There is a lot of controversy around facial massage. Some people believe that face massage stretches your skin and causes sagging. Others believe that touching your face is a sin (well, at least for some people) that can cause premature aging and pimples. However, there are not too many people out there who don't like body massage. Nevertheless, very often they leave their faces neglected and either forget about the importance of massaging their face or believe in myths that stop them from enjoying this unbelievable tool of youth.
There are three very common myths that people believe in:
Facial massage stretches your skin and causes wrinkles.
Our skin is very elastic. That means it can stretch and has the ability to return to its normal state. As an example, think about pregnant women and the belly size right before childbirth; it’s huge. However, after the baby is born and the belly is gone, the stomach goes back to its normal size and becomes flat again. All of these transformations are possible due to the ability of our skin to stretch.
Now think about your face. The skin there has the same anatomical composition as on the rest of your body, meaning that it is also elastic. So, it won’t be an easy task to stretch it out to the extent that it creates wrinkles and sagging during massage sessions. However, things change as we get older. By the age of thirty-five, the synthesis of collagen and elastin slows down, and skin loses its elasticity. In place of its elastic and vibrant fibers comes hard connective tissue. As a result, the structural integrity of the skin declines. Moreover, repetitive facial expressions, muscle tightness, stress, and lack of relaxation are the root cause of age-related structural changes on our faces.
Massage is an amazing tool that prevents adhesions by stretching and relaxing stagnation and tightness. It improves blood circulation and nourishment of the tissue. Lymphatic drainage techniques help with swelling. Moreover, massage relaxes muscles from being chronically spasmed. As a result, it prevents the dislocation of fat packs. When fat packs move out of their natural position, we notice that some areas lose their volume while others add to it. For example, temporal areas tend to thin with age due to the temporal muscle being chronically overworked, and nasolabial folds (smile lines) add up in volume due to the chewing muscle (masseter) being spasmed and short as it pushes fat packs towards the middle part of the face.
Massage is needed only if I’m in pain or dealing with some health condition.
Massage is indeed a powerful tool during accident recovery or complications after certain illnesses. However, we shouldn’t deny that life starts from touch and depends immensely on touch.
A massage therapist does a big job for you. By incorporating different techniques and modalities, they achieve and improve muscle strength, joint mobility, skin elasticity, and reduce puffiness and swelling.
Research shows that babies grow faster if they are being touched. No wonder; what can be better than soft, warm human touch. Did you know that our skin produces endorphins (hormones of happiness)? An enormous amount of them is produced during a massage. Massage has a calming and anti-stress effect and helps us deal with physical and emotional stress.
The face shouldn’t be touched at all. Why even massage it?
We were taught that our face is a delicate area that shouldn’t be touched. Why? The reason is to avoid stretching of the skin; as a result, preventing premature wrinkles. However, this belief is very outdated and not scientifically proven. Every emotion that we experience is shown on our faces. When we smile, our muscles contract and form a nasolabial folds on the sides of our nose. Over time, this repetitive movement of muscles being over-contracted moves fat pockets to the middle part of the face, creating nasolabial folds that don’t smooth out as they did when we were younger. Even when we are grieving or sad, we tend to frown, with our eyebrows causing vertical lines on our faces to form. On top of emotions and our natural facial expressions, we are stressed out, have dental issues, and even underlying health conditions that affect our muscles and bones. As a result, we age prematurely.
Everybody wants to look young for as long as possible. However, working with the skin only, applying masks and creams won’t give dramatic results in preventing premature aging, nor fight already existing age-related changes. It means that our face needs to be worked out on both superficial and deeper levels. We have to work with fascia, muscles, ligaments, fat tissue, and bones in order to have our faces look healthy and radiant.
Deep facial massage is a passive workout for your face. It addresses muscle tightness, stagnation, fascial restrictions, improves blood circulation, and drains the lymph. As a result, your tissues are restored and freed up from wastes. Muscles are relaxed to their natural state. When spasms are eliminated from your face and neck, regenerative processes happen, rapidly preventing premature aging and keeping you looking young longer.
At Sculptiko Beauty we use manual face sculpting techniques (such as lymphatic drainage massage, myofascial release, facial trigger point massage, deep muscle release, intraoral massage) as well as customized skin care products that enables us to offer a comprehensive form of face care that gets to the root cause of early and existing signs of aging.