The front camera flicked on and you saw your neck from below. Here is how Ultherapy at Dr Joney De Souza Clinic in Marylebone firms the neck and under the chin, with no surgery and no downtime.
At the supermarket self-checkout, the little security screen above the scanner shows you from below while you hunt for your card. The skin under your chin looks softer than you remembered, and faint lines run across your neck. You looked away quickly, but the image stayed with you all afternoon, and Ultherapy at Dr Joney De Souza Clinic in Marylebone is the non-surgical way to lift exactly that skin.
| Performed by | Sessions | Downtime | Your plan |
|---|---|---|---|
| Dr Joney De Souza or Dr Mattia Parducci | One for most people | Mild tenderness, back to your day | Set by the doctor at consultation |
Ultherapy in London is performed here by Dr Joney De Souza (GMC 7008632) or Dr Mattia Parducci (GMC 7635663), lifting the neck and the area beneath the chin from the deep supporting layer. Nothing is cut, nothing is injected, and you walk out looking just as you did.
Those two areas are written into the device’s clearance. According to its maker Merz Aesthetics, Ultherapy is FDA-cleared to lift the skin on the neck and under the chin, and the clearance covers the eyebrow too.
The mechanism is simple to picture. Focused ultrasound gathers into tiny points of warmth well beneath the skin, and a live image shows precisely where each one will land. Your body then rebuilds collagen around those points, so the neck firms from within over the following months.
The skin on your neck is thinner than the skin on your face, and it moves constantly. Every glance down at a phone or a book folds it in the same place. Over the years those folds settle into horizontal lines that catch the light in a way your cheeks never do.
Beneath the chin, the support slackens gently with time. The crisp angle between the jaw and the neck begins to blur, and a soft fullness appears where a clean line once ran. In a side-lit photograph that blurring is often the first thing you notice about yourself.
Skincare does a great deal for the surface, yet it cannot reach the layer where this softening begins. That deeper support sits well below the skin, in the same fibrous layer a surgeon lifts during a neck and facelift. Ultherapy is designed to reach it without a single incision.
Many people notice it most at the end of a long day, when tiredness shows in the softer tissue. A neck that looked fine in the morning mirror can read heavier by evening under overhead light. That contrast often brings people through the door.
This is why so many people who come in about their neck are surprised by how young their face still looks. The neck has simply travelled a little faster. Lifting it brings the whole profile back into harmony, from the ear down to the collarbone.
The area under the chin has its own name in clinic, the submental area, and it responds well to Ultherapy. Lines of energy are placed across it, following the curve from one side of the jaw to the other. The aim is a firmer, smoother surface that draws gently upwards.
On the screen beside the chair, the tissue under your chin shows as layers of grey and white. Depth markers run down the edge of the image, and the supporting band sits clearly below the softer fat. Your doctor checks that band before every line, so the warmth lands where it lifts.
As new collagen forms over the following weeks, the skin beneath your chin tightens a little more each month. Many people first notice it when they rest a chin on one hand, or when a roll-neck jumper sits more neatly. By three months the angle of the jaw reads cleaner.
The beauty of treating this area is how little changes in your routine. There is no bandage under the chin and no compression garment to wear. You simply go home, and your own skin does the gradual work of firming over the weeks ahead.
As new collagen forms over the following weeks, the skin beneath your chin tightens a little more each month.
The neck has been studied on its own as well as part of the face. In a 2016 study in the Journal of Drugs in Dermatology, Baumann and Zelickson treated 64 adults with laxity of the lower face and neck. The areas covered were under the chin, along the jaw, the lower neck and the platysma. Improvement showed at 60, 90 and 180 days.
That study also compared one depth with two. Patients treated at two focal depths across the whole area achieved slightly greater improvement than those treated at a single depth. That matches the screen in clinic. The neck carries both a firm deep band and a finer layer of skin above it.
A 2015 review of micro-focused ultrasound explains why the platysma matters here. The heated points make collagen in the SMAS and the platysma, the broad sheet of muscle across the front of the neck, contract and then rebuild. As that sheet firms, the skin over it sits closer to the throat and the angle under the chin sharpens.
Here is some good news for anyone nervous about sensation. The neck is one of the more comfortable areas to treat with Ultherapy, noticeably gentler than the cheek or the jawline. Topical numbing cream goes on for around 30 minutes first, which softens it further still.
Each line arrives as a quick run of warm, deep pulses. Over the neck they feel like a passing glow rather than anything sharp. Along the jawbone itself the warmth is stronger, so you are talked through each pass and given time to breathe between lines.
The session has a calm, steady rhythm. The treatment moves in small sections, with the screen checked, a line placed and the transducer moved a little further along the neck. Most people relax into it once the first few lines have passed and the warmth feels familiar.
You lie back comfortably with your head tilted slightly, so the skin of the neck sits smooth and flat. A layer of clear gel helps the transducer glide. A neck on its own takes noticeably less time than a full lower face and neck, which runs for roughly 60 to 90 minutes.
Afterwards the skin may look slightly pink, and that fades within a few hours. A little tenderness under the jaw can linger for a day or two. You can wear a scarf, a shirt collar or a necklace straight away, and daily SPF from the next morning is the only rule.
