Let’s face it, we all want to put our best face forward whether we are face to face with ourselves in the mirror, on a Zoom call, or sitting with our peers in person! This isn’t vanity, it’s completely natural to want to care for your face. So how can we put our best face out there for the world to see and be happy when we look in the mirror without surgery or questionable injectables?
Face Yoga
In our face we have over 40 muscles. Just like the muscles in the rest of the body, if we don’t exercise them, we can lose muscle tone. And we all know that as we age, we lose muscle tone, and this applies to the muscles in our face, too. The facial muscles are a little different than those throughout our body because they are the only muscles that are directly attached to your skin. The muscles through the body are attached to bone via tendons but not to the skin over them. That is why keeping your face muscles toned will help keep your face toned and keep it from sagging or drooping. This muscle attachment to the skin is why expressions create lines. By doing face yoga, you can retrain your face to use specific muscles when making expressions and you can lift and tone the muscles in the cheeks and jawline. For example, stop using your eyebrows when you’re concerned or looking up. Instead of raising your brows to look up, use your eyes and tilt your head. Instead of furrowing your brow when concerned, just use your eye muscles! You can find a lot of sources to learn face yoga on YouTube.com at no cost. The experts say just 1-2 minutes of face yoga a day will help tone the face. Longer periods of daily exercise over a long period of time can truly change appearances by slimming, tightening, and lifting.
Facial Tools
Gua-Sha is centuries old and is the art of scraping using a stone. Traditionally this was done to alleviate pain in sore, tight muscles by scraping the surface of the skin and bringing new fresh blood to the muscles. Often traditional Gua-Sha would mark the skin and is a much different practice than what is known as the Gua-Sha facial. The practice of this for the face is a light massage and lift to the facial muscles. It’s also great for moving fluid out of the face, which can be heavy and create loose skin over time. You can find a ton of great stones at Amazon and a lot of “how to” tutorials on YouTube.com. You can even use the rounded side of a spoon to see if Gua-Sha is something you enjoy.
Stone rollers are also great for massage, moving fluid, and pressing product into the skin. You will see these even at the pharmacy in the beauty tool section. I enjoy keeping mine in the fridge since I battle a rosy complexion and the cool stone calms inflammation or irritation.
Microneedle rollers sound scary, but they aren’t very large or deep needles. They are very fine but will create micro punctures into the dermis opening the skin and allowing your facial products to be absorbed by the skin 70% better than applying without using the tool! That will increase the effectiveness of the products going into the skin and allow them to reach deeper into the dermal layer. These can be purchased on Amazon for $13 and they offer different needle depth. Start with the shorter depth and if your skin tolerates it well after use, you can purchase the longer depth.
Clean Make-Up
We wear make-up typically more than half the day! Keep your make-up clean by switching over from big beauty brands that use cheap chemicals to smaller lines that use organic and clean ingredients. Lipstick is a fabulous way to add some color and pizazz to your best face, but any chemical in your lipstick is going to be in your mouth when you eat, drink, or even touch your tongue to your lip. Not to mention your face is still part of your largest organ and you want to make sure you aren’t slathering chemicals all over it. Toups and Co. is a fantastic line of clean make up and they have a ton of other great body balms and oils.
Bakuchiol
A natural swap from retinol, Bakuchiol is a plant extract from the psoralea corylifolia plant. It’s highly touted for its gentleness for sensitive skin, but studies show it to be as effective as retinol in treating fine lines, hyperpigmentation, collagen production, and cell turnover. For those of us who have sensitive skin, Bakuchiol is a great alternative to retinol, which can sometimes cause redness and irritation. Just like retinol, Bakuchiol will make your skin more photosensitive to sunlight because of the cell turnover so make sure to use this in your nighttime regimen and wear a mineral sunscreen during the day. Burt’s Bees offers a great Bakuchiol serum that won’t break the bank and is easily accessible at most Walgreens pharmacies just around the corner.
