Muscle · Head

Levator labii superioris

Musculus levator labii superioris

A broad thin sheet under the lower eyelid that lifts the upper lip. It arises along the lower rim of the eye socket from both the cheekbone and the upper jaw, then runs down and inward to fan into the substance of the upper lip. Contracting it raises and everts the lip and deepens the fold between the nose and the mouth — the sneer, and part of every open smile. It is the middle of three muscles doing much the same job side by side, and they are impossible to separate by feel: what you can see is the lip rising evenly, or not.