One of my favourite parts of my skincare routine involves rolling a cold jade roller to help with lymphatic drainage and to de-puff. (You can read my post about jade rollers here). Recently, I started following @noyskincare on Instagram and have been fascinated with Danna Omari’s Gua Sha’s facials she gives herself and her clients. In her videos, she uses a flat jade stone with different edges to massage, de-puff and basically shape her face and neck. It’s really interesting!
So what is Gua Sha? Pronounced gwaa-shaa, which directly translates to “scraping” in Chinese, is an ancient East Asian healing practice in which a practitioner takes a flat tool and, using a generous amount of pressure pulls it across the skin to increase blood flow. Gua Sha is used to help drain the lymphatic system, ease muscle tension and help with symptoms of chronic pain and inflammation.
I purchased my Gua Sha tool from Winners. Although some of them are made out of porcelain, the most popular ones are made out of crystals like rose quarts and jade. (Mine is jade). Gua Sha has a much stronger effect than rollers due to the nature of the technique and the different angles on the tool that can be used to focus on specific sections of skin and muscle. Benefits include de-puffing, lifting and helping your muscles release any tension.
When choosing your Gua Sha tool, you want to make sure that it has at least 2 different grooves, so that it can target areas like the jawline and cheeks.
Ok so here is a quick how to guide to get you started:
It is important to lubricate your skin a bit before you start, with either a moisturizer, facial oil or serum. You don’t need to but it definitely helps the stone glide smoothly when pulling the skin.
Starting at the base of your neck, take the flat side of the tool and move upwards towards your chin, applying a good amount of pressure. Hold it as flat as you can while keeping a solid grip. Repeat on all sides of your neck.
From the base of your chin, take the flat edge and sweep upwards towards your cheekbones. (Note: I tend to carry a lot of tension in my jaw so I use the tool to ease any muscle knots I have there, it works wonders!!)
Using the smaller angles on your tool, you can really get into the angles of your face, always to the sides and sweeping upwards (under your eyes, forehead, cheeks etc).
My final thoughts: I have been really enjoying doing this in the evenings before I go to bed. It takes some practice and patience but I can already start to see the benefits. It really does help with de-puffing and my face is more defined. Where I really notice the difference is in my jaw line and just under my chin. As we age, the skin under your chin can start to lose elasticity (the dreaded double chin) I take the tool and go over my neck and lift the skin under my chin and I find its more taunt and defined. Repeated actions like looking down on your cellphone or just bad posture can contribute to sagging skin under the neck so its never too early to start being proactive about this! I also run this along my jaw line to get rid of any muscle knots and tension and it feels really good.
If you want more information I highly recommend checking out @noyskincare’s videos to see some examples of the facials. Happy sweeping!
Xoxo
Nel
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