Have you seen these weird little stone tools around or heard about about Gua Sha facials? Maybe you wonder what Gua Sha is and why its sudden popularity.
The Basics
Gua Sha (pronouced gwa sha) is based on a Chinese technique of skin scraping designed to create light bruising on the body. The technique is adapted for facials with much lighter pressure. I like to think of it as massage for the face. It takes a light touch and, in my opinion, is a pretty fast and easy pampering routine to fit into a busy day.
Benefits of Gua Sha Facials
There are a lot of claims around the benefits of gua sha and they run a wide range.
- Smooth wrinkles – if you think of gua sha as a gentle face message this makes sense. The motions relaxes the underlying muscular structure of the face.
- Eliminates puffiness and dark circles – this is connected to the lymphatic drainage the motion of the stone can effect. In turn this can make your face look more sculpted with regular use, particularly around the jawline.
- Promotes circulations – again think of facial massage.
- Relieves tension – facial massage again and some pressure point work
- Glowing skin – this is related to the facial massage and blood flow. You want to be gentle to avoid any lingering redness, broken capillaries, and bruising.
Materials
The technique uses shaped stone scrapers made of some gemstone materials. Most commonly, you’ll see gua sha scrapers made out of rose quartz or jade. However, you can find them in metal, sodalite, amethyst, and other stones.
Shapes
While there are many different shapes of scrapers to choose from, it comes down to personal preference and what best suits your face contour.
Quality & Price
It seems that everyone and their brother has a gua sha scraper on the market these days. They range from inexpensive to pricey, basic to designer, and everything in between. I read dozens of reviews about various scrapers before settling on two classic heart-ish shaped ones in jade and rose quartz. You want to find something that is not too thin – they can break – but not too thick so they have the right scraping edge. It should be comfortable to hold and it should fit your budget.
So far I’m really enjoying the ones I settled on (a double set) from Amazon. They are very affordable and I enjoy both of them. They are large enough to easily hold onto but hit a nice balance of thickness and durability with thinness to get the job done.
The Technique
Let me stress again, you want to apply light pressure. I’ll keep saying this because you really don’t want to damage your skin.
Skin Products
You definitely want to use this technique in conjunction with face products. You want slip to allow the stone to glide smoothly across your skin. Pulling or tugging is bad for skin and gets you the opposite effect that you want. I like to pair this with a serum step in my morning (or nighttime) skincare routine. You can use moisturizer, serum, or facial oil. There are some claims that gua sha facial massage helps improve the absorption of your product.
I can’t find anything that corroborates this so I’m only mentioning it in passing.
Massage Pattern
The illustration below shows the general directions and passes that you will use with your gua sha tool. Use all of the sides of the tool. The heart shaped cleft in the style I am using is wonderful for “hugging” the jawline and the eyebrow line in particular. The large flat side works well for the cheeks and the narrower point on the end of the “heart” works well for around the eye socket and nose.
If I coupled my blog with a video channel, I would demonstrate it but there are a lot of good tutorials out there. I like this one on YouTube a lot. The specific details on the technique start around 4:08.
Angle and Motion
When you hold the stone to scrape, it’s almost flat along the skin. I think of it as pressing the skin or massaging the face to remind myself of the angle. You need a firm grip on the stone (the gemstone surface can get slippery depending on the skincare product you are using for “slip”. But remind yourself that your firm grip on the stone should result in light pressure on your skin. Light pressure, no tugging or pulling.
The thing I really like about the video I linked above is that she lingers at the “end” of the arrows on many sweeps. These points hit pressure points in our face where we hold tension. These are notably around the ear, the temples, the jaw, and the forehead.
Frequency
How often can you do a gua sha facial massage? This is a harder question to answer. I found people who do it daily, others who gua sha several times a week and others who recommend weekly sessions only. I split the difference and decided to try doing it every other day. I fit it in around other established beauty routines. An entire pattern doesn’t take more than a couple of minutes.
I wasn’t very rigid with my schedule. I try really hard not to rush and to stay relaxed while I do it. If I forgot in the morning, I would just do it at night. If I woke up one day and felt like doing it back to back, I would. However, to be that broken record, I was sure to use light pressure and not damage my skin which is the opposite outcome I wanted.
Bottom Line
So what’s my take on all of this? I like it.
I don’t think it will make us look appreciably younger, though the immediate post gua sha glow is lovely. I definitely see the benefits of moving fluid around to reduce puffiness and improve the visible “contouring” temporarily.
I think the real value of gua sha facials is relaxation. When I started doing this, I hadn’t realized how much tension I was holding in my face. As I hit those pressure points around my face, they were tight and tender. The more I do it, the less tension I am finding in my face. That alone is enough for me to continue doing it.
This time my curiosity paid off!
Any suggestions on where my curiosity should take me next? Drop it in the comments!
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