Let me start by saying: I did not complete 30 days of face yoga.
I had intended to do 30 days of face yoga to see whether it would tone and tighten my face, as promised by various targeted ads. But as I learned on day 1 of face yoga, I hate it.
Spending 10-15 minutes stretching and pinching the delicate skin of my face and neck was a disconcerting, uncomfortable experience that made me feel like human Silly Putty. As a result, I only completed 14 non-consecutive days of face yoga.
But maybe you will be one of the people who love it! Like Meghan Markle or Gwyneth Paltrow. The Kardashians once worked with face yoga expert Koko Hayashi, who charges $350 for a 50-minute private online session. So if the famously beautiful are into it, what is this wretched mortification of the flesh exercise all about?
What is face yoga?
Face yoga is a series of exercises, massages and stretches for the face. What they accomplish is unclear. The Cleveland Clinic says that massaging your face can relax facial muscles, release tension and “stimulate blood flow that makes your face ‘glow.’”
Trying to manipulate and sculpt facial muscles is a practice “as old as time”, says Sofie Pavitt, a New York-based skincare expert, licensed esthetician and founder of the Sofie Pavitt Face skincare line. “It’s one of those things that gets trendy, and then goes away for a while, and then gets trendy and comes back,” she says.
I first heard about face yoga on the platform where I’m most regularly confronted with my aesthetic shortcomings: Instagram. I started seeing ads for an app called Luvly, which makes lavish promises. The company’s material on the app store includes graphics of gorgeous AI models, overlaid with text that says: “No double chin, no wrinkles, no face fat, no skin problems.”
I signed up for a plan that cost $19.99 a month. As part of the intake process, I answered a series of multiple choice questions about my skin, face shape, diet and motivations for doing face yoga. “I want to look younger to feel confident,” was one of the options. “I’m afraid my partner will break up with me,” was another.
My subscription gave me access to informational videos and one daily 10-15 minute workout video for my “Skin Tightening Program”. By following the program, I was told, I could tone the roughly 50 muscles of my face – important because there is “a direct correlation” between a loss of tone in these muscles and “skin aging”, apparently. Exercising these muscles is supposed to keep one’s visage buff and pert, and help prevent the skin from sagging.
I pictured my face as one of Chris Hemsworth’s bulging biceps, but with my eyes and mouth.
How does face yoga work?
On the app, every day has a theme. Day 1 was a “Jowls Reducing Facial Workout”. Day 9 was “Forehead Mobility Training”. The exercises are demonstrated by three angelic models with perfect skin and posture who smile beatifically from the screen while a voice over directs you: “Grab the neck with the right hand, and pull the skin to the right.”
Much of it involved massaging the face – around the forehead, over the jawline, down the sides of the neck. Sometimes you stretch the skin away from the centerline of your face; sometimes you pinch it between two fingers. I had expected the massages to feel soothing, but I found the sensation bizarre and uncomfortable.
Some of the exercises involve no touching at all. I’d thrust my neck back and forth or jut my tongue out of my mouth. These activities supposedly improve muscle tone and mobility. They weren’t uncomfortable, but I felt silly.
Does face yoga work?
According to research: maybe a tiny bit. In 2018, a study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) found that “a 30-minute daily or alternate-day facial exercise program sustained over 20 weeks may modestly improve the facial appearance of selected middle-aged women”.
But who has 30 minutes a day to spend kneading their face? Eleven of the 27 participants who enrolled in the study dropped out – presumably because they, like me, realized that one’s precious and fleeting life can be spent doing absolutely anything else.
Besides how unpleasant I found the process, I wondered whether rubbing my hands all over