From the rise of Gua Sha tutorials on YouTube to the latest in-salon treatments offering jutting cheekbones and a more toned jawline without so much as a scalpel or syringe in sight, facial workouts are becoming increasingly popular as an alternative to more invasive beauty measures in our quest for more youthful skin.
We’re well versed in the virtues of working-out our abs, glutes and biceps to achieve more tone and definition when it comes to our bodies, but if you’ve never really given your facial muscles much consideration, 2021 looks set to be the year that flexing your facial muscles comes to the fore. For the uninitiated, a facial workout is different to a facial; for starters it focuses on what’s going on underneath the dermal layers as opposed to offering a temporary topical treatment. How it is done also varies from manual massage using rose quartz crystals to laser-based equipment. But unlike the ‘no pain, no gain’-style clichés usually reserved for gym bunnies, facial workouts are a pain-free, non-invasive way to subtly manipulate the facial muscles to provide more elasticity, tone, and promote collagen production, and even reduce the appearance of fine lines and wrinkles.
The Salon Face Bar, located on Dubai’s Palm Jumeirah and Rixos JBR, has recently launched a selection of facials designed to give the facial muscles a targeted workout, without breaking so much as a sweat. Among the workouts are two HIIT (high intensity interval training) facial treatments, Gimme Lift and Notox, lasting 20 minutes apiece. Each workout has been designed to provide intense bursts of rigorous movement of the facial muscles followed by a rest period, which involves a more gentle massage, and both have been devised to lift and tone the skin, particularly the jawline and cheekbones. “In principle, it’s just the same as working-out your body,” Lily Raffan, owner of The Salon Face Bar, explains. “It’s important to activate facial muscles regularly for a toned appearance in the long term. The blood is pumping, more oxygen reaches your face muscles and you feel instantly tighter and leaner after your session.”
“Doing face workouts regularly effectively improves skin tone, reduces fine lines, and detoxifies the skin,” says Isadora Peric, creator of The Fit Face Dubai. “Facial exercises increase your blood circulation, bringing more oxygen to your muscles, skin, glands, and brain. They also boost collagen and elastin production, giving it more strength and elasticity,” she adds. After suffering from a potentially fatal infection in her facial bones in 2014, Isadora discovered face yoga as a healing tool, primarily for herself, before she developed the method she now uses on clients, which involves exercising all 68 muscles of the face and neck.
“It is a non-surgical and natural technique for lifting and returning volume to the face. It helps you bring awareness and control over your facial muscles and prevents unnecessary mimics,” she explains. Having worked with international brands including Chanel, Harvey Nichols and L’Occitane en Provence, Isadora is now well established on the facial workout circuit, but she admits that when she started teaching facial yoga back in 2014, people often thought she had “made it up.” “Now it’s much more in demand,” she says. “I think generally people would like more of a balance between invasive and natural. I’ve noticed that women no longer want to feel pressured into doing something and they would like to be a bit nicer to themselves. This is also a key part of our concept, the mental health and confidence aspect of beauty.”