You’re at a coffee shop, sipping an iced latte through a plastic straw, scrolling your phone with your other hand. You don’t notice it. Your lips purse into a tight little O, your cheeks pull in, and the skin around your mouth crumples like a paper bag. Do that a few thousand times across a year, and those temporary creases start to remember. They settle in. They become the faint vertical lines that show up in your selfies and make you wonder if you’re suddenly aging five years overnight.
You’re not. You’re just sipping.
Here’s the thing about the area around your mouth: it doesn’t bounce back the way it did in your early twenties. The skin there is thin, it moves constantly, and it doesn’t have the same oil backup to keep things plump and forgiving. So every repetitive motion—smiling, talking, eating, sighing—leaves a tiny imprint. Most of those are expressions you can’t and shouldn’t stop. But a straw is a choice. And it’s one of the easiest wrinkle-inducing habits to kick without giving up any joy.
Think about what a straw actually makes your face do. To draw liquid up, you have to contract the orbicularis oris, the ring of muscle that circles your lips. That muscle is the same one you use for kissing, for whistling, for blowing out birthday candles. When you pull it tight over and over, the skin above and below your lips folds along those same lines. Over time, the collagen and elastin in that area break down under the constant creasing. Scientists have a fancy name for the resulting wrinkles—perioral lines—but you know them as “smoker’s lines” even if you’ve never smoked a day in your life. Straws are just as guilty. So is drinking from a bottle with a narrow neck. So is sipping a slushy through a tiny lid. It’s all the same repeated pucker.
Now, I’m not going to tell you to never use a straw again. That would be unrealistic, and honestly, sometimes a straw is the only way to get through a drive-thru smoothie without spilling it on your white shirt. But you can start treating the straw as a sometimes tool, not a default one. When you’re at home, tilt your glass and drink from the rim. When you order a cold drink at a restaurant, ask for no straw. You’ll be surprised how quickly your mouth adjusts. The first few times feel weird, like you’re a toddler learning to use a cup again, but within a week it’s completely normal. And your lips will thank you.
But straws are just the obvious villain. The same pucker action sneaks into your day through habits you don’t even register. Do you hold your lip balm tube between your lips while you apply lotion? Do you bite your bottom lip when you’re concentrating on a spreadsheet? Do you twist your mouth to one side when you’re annoyed? These micro-movements are the quiet sculptors of your face. They’re not expressions, they’re fidgets. And they’re surprisingly hard to catch because they happen on autopilot.
Here’s a trick that works: put a small mirror on your desk, right where your eye lands during deep work. Not a full vanity mirror, just a little compact one. Every time you see your face in it, you’ll catch yourself mid-pucker or mid-bite. You’ll think, “Oh, right, I’m doing the thing.” Awareness is half the battle. The other half is giving your lips something else to do. Instead of tucking your mouth into a tight line, let it rest soft, with your teeth slightly apart. That neutral position is the one that keeps lines from deepening. It feels lazy at first, but laziness is your skin’s best friend.
You can also train your face to spread the load. When you’re drinking from a glass, bring the liquid to your mouth rather than jutting your chin forward to meet the glass. When you’re applying skincare products around your lips, use your ring finger to gently pat rather than rub. And when you feel the urge to chew on your straw or bite the inside of your cheek, reach for a piece of gum instead—but chew on your back teeth, not your front, and switch sides often. The point isn’t to never move your mouth. That’s impossible and honestly sad. The point is to stop repeating the same tiny stress on the same vulnerable spots day after day.
Your face is always listening to your habits. It records every sip, every bite, every little grimace. And while you can’t erase what’s already started, you can absolutely stop adding new lines to the ledger. The good news is that perioral lines are one of the most preventable wrinkles out there, not because of some magic cream, but because you control the muscle that creates them. Every time you skip the straw, every time you catch a lip bite, every time you let your mouth rest loose instead of tight, you’re giving that delicate skin a break. Do that for the next month, and you’ll notice something when you look in the mirror: those fine lines around your lips won’t look deeper. Maybe they’ll even look a little softer. That’s not wishful thinking. That’s just what happens when you stop carving them.
So go ahead and enjoy your iced coffee. Just tip the cup back like you mean it. Your future self—the one with the smooth, relaxed mouth—will be so grateful.
