The Looksmaxxing
Dictionary.
Every term, defined straight, with an honest answer on whether the thing actually works. Written by the people who make the products, which means we will also tell you when the answer is that you are being sold something.
looksmaxxing
Looksmaxxing is the practice of deliberately improving your physical appearance through a consistent routine. In practice that means grooming, skincare, hair care, training, sleep, nutrition and dress, run as a system rather than as random purchases. The term comes from internet forum culture, where "maxxing" means maximising a given attribute.
The honest version of looksmaxxing is unglamorous and it works: sleep properly, train, eat enough protein, wear sunscreen, get a haircut that suits your head shape, and run a four-step skincare routine every day for ninety days. Most of the visible gain available to most guys sits in that list.
The version that gets attention online is the extreme one, and most of it either does nothing or hurts you. See bone smashing.
softmaxxing
Softmaxxing is improving your appearance through non-surgical, reversible changes. Skincare, haircare, grooming, posture, body composition, style, sleep and dental hygiene. The opposite of hardmaxxing.
This is where essentially everyone should start and where most people should stop. Softmaxxing carries no medical risk, costs a fraction of a procedure, and delivers the majority of realistic improvement. If you have not run a consistent skincare and training routine for ninety days, you do not yet know what your face looks like at baseline, which means you are in no position to evaluate anything more drastic.
hardmaxxing
Hardmaxxing is improving appearance through surgical or medical intervention. Rhinoplasty, jaw surgery, hair transplant, orthodontics, leg lengthening, injectables.
These are real medical procedures with real outcomes and real risks, and they belong in a conversation with a licensed surgeon, not a forum. The failure mode we see constantly is someone considering surgery before they have ever run a basic routine, lost body fat, or fixed their sleep. Exhaust the reversible options first, then decide with a doctor.
jawmaxxing
Jawmaxxing is the pursuit of a more defined jawline. Common methods include chewing gum or mastic gum, mewing, facial exercises, jaw exercisers, debloating and reducing body fat.
The uncomfortable truth is that jaw definition is mostly a function of body fat percentage, bone structure and water retention, in that order of what you can actually change. Chewing hard gum can add mild masseter hypertrophy over months, which widens the jaw slightly. It does not change your mandible. Reducing body fat and controlling bloating does more for a jawline in eight weeks than any jaw device will in a year.
skinmaxxing
Skinmaxxing is optimising skin clarity, tone and texture through a consistent routine. Cleansing, active treatment, moisturising and daily sunscreen, plus the sleep and nutrition that support them.
Of every category in looksmaxxing, this is the one with the highest and most reliable return for the least money and risk. Skin is the largest visible surface of your face and the one that responds fastest to consistency. Four steps, done daily, judged at ninety days. Not twelve steps, done for a week.
hairmaxxing
Hairmaxxing is optimising the appearance, condition and styling of your hair. This covers scalp care, conditioning, cut and style choice, and cosmetic products formulated for the look of fuller hair.
Two very different things get called hairmaxxing. Cosmetic hair care, which improves how hair looks, feels and behaves, is real and it is what products can honestly do. Medical hair loss treatment is a different category entirely and involves drugs like minoxidil and finasteride, which is a conversation for a doctor. Cosmetic products cannot regrow hair and any brand telling you otherwise is making a drug claim it is not licensed to make.
smellmaxxing
Smellmaxxing is deliberately optimising how you smell. Hygiene first, then laundry, then fragrance layering and application technique.
Genuinely one of the highest-return and least-discussed areas. The order matters more than the products: shower properly, wash your clothes and your pillowcase, deal with feet and breath, and only then think about fragrance. A good cologne over poor hygiene smells worse than no cologne at all.
sleepmaxxing
Sleepmaxxing is optimising sleep quantity and quality for recovery and appearance. Consistent schedule, dark cool room, no screens late, and treating eight hours as non-negotiable rather than aspirational.
Under-eye darkness, facial puffiness, dull skin and poor recovery all track sleep more tightly than they track any product. It is free, it is boring, and it beats every serum in this store for the first two weeks of anyone's routine. Buy the products after you fix the sleep, not instead of it.
gymmaxxing
Gymmaxxing is improving appearance through resistance training and body composition change. Lifting, progressive overload, protein intake and managing body fat percentage.
Most people think of this as a body thing. It is also the single most effective facial intervention available to a lean-able person, because dropping body fat reveals bone structure that is already there. A jawline you thought you did not have is often just under twelve pounds.
heightmaxxing
Heightmaxxing is attempting to increase height or the appearance of height. Methods range from posture correction, footwear and shoe lifts to leg lengthening surgery.
After growth plates close, actual height cannot be increased without surgery. Posture correction can recover a genuine half inch to an inch that poor thoracic position was costing you, and it is worth doing on its own merits. Everything sold as a height-increasing supplement or stretching protocol for adults does not work. Leg lengthening surgery is real, extremely serious, and a discussion for an orthopaedic surgeon.
teethmaxxing
Teethmaxxing is improving the appearance of teeth and smile. Hygiene, whitening, orthodontics, and in some cases veneers.
