Will Chewing a Hard Piece of Plastic Give You a More ‘Manly’ Jawline?

Every morning for the past three weeks I have spent five minutes chewing on a smooth piece of plastic the size of a small egg. It’s called a Jawzrsize, and, at least according to hundreds of online testimonials and more than a few viral videos, continuing to regularly chew on this thing will grow and sculpt more than 50 muscles in my neck and jaw, leaving me with a sharper and more “masculine” appearance. Which is easy enough to laugh at—but not when you’ve still got a minute to go and your jaw is burning. It’s a real workout—it feels like I’m trying to lift a weight that I’m not quite strong enough for.

I first became aware of Jawzrsize through a video on my Instagram discover page. (It’s that kind of product.) In the video, CEO Brandon Harris held forth on the “forgotten value of biting” before chomping down on the product and flexing his neck. It was completely bizarre—and I couldn’t help but click for more. When Harris speaks he sounds like Matthew McConaughey after four Red Bulls, quickly shifting between surf-bro philosophy to impassioned sales pitches.

Harris created Jawzrsize after a series of intense accidents. In his early twenties, he broke his jaw in five places and lost a portion of his ear after a brawl broke out during an MMA event in Alaska. His jaw had to be wired shut for several months. Almost immediately afterward he moved to Hawaii—where he crashed his motorcycle and landed in a coma. During rehab, he wanted to find a way to strengthen his face the same way he was strengthening the rest of his body.

“My older brother had a pit bull we called Kane. He had the meanest bite. And all he’d ever do is gnaw on his Kong toy,” Harris told me from his Maui home. “I’d sit there and watch him use his masseter muscles and see his neck engaging. And I thought…I want something just like that.”

According to Harris, who repeatedly points out that he is not a doctor, the science behind the Jawersize is simple. The soft foods in the current Western diet have divorced us from the way our ancestors ate. That in turn gave us weaker facial features. The resistance that Jawersize offers builds the muscles in the jaw and face through repeated use, resulting in a sort of primal connection to our historical lineage and a more defined and handsome jawline.

Using himself as a guinea pig, he tested prototypes until he found a design that he was happy with, touting his facial transformation post-coma as proof of concept. A successful Kickstarter campaign in 2016 propelled the company forward, and after a years of growth—including coverage on Ellen and Dr. Phil spin-off The Doctors—Jawzrsize claims annual sales in the seven figures. I am not particularly self-conscious about my jaw, nor have I recently had it broken in a fight, but my curiosity quickly got the better of me.

While it was in the mail, I asked Dr. Alex St.Pierre, a clinician with specialization in kinesiology, about his thoughts on those claims. He was skeptical. “Your jaw is not just made up of muscles, but the mandible—the jaw bone—largely determines the shape of the jawline,” he said. “Training the masseter muscles could, in theory, give you the appearance of a wider, more defined jaw. But this will not affect other aspects of the jawline. While it is possible to get some change in how the jaw looks, you will will be limited by the bones that you were born with.”