Glossary · Approaches

Softmaxxing

Softmaxxing is the community's word for improving how your face reads without surgery or injectables: skincare, hair, body composition, grooming, sleep and posture. It is the whole scope of BecomeTen's plan, and the potential score is capped by what it can realistically move. Bone stays where it is.

3 min readUpdated 2026-09-07By Martin Saraka

A dark desk with a notebook and skincare bottles, the tools of a non-surgical routine

Also called: soft maxxing, non-surgical looksmaxxing

What is softmaxxing?

The term splits looksmaxxing into two halves. Softmaxxing is everything you can do with a routine: sunscreen, retinoids, treating acne, managing hair loss, body composition, grooming, sleep. Hardmaxxing is everything that needs a procedure. The split is useful because the halves have different evidence, risk and ceilings, and because most of the visible gain available to most people sits in the first.

What does the evidence support?

Softmaxxing areas and the strength of evidence behind them
Area	What moves	Evidence
Skin	Photoaging, tone, texture, acne	Strong for sunscreen and retinoids
Sleep	Under-eye and fatigue cues	Moderate
Body composition	Jaw and submental definition, cheek fullness	Moderate, via facial adiposity research
Hair	Density and hairline with treatment	Strong for medication, with a doctor
Grooming	Brows, beard, haircut, framing	No studies; labelled as such

Is softmaxxing workable or structural?

Softmaxxing is, by definition, the workable set. BecomeTen tags every weak point as workable or structural and the plan may only target the workable ones. The potential ceilings show how far it goes per area: skin +25, hair +20, jaw and chin +14, eye area +10, harmony +6. Skin and hair respond to routine; the jaw responds to body fat; the eye area to sleep and skin; harmony is mostly bone and barely moves.

A 2009 study in Perception found perceived facial fatness to be a strong cue in judgements of health and attractiveness, which is why body composition is usually the largest single lever in a plan; see body fat and the jawline.

One photo. Then stop guessing.

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What does not count as softmaxxing?

Mewing. Tongue posture has no good trials in adults for bone change. Posture in general can change how a jaw reads, and that is the only part BecomeTen will mention.
Bone smashing. Not a softmax, not a hardmax, just injury. Refused.
Fillers, botulinum toxin and other injectables. They need a clinic, so they belong on the hardmaxxing side, and the potential score excludes them.
Supplements without a deficiency. A 2019 review of vitamins and minerals in hair loss found supplementation helps mainly where a deficiency exists; a blood test with a doctor comes first.

Questions

How soon does softmaxxing show on a re-scan?

Skin and sleep changes are the first to read, usually within weeks; retinoid effects build over months, and hair density and body composition take months as well. The potential image assumes six to twelve months of consistent work. BecomeTen shows differences within two points as noise, so a very early re-scan mostly confirms the photo setup.

Is softmaxxing worth it when my weak points are structural?

Usually yes, because structural traits are rarely the whole score. Skin and hair carry over a fifth of the overall weight and have the largest ceilings, and body fat changes how every bone trait reads. The report separates the two so you can see how many points sit in the workable column.

Does grooming count if there are no studies behind it?

It counts, and it is labelled honestly. Brow shaping, beard lines, haircut and framing change how a face reads on camera, but nobody has run a trial on them, so BecomeTen marks those steps as having no studies. That label is information, not a dismissal; it tells you the step rests on practice rather than research.