Teeth are one of the first things people register on a face and one of the last things men bother to address. Cleaning, flossing and a whitening routine cost almost nothing relative to their effect. Orthodontics and veneers are dental procedures and belong with a dentist, not a forum protocol.
moneymaxxing
Moneymaxxing is optimising income and financial position. It sits inside the wider maxxing vocabulary because attractiveness is treated holistically in that framing, covering grooming, health, status and resources.
The suffix has escaped its origins. "Maxxing" now attaches to almost anything, from fibermaxxing to sleepmaxxing to birthdaymaxxing, and simply means going all in on something.
mogging / mogged
To mog someone is to visibly outclass them in attractiveness when standing next to them. To be mogged is to be on the receiving end. The term derives from AMOG, alpha male of the group, and travelled from forum culture into mainstream internet slang, largely as a joke.
Worth naming plainly: framing your appearance as a competition you win or lose against the people around you is a fast route to feeling worse regardless of how you look. The version of this that ends well treats the comparison as a joke and the routine as seriously as anything else you maintain.
PSL rating
A PSL rating is a numerical attractiveness score out of ten, using a scale that originated on the PSL forums. The name comes from the three forums the scale grew out of. Ratings are typically given by strangers online or by apps that claim to score a face from a photo.
The scale is not scientific, it is not consistent between raters, and it was built by communities that are, in many cases, actively hostile to the people asking to be rated. Apps that charge a weekly subscription to score your face are selling anxiety back to you at a markup.
If you want a useful measurement, take a photo in the same light on day one and day ninety of an actual routine and compare those. That is a real signal. A number from a stranger is not.
canthal tilt
Canthal tilt is the angle of an imaginary line drawn from the inner corner of the eye to the outer corner. A positive canthal tilt means the outer corner sits higher than the inner corner. Neutral means level. Negative means it sits lower.
It is genuine facial anatomy and it is largely determined by bone structure and soft tissue you were born with. No exercise, tape or serum changes it. What can change is how visible your eye area is overall: under-eye puffiness, dark circles, hydration and sleep all affect how the eye region reads, which is the part actually within your control.
hunter eyes
Hunter eyes describes a deep-set eye shape with a low, hooded upper eyelid and a positive canthal tilt, treated in looksmaxxing communities as a highly desirable male trait. The opposite term is "prey eyes."
This is orbital bone structure. You cannot train it, tape it or supplement it into existence, and anyone selling you a method for it is selling you nothing. Sleep, body fat and hydration change how your eye area presents. Your orbital rim does not move.
mewing
Mewing is holding the tongue flat against the roof of the mouth, with lips together and teeth lightly touching, as a permanent resting posture. Proponents claim it reshapes the jaw and midface over time.
Correct oral posture is a reasonable habit with plausible benefits for breathing and for how you carry your face. The claim that it remodels adult facial bone is not supported by good evidence, and the visible before and afters circulating online are overwhelmingly explained by weight loss, camera angle, lighting and chin position. Search interest in mewing has fallen sharply, which is roughly what happens when a technique gets tested at scale.
tongue posture
Tongue posture refers to where your tongue rests when your mouth is closed. Proper posture is generally described as the tongue resting flat against the palate with the tip just behind the front teeth, lips sealed, breathing through the nose.
Worth doing because nasal breathing and a sealed lip position are good habits in their own right, particularly at night. Worth being sceptical of the facial restructuring claims attached to it. Fix it because mouth breathing is worth fixing, not because you expect a new jaw.
bone smashing
Bone smashing, also called "the hammer method," is the practice of deliberately striking your own facial bones in the belief that they will heal back stronger and more defined. It is based on a misreading of Wolff's law.
Do not do this. It does not work. Facial bone does not remodel that way, and what it actually produces is fractures, nerve damage, permanent asymmetry and infection. There is no version of this that is safe, no correct technique, and no dose that makes it fine. If you have been considering it, that is a signal worth taking seriously about how you are feeling, not about your face.
LookMaxxing does not sell anything for this and never will. Same goes for extreme fasting, unregulated peptide injections bought from research suppliers, and anything sold as a shortcut. If you are struggling with how you look in a way that is affecting your daily life, that is worth talking to a doctor or a therapist about, and it is a more useful conversation than any forum will give you.
Do the boring parts.
They are the parts that work.
Discipline · Confidence · Legacy
Where we stand.
We make looksmaxxing products, so we have an obvious interest here, and we would rather say this out loud than pretend otherwise. Looksmaxxing at its best is just self-respect with a schedule. At its worst it is a pipeline into communities that make young men feel permanently defective and then sell them the cure.
We are the first kind. We will tell you when a category does not work, including categories we could easily sell you something in. We do not use PSL scores, we do not run before and afters implying results nobody got, and we do not market to anyone under 18.
Read the ingredient standard →These statements have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration. Our products are not intended to diagnose, treat, cure or prevent any disease. Cosmetic products affect the appearance of skin and hair only. Nothing on this page is medical advice.