Our Newest Enhancement Is Here - Gua Sha!
Crystal rollers are so last year… Completely kidding, our crystal rollers rich with benefits aren’t going anywhere but they do now have to share shelf space with another beauty tool that has recently found widespread popularity.
What Is Gua Sha?
Gua Sha (pronounced gwahshah) is a technique that traces back to traditional Eastern medicine. It aims to move energy (or qi/chi) around the body and involves a trusty gua sha tool. Pressure is applied to the skin as the gua sha tool “scrapes” the skin to alleviate muscle pain & tension.
Benefits of Gua Sha
Some benefits or gua sha include reduced inflammation and chronic pain relief. It also improves circulation, stimulates microcirculation in your soft tissues, and increases blood flow. Gua Sha was found to help ease migraine headaches and has also been known to reduce neck pain. Gua sha is also a great way to stimulate the lymphatic system as well.
When using gua sha on the face, breaking up & moving lymph easily removes toxins and blackheads or skin congestion. It can also firm up sagging skin, smooth wrinkles, and produce a more radiant glow. It’s great for reducing under eye circles and puffiness.
Side Effects of Gua Sha
Gua Sha is safe and never supposed to be painful but it can cause changes in your skin. Due to the scraping method, the surface of your skin may appear flushed or red after treatment. Since your skin is being treated with repeated scraping motions, you may notice capillaries that have bursts causing slight skin bruising. In the small chance this occurs, any visible side effects diminish within a few days. It’s important to note that if you’ve recently had surgery or are taking blood thinners, you should consult with your primary care physician before receiving any gua sha treatments.
Gua sha when performed on your face is also significantly gentler than its whole-body counterpart.
Necessary Gua Sha Tools
Jade is said to help gain insight, encourage creativity, heal, and insure a long life. Rose Quartz is said to inspire the love of beauty, in oneself and others so it’s only fitting that we chose these two crystals for our gua sha tools. You can purchase one of our gua sha massaging tools here.
Some Important Reminders
Use gentle pressure when performing gua sha on the face. Save firm pressure for body treatments.
The main benefit of facial gua sha is moving stagnant lymph so movements should go in a pattern that end up pushing lymph though our lymphatic ducts (located in between each collarbone).
Light scraping motions should flow upwards to prevent sagging. The only time you’ll directly your movements downwards are when you eventually end the treatment by pushing the lymphatic buildup through the lymph ducts.
Begin with three to five stokes on each area of your face. You can perform up to ten strokes on the forehead area.
Make sure your face (and hands!) are recently cleaned and ready.
Remember to ease up and skip gua sha on areas that include cystic acne, pimples, pen sores/lesions, or rosacea. Gua Sha will only further irritate the inflamed areas but when performed regularly, it’s great at keeping breakouts at bay!
How To Gua Sha
Apply facial oil (we love Epicuren’s Enzyme Concentrate Vitamin Protein Complex) covering your face and neck. Begin at the top of the forehead and work downwards.
Start with either a cool gua sha tool (we love keeping in the fridge for additional inflammation benefits) or feel free to warm the tool in the your hands slightly for a more relaxing treatment.
Begin by stroking from the middle of your eyebrows up to your hairline.
You’ll then move on to sweep from the center of the forehead above your eyebrows to your temples.
Staying on the bone of your brow, you’ll continue by scraping the area in between your eyebrow and eye lid.
Slowly, scrape the area under your eyes where you might find eye bags. You’ll start from the side of your nose and move gently up to your temple, finishing all the way in the hairline.
Complete the same movements only moving down slightly to the cheeks.
You’ll then also complete the same pattern of movement around your mouth area, sweeping upwards toward the middle of your ear.
Under your mouth, you’ll start in the middle of your face under your lower lip and sweep the chin area upwards to the ear lobe.
Under your chin, you’ll sweep out from the middle of your face to the bottom of your ear.
Finally, you’ll start to scrape from the bottom of your ear lobe and jawline down to your lymph ducts located in the middle of your collarbones.
The last step is to collect all the lymph from the face and move it to the lymph ducts. Begin by starting at the center of your forehead by your hairline. You’ll then seep down by your temples to your ears to your neck to eventually, the ducts. Perform this sweeping motion a few times for a complete clean sweep.
You’ve now performed a complete gua sha process and are ready to do the other side of your face.
If you’re not ready to try this treatment at home, add our gua sha enhancement to your next facial service and our aestheticians would be happy to teach you everything you need to know! If you have any questions about gua sha in the meantime, be sure to leave them in the comments and we’ll answer them!