Sculpting jaws, giving scores: Inside the world of looksmaxxing

Marvin ponders his attractiveness before giving himself "a solid 7/10". With a bit more work, he feels he could improve.

"I'm not happy with my skin, eyebags and my jawline could be better," Marvin says. "If I sort all that, then I'd be a 9/10."

The 26-year-old is a keen "looksmaxxer". His day starts early with a hard gym workout, then he's back home and his routine starts. After a warm and ice-cold shower, he cleanses his face and rubs a frozen cucumber over it, which he says will reduce puffiness, acne and brighten his skin.

Then he carries out jaw and other facial exercises, videos of which he often posts to his 35,000 followers on TikTok.

"This is the Zygopush," Marvin tells me, while pressing his thumbs directly under his cheekbones and massaging upwards towards his ears in an attempt to hollow out his cheeks.

"Then there's the Hunter squeeze," he says as he pushes his index fingers against his temples and squeezes his eyes, which he says will make them more "wolf-like" in shape.

As he describes his daily regime, he laughs.

"People do sometimes think, 'What is this man doing?'"

Marvin has brought various looksmaxxing techniques into his daily routine

But Marvin's confident it's helping him achieve the appearance he desires - a hollow-cheeked, chiselled profile with sharp, pointed eyes and strong jawline. Getting that look, he explains, is when a man "peaks" - he says he's gone from "unsatisfied carpenter working nine to five" to an "online entrepreneur".

Welcome to the online world of "looksmaxxing", where a growing number of young men are going to great lengths to get what they see as the perfect face and body, and therefore the perfect life.

Men are now carrying out a range of daily tasks - from workouts in the gym and a good skincare routine (known as softmaxxing), to taking growth hormones and unregulated peptides.

At the other end of the spectrum (known as hardmaxxing), they "bone-smash" or have jaw surgery to "ascend" and reach a Neanderthal-like appearance.

If you don't fit this aesthetic and you're not at least working to change the way you look then you're at risk of falling into the "sub three" category, as Marvin puts it, and becoming "not a very good-looking human".

He uses a face analysis app, which assesses pictures of him to check which kind of areas he might want to work on. Such apps have thousands of reviews on app stores.

For some men, looksmaxxing has given them a rulebook on what makes a "successful male", and crucially, how to become one. One of the biggest influencers is Braden Peters, AKA Clavicular, a sharp-jawed 20-year-old known in looksmaxxing terms as "giga chad"; 10/10.

In his own vernacular, he "mogs" everyone he meets - he is so at the top of his game that he outshines everyone in his presence.

Clavicular attributes his looks to, among other things, taking testosterone from the age of 14 and smashing his jawbone with a hammer to supposedly reshape his lower face - neither of which is recommended by health professionals.

His content, and that of similar influencers, has brought looksmaxxing out of niche underground subcultures and made it more mainstream.

But some who have been studying the manosphere - an ultra-masculine subculture that made headlines again this week as the focus of a new Louis Theroux documentary - believe looksmaxxing is a gateway to a more sinister world.

It's a word that was initially found in online forums for incels - young men who describe themselves as "involuntary celibate" - often full of misogynistic rhetoric claiming women are to blame for a man's lack of sexual encounters.

Clavicular appeared at New York Fashion Week in February 2026

Journalist Matt Shea has made documentaries and written extensively about the dangers of toxic masculinity. He says misogynistic influencer Andrew Tate (who he has interviewed), Clavicular, and many other male influencers share the same ideology - and use it to make money.

"They tell young men how worthless they are," Shea says, "then offer themselves up as the solution.

"They sell courses on how to increase your sexual market value (SMV) - basically a measurement of how attractive you are according to their scale."

The higher your SMV, he explains, the more likely you are to have sex with a woman. Looksmaxxing, to a certain degree, becomes a way to climb the attractiveness ladder. If a woman doesn't want you after all that then either you haven't done enough self-improvement or it's their fault, as the logic goes.

"That," Shea adds, "is when it becomes dangerous."