at screens, a pattern often called tech neck. Our guide to neck lines covers these separately, because lines and laxity respond to different treatments.

Why the Neck Ages Faster Than the Face

The neck is often the first area to give someone’s age away, and there are anatomical reasons for it. Neck skin is thinner than facial skin and carries fewer of the oil glands that keep skin supple, so it dries and creases more readily. Unlike the cheeks, there is no bone directly beneath it to hold the tissue up; the only support is the platysma, which is a thin, sheet-like muscle rather than a structural one. The neck is also constantly moving, turning and flexing thousands of times a day, and every fold of skin over a moving joint eventually creases. Add sun exposure, which most people protect their face from but forget on the neck, and the result is a region that ages on a faster clock than the face above it. This is why many patients who have had a facelift or facial rejuvenation still describe the neck as the thing that bothers them most.

What a Youthful Neck Looks Like

It helps to know what surgery is aiming for. In 1980, plastic surgeons Ellenbogen and Karlin set out five visual criteria for a youthful neck that surgeons still use today: a clearly defined jawline, a visible hollow just below the hyoid bone, a visible outline of the thyroid cartilage, a visible front border of the sternocleidomastoid muscle at the side of the neck, and a cervicomental angle (the angle between the underside of the chin and the front of the neck) of about 105 to 120 degrees. A turkey neck fails most of these at once: the jawline blurs, the hollow fills in, the angle opens out towards 140 degrees or more. Every treatment below is judged by how many of those criteria it can restore.

What Causes Turkey Neck?

Turkey neck rarely has a single cause. Most people bring two or three of the following to the consultation, and the mix determines which turkey neck treatment will work.

Ageing and Collagen Loss

From the thirties onwards, the skin produces collagen and elastin more slowly than it breaks them down. The dermis thins, the fibres that anchor the skin to the platysma stretch, and the skin envelope becomes bigger than the tissue it has to cover. At the same time the platysma itself loses tone. The neck starts with thinner skin and less support than the face, so these changes show earlier and progress faster, which is why a person can look ten years older from the side than from the front. Our guide to the signs of facial ageing at 30, 40 and 50 maps the typical timeline.

Weight Loss, GLP-1 Medication and “Ozempic Face”

Losing a significant amount of weight removes the fat that was holding the neck skin out, and if the skin has already lost elasticity it does not shrink back. This has always been true after bariatric surgery; what has changed is the speed and scale of weight loss on GLP-1 medication such as semaglutide and tirzepatide, which has produced a new patient group, often in their thirties and forties, presenting with the loose neck and hollow face nicknamed “Ozempic face”. When the medication is tirzepatide, which usually produces greater weight loss, it is often called Mounjaro face. The American Society of Plastic Surgeons reported that neck lifts rose 21% in 2025 and that 82% of its member surgeons had received consultation requests related to GLP-1 use. A 2025 review in the journal Endocrine suggests the drugs may do more than simply remove fat: GLP-1 receptors are present on skin fibroblasts and fat-derived stem cells, and stimulating them appears to reduce collagen production, which would accelerate skin ageing independently of the weight lost. Our guide to how dramatic weight loss affects the face and neck covers what to expect, and face and neck lift surgery after weight loss explains how the surgery differs.

Platysma Muscle Activity and Platysmal Bands

The platysma is involved in facial expression, speech and swallowing, so it never rests. With age and use its front edges, which meet in the midline in youth, drift apart and thicken into two vertical cords that show most when the jaw is clenched or the head is tilted back. In some people these bands are the whole problem: the skin is reasonable, but the bands make the neck look aged and stringy. The distinction matters because bands are a muscle problem, and a muscle problem needs either a muscle-relaxing injection or a platysmaplasty, not a skin treatment. Our dedicated guide to platysmal bands goes into the detail.

Genetics, Sun and Posture

Genetics set the starting point: skin thickness, how much collagen you make, where you store fat, and even the position of the hyoid bone, which determines how sharp a cervicomental angle is possible. If a parent developed a turkey neck early, you are more likely to, and if your hyoid sits low, even an excellent neck lift will produce a softer angle than in someone whose hyoid sits high. On top of that base, ultraviolet light is the single biggest external accelerator of skin ageing, and the neck is chronically under-protected. Finally, hours spent looking down at a phone or laptop keep the platysma contracted and the skin folded, which deepens horizontal lines; our article on tech neck explains the mechanism.

