The pretty slabs of crystal are far more than just a trendy skin care ritual beloved by wellness influencers and beauty gurus: Facial gua sha is a specific type of massage adapted from ancient Chinese bodywork that utilizes a scraping tool to encourage circulation and lymph flow. Here’s the play-by-play of doing gua sha every morning for two weeks. (And if you want to learn more about gua sha, check out the explainer here.) If you, too, start to notice breakouts on your face after trying a few consecutive days of gua sha, she suggests focusing on downward strokes starting from the jaw line and ending at the clavicle. (An editor’s note: The jury’s still out on how well gua sha can encourage lymphatic drainage—as there hasn’t been a ton of studies on it—regardless, encoring circulation to the face is good for the skin.) You can feel the peaks, valleys, divots, and—dare I say?—knots in your face with a gua sha stone. I tend to hold tension under my cheekbones, forehead, and all along the side of my face, from the temple to the jaw line. When I worked on my forehead lines, feeling the specific shape of the tissue underneath the skin told me volumes about how I express and hold my face. Knowing this, I became more aware of my facial muscles in general. So often people talk about knowing how you hold your body—but we should also be aware of how we hold our face. Regular facial massages can help us do that. After a few days of consecutive gua sha, I noticed a little swelling underneath my jaw line and chin. Plug said that the lymph might be pooling in that area. If you find that happens for you, “neck work is even more important,” she said. “Start and finish with gentle strokes down the neck to keep the lymph moving.” After a while, I didn’t really care about the aesthetic results—relieving that kind of tension felt so good. For me, the lines looked smoothed right after my self-practice, but so far they still return. “Because of the shape of your forehead, your lines go a little deeper,” Plug said. The eraser technique will help break through scar tissue that’s formed, but it’s a longer process. “Someone who has a different shape or surface lines might see results more quickly,” she said. Overall, I have noticed that my skin looks more sculpted, lifted, and buoyant. It has a bounce that sticks around all day long, and that awake, pulled-back look I didn’t realize I could give to myself. Getting over that go-go-go mentality was, ironically, the very thing I needed to feel energized throughout the day. When self-care is one of the first things I do, I’m able to build on that momentum and serve everyone and everything else with my full attention.