The neck can be treated on its own or together with the lower face and chest, and the choice rests on how far the softening runs. Your doctor watches how the skin moves from the ear to the collarbone as you turn, then suggests where the lift should begin and end:
Each session is doctor-led from start to finish, from the numbing cream to the time spent mapping your neck on screen. Because one session suits most people, a single visit usually carries a year or more of firmer skin. The plan and its investment are set out at your consultation.
Most people with a softening neck also see some change along the jaw. Treating the lower face and neck together carries the lift in one continuous sweep, from the angle of the jaw down to the base of the throat. The profile then reads as one smooth line.
Adding the décolletage makes sense if crepey skin shows in an open neckline. The chest firms alongside the neck, so a summer dress or an evening top frames a smoother, more even surface. Our page on skin tightening shows the other ways the clinic firms crepey skin.
Ultherapy firms skin and support, but it does not remove a pocket of fat sitting under the chin. Where that fullness is mostly fat, Endolift is the closer match. Its fine laser fibre reduces a small fat pocket while tightening the skin above it. The fibre enters through a single tiny point, and Dr Joney De Souza performs or directly supervises each of those treatments.
You begin with a consultation with Dr Joney De Souza or Dr Mattia Parducci at the clinic, a short walk from Baker Street and Regent’s Park. You sit upright in good light, then lower your chin and turn your head, so the doctors can see how the skin folds and where the angle softens.
Wear an open neckline if you can, so your neck and upper chest are easy to see in profile. Before treatment you are asked whether you are pregnant and whether there are metal implants in the area. The skin is checked for any active infection or open lesion. Your medical history and medicines are reviewed as well.
Ultherapy suits mild to moderate laxity, the stage where the neck has softened but still has good structure. If Dr Joney believes another option, such as treatment for jowls and facial laxity, would suit you better, he will say so. Either way you leave with a clear plan.
One session is enough for most people. The lift builds over two to three months, keeps improving to six, and typically lasts a year or more. A yearly top-up keeps it crisp. The consultation gives the real answer for your own neck, and for how many areas will help.
Patients come from St John’s Wood, Paddington and right across central London for Ultherapy in a doctor’s hands. If that glimpse in the phone camera is still on your mind, come and see us in Marylebone. Our Ultherapy treatment page has more to read before you visit.
Short clips filmed at Dr Joney De Souza Clinic in Marylebone, so you can see how Ultherapy is carried out before you book.
If the skin under your chin has softened, come and let Dr Joney De Souza or Dr Mattia Parducci look at it in profile. You will hear how Ultherapy would lift it and how the firmness builds month by month. Ring 020 7043 0748 or message us on WhatsApp.
The neck raises its own set of questions, from double chins to neck bands. These answers cover the ones that come up most often before people book a lift.
Ultherapy firms the skin and the supporting layer under the chin, so a soft fullness caused by laxity looks tighter and lifted. It does not remove fat. Where the fullness is mainly fat, Dr Joney will talk you through the options that suit it, and many people find the lift alone transforms their profile.
It does, and the side view is where most people see it first. As the support beneath the chin firms, the angle between jaw and neck sharpens, so the line from your ear to your chin reads cleaner in profile. Treating the lower face and neck together carries that lift in one sweep, which is why many people choose both areas at once.
It softens them as the skin firms and thickens with new collagen. Lines that have set deep into the skin improve gradually over three to six months rather than vanishing overnight. Dr Joney sometimes pairs Ultherapy with a skin quality treatment for the neck surface, such as Profhilo.
The neck is among the gentler areas to treat. With numbing cream applied for half an hour beforehand, most people describe a series of warm, quick pulses that feel more like a glow than a sting. The jawline above it is where the sensation runs strongest.
Neck bands are vertical cords caused by a muscle pulling, and they soften with anti-wrinkle injections. Laxity is a loosening of the skin and deep support, and that is what Ultherapy lifts. Plenty of people have a touch of both, and the two treatments sit together well.
Yes, straight away. There are no wounds or dressings, just a little pinkness that fades within hours. If the skin under your jaw feels tender for a day or two, a soft scarf is more comfortable than a tight collar, but nothing needs to change in your routine.
You may notice a little firmness within the first couple of weeks. The real change arrives between two and three months as collagen builds, and it carries on improving until around six months. Photographs taken side on, in the same window light each time, are the easiest way to see it.
It can, and it is a popular combination. Treating the lower face, neck and décolletage in one visit lets the whole area from the jaw to the chest lift at the same pace, so no band of skin looks firmer than the next. The décolletage can also be treated on its own if fine lines across the chest are all that bothers you.
It works best on mild to moderate laxity rather than at a particular age. Some people notice their neck softening in their late thirties, while others reach their fifties with good structure. What matters is how the skin and support behave when you lower and turn your head.
Dr Joney De Souza or Dr Mattia Parducci performs Ultherapy, including neck treatments. The live ultrasound image is read throughout, and the depth changes on the way down from the jaw towards the collarbone. Your first appointment can be with either doctor, and Dr Joney De Souza is the clinic’s founder. You can learn more about Dr Mattia on his profile.