Turkey Neck Symptoms: Loose Skin, Platysmal Bands and a Double Chin

The physical signs are easy to recognise: skin that hangs in a fold or wattle below the chin, a crepey texture with fine horizontal wrinkles, two vertical cords that appear when you grimace, and a jawline that has lost its edge. For some people the fold is large enough to cause practical problems, with skin rubbing on skin, irritation in the crease and difficulty keeping it dry; this is common after major weight loss and is a legitimate reason to treat it. The psychological side is at least as important. Patients describe avoiding side-on photographs, wearing scarves and high necklines in summer, and feeling that their neck contradicts an otherwise fresh face, which is often what brings them to a consultation after years of ignoring it.

Is Turkey Neck the Same as a Double Chin?

No, and the difference decides the treatment. A double chin is fullness under the chin, usually fat, and it can occur at any age and any weight. A turkey neck is sagging skin and slack muscle down the front of the neck. The two often coexist, particularly in people over fifty, and where they do a neck lift can tighten the skin and muscle while chin liposuction removes the fat in the same operation. Where fat is the only problem, liposuction alone may be enough; our comparison of neck liposuction vs neck lift for a saggy neck explains how surgeons decide between them.

Do Turkey Neck Exercises Work?

Turkey neck exercises are searched more than almost any other neck treatment, so the answer deserves to be precise. Chin tucks, jaw juts, tongue presses and “face yoga” do contract the platysma and the muscles under the chin, and repeated contraction can add a little bulk to a muscle. The only controlled study of facial exercise, a 20-week programme in middle-aged women published in JAMA Dermatology in 2018, found that blinded dermatologists rated the participants’ cheeks fuller and estimated their age as slightly younger at the end of the programme. It did not assess the neck, and no study has ever shown neck exercises removing loose skin or closing separated platysmal bands, because exercise changes muscle, not the collagen content or the surface area of skin. There is a theoretical concern that repeatedly contracting the platysma could make bands more prominent, though this has not been tested either.

The practical position is this: neck exercises are harmless, cost nothing and may improve posture and the way you hold your head, which is worth doing. They are not a way to get rid of or reduce turkey neck, and anyone selling a programme that claims otherwise is selling hope rather than evidence.

Best Cream for Turkey Neck UK: Does Turkey Neck Cream Work?

Searches for the best neck cream for turkey neck have roughly tripled in the UK over the past year, so this deserves a straight answer. Turkey neck cream is a category of product rather than a treatment, and it is worth separating what topical products can do from what they cannot. Prescription-strength retinoids (tretinoin) are the best-evidenced skincare ingredient for ageing skin: in the original double-blind trial published in JAMA in 1988, sixteen weeks of topical tretinoin produced measurable improvement in photoaged skin and visible changes in the skin’s structure under the microscope, and decades of subsequent work have confirmed the effect on fine lines, texture and pigmentation. Daily broad-spectrum SPF prevents further collagen loss, and moisturisers containing hyaluronic acid or peptides improve hydration and the crepey look temporarily.

How to Tighten Neck Skin at Home

None of this tightens loose neck skin, and there is no best cream for turkey neck in the sense most people mean. A retinoid can make the skin of the neck smoother, more even and slightly thicker over months, and that is a real improvement worth having, especially in the early crepey stage. It cannot reduce the surface area of skin that has already stretched, and it has no effect at all on platysmal bands or fat. Creams marketed specifically for turkey neck are usually standard moisturisers with a firming peptide and a higher price; if you want a topical that does something, use a retinoid at night and SPF in the morning, on the neck as well as the face, and keep your expectations to texture rather than lift. For the same reason, there is no way to get rid of turkey neck naturally once the skin has genuinely stretched; skincare, weight stability, not smoking and sun protection slow the process rather than reverse it. Our guide to crepey skin covers the skincare side in depth.

How to Get Rid of Turkey Neck: Treatment Options by Severity

Turkey neck treatment, whether you are looking for a home remedy or a permanent cure, runs on a scale from skincare to surgery. The honest guide to where you sit on it is the pinch test: if you can pinch the loose skin of your neck and it takes more than a second or two to settle back, non-surgical tightening is unlikely to satisfy you. The options below are ordered from least to most invasive, with what the evidence actually shows for each.

Non-Surgical Neck Skin Tightening: Radiofrequency, Morpheus8 and Ultrasound

Energy-based devices heat the deeper layers of the skin to trigger a wound-healing response that lays down new collagen over the following three to six months. Morpheus8 does this with radiofrequency delivered through fine needles; FaceTite delivers radiofrequency beneath the skin through a small probe and is the most powerful of the non-surgical options; high-intensity focused ultrasound (HIFU, sold as Ultherapy and similar) heats the same layer from outside without needles; laser platforms such as Fotona 4D work more superficially. All have published evidence, and all of it points the same way: real, measurable, modest. In the rater-blinded study of ultrasound tightening published in the Journal of the American Academy of Dermatology, 86% of 35 patients showed a clinically significant lift at 90 days, and the measurable change at the brow averaged 1.7 mm; the authors noted they could not quantify the lower face and neck at all because there are no fixed landmarks to measure from. A 2020 study of radiofrequency microneedling combined with subdermal radiofrequency for jowl and neck laxity found marked improvement in 33% of patients at three months rising to 55% at six months, in a series of nine people. Results typically need one to three sessions and last one to three years before maintenance is needed. Our evidence guide explains whether radiofrequency skin tightening works and which type suits which problem.

These treatments suit early, mild laxity and people who want to postpone surgery, and they are a good complement after surgery to keep skin quality up. They do not lift a fold of skin you can pinch, they do not repair platysmal bands and they do not remove fat. Our guide to the non-surgical neck lift compares the platforms in detail.

Anti-Wrinkle Injections for Platysmal Bands: The Nefertiti Neck Lift

Where the main complaint is the vertical cords rather than loose skin, injecting botulinum toxin into the platysmal bands and along the lower border of the jaw, the technique known as the Nefertiti lift, relaxes the muscle so the bands soften and the jawline reads more cleanly. It is the one injectable treatment with a genuine mechanism for turkey neck. In a prospective study of 30 patients published in Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery in 2017, the bands improved significantly both at rest and on contraction, 93% of patients and assessors rated the overall result as improved, and 97% of patients were satisfied; the patients who improved most were younger, with hyperactive platysma muscles and skin that still had its elasticity. A 2025 series of 400 patients treated every six months over two to five years found the improvement in bands was maintained and appeared to build across repeated cycles. The effect lasts three to six months per treatment, and it does nothing for skin that has stretched, which is why the same paper concluded it belongs in younger patients with retained elasticity. Dermal fillers and skin boosters such as Profhilo improve hydration and texture but add volume rather than removing anything, so they are not a turkey neck treatment in themselves.

Thread Lift for a Saggy Neck

Dissolvable barbed threads placed under the skin can reposition mild sagging in the jowls and neck with a few days of downtime. Published satisfaction rates are high in the short term, around 95% at six months in one series of 58 patients, of whom ten were treated on the neck, but bruising affected nearly a third and the lift itself is shallow and temporary, typically lasting a year or so as the threads dissolve. Threads suit someone with mild neck laxity who is not ready for surgery. They are not an alternative to a neck lift for a true turkey neck.

Turkey Neck Surgery: Neck Lift for Turkey Neck (Platysmaplasty)

A neck lift for turkey neck, sometimes searched for as a turkey neck lift or turkey neck operation, is the definitive turkey neck surgery and the only treatment that addresses skin, muscle and fat in one procedure. Through an incision under the chin and short incisions behind the ears, the surgeon removes or redistributes fat, stitches the separated edges of the platysma back together in the midline (platysmaplasty), releases and tightens the muscle at the sides, and then redrapes the skin and trims the excess. The evidence for durability is strong: a 2024 systematic review pooling 12 studies and 2,106 patients found platysmal bands recurred in only 1.4% at follow-up, with a nerve injury rate of 0.9%, haematoma in 1.8% and salivary collections in 0.3%. A separate 2024 review of the more extensive deep plane neck lift, covering 57 studies and 8,648 patients, reported patient satisfaction of between 81.6% and 98.6%, with temporary nerve weakness the main trade-off for the more aggressive techniques. There are several variants, from a mini neck lift for early laxity to a full neck lift with submandibular gland reduction for heavy necks; our guides to the different types of neck lift and to neck lift vs platysmaplasty explain the choices, and male neck lift covers the differences in men, whose thicker skin and heavier platysma usually need the fuller operation.

Neck Liposuction vs Neck Lift

If fat is the dominant problem and the skin still has elasticity, liposuction of the chin and neck through two or three tiny incisions can be enough on its own, and it is a far smaller procedure. The risk is misjudging the skin: remove the fat from a neck whose skin has already stretched and you convert a full neck into an empty, sagging one. Surgeons assess this with the pinch test and by looking at how the skin behaves when the head is tilted back. Our guide to getting rid of a fat neck covers the liposuction-only route.

Facelift and Neck Lift Together

Where the turkey neck is part of broader lower-face ageing, with jowls, marionette lines and sagging cheeks, treating the neck alone can leave an odd mismatch between a tight neck and a lax face. A lower facelift performed with the neck lift tightens the two as a unit, and it is how most neck lifts in patients over 55 are actually done. Our comparison of a neck lift and a lower facelift explains when each is used.

What Happens During Neck Lift Surgery?

At Centre for Surgery a neck lift is performed as a day case under TIVA (total intravenous anaesthesia), which avoids the nausea and grogginess of a traditional general anaesthetic. The surgeon works through a short incision hidden in the crease under the chin and, where skin needs to be removed, incisions that follow the natural crease behind each ear and into the hairline. Fat is removed by liposuction or under direct vision, the platysma is repaired in the midline and tightened, and the skin is redraped upward and backward before the excess is trimmed. The operation takes around two to three hours depending on how much is being done, and most patients go home the same day with a responsible adult. Scars are placed to be as inconspicuous as possible and fade to fine pale lines over the first year; our guide to what neck lift scars look like shows the typical pattern, and the risks of neck lift surgery sets out the complications and how often they occur.

Neck Lift Recovery: What to Expect

You will wear a supportive chin strap for the first week or so, and bruising and swelling are most noticeable in the first two weeks. Most people return to desk work and social life within two to three weeks, sleeping with the head elevated in the meantime, and can resume strenuous exercise from around four to six weeks. Tightness and mild numbness in the neck are normal for several weeks. The refined result appears over three to six months as the last of the swelling resolves. Our neck lift recovery guide gives a week-by-week account, and sleeping after a neck lift covers the part most patients find hardest.

Which Turkey Neck Treatment Is Best?

There is no single best treatment for turkey neck, only the right one for what is actually causing yours. As a rule of thumb:

• Crepey texture and fine lines, skin that snaps back when pinched: retinoid and SPF, with radiofrequency or ultrasound tightening if you want more.
• Vertical bands with reasonable skin: anti-wrinkle injections into the platysma, repeated every three to six months, or a platysmaplasty for a permanent fix.
• Fullness under the chin with good skin: chin and neck liposuction.
• Loose skin you can pinch and hold, with or without bands and fat: a neck lift, alone or with a lower facelift.

How Much Does Turkey Neck Surgery Cost in the UK?

The turkey neck surgery price depends on which treatment you need. A course of non-surgical tightening, injections for platysmal bands, chin liposuction, a mini neck lift and a full neck lift with a lower facelift sit at very different price points, and the surgical price varies with the extent of the work and whether TIVA is used. An accurate figure is confirmed after a consultation and examination, and our neck lift cost guide explains what is included in a quote. Finance is available through Chrysalis Finance for procedures over £1,500; see our Finance Options page.

How to Prevent Turkey Neck

Turkey neck cannot be prevented entirely, because the platysma will always move and collagen will always decline, but the age at which it appears and how severe it becomes are partly in your hands. Daily broad-spectrum sunscreen on the neck and chest, not just the face, is the single most effective measure. A retinoid used from the thirties onwards keeps the dermis thicker for longer. Keeping your weight stable avoids the stretch-and-shrink cycle that leaves skin loose, and if you are losing a large amount of weight on GLP-1 medication, losing it more slowly gives the skin more chance to keep up. Not smoking matters more for the neck than almost anywhere else, because smoking starves the thin neck skin of blood supply and collagen; if you go on to have surgery, we ask patients to stop four weeks before and for four weeks after. Finally, raise your screens to eye level and stop reading your phone in your lap, which keeps the platysma contracted and the skin folded for hours a day.

Frequently Asked Questions

Turkey Neck Treatment at Centre for Surgery

At Centre for Surgery in London, GMC-registered plastic surgeons assess exactly what is driving your turkey neck, skin, muscle, fat or all three, and recommend the treatment that fits, whether that is non-surgical neck skin tightening or a neck lift. The surgeon who assesses you is the surgeon who performs your surgery. Procedures take place at our CQC-regulated day surgery facility at 95–97 Baker Street, with a recommended two-week cooling-off period on all surgery. Our neck lift before and after photos show the results our surgeons achieve.

Phone: 020 7993 4849 | Email: contact@centreforsurgery.com | Address: 95-97 Baker Street, London W1U 6RN

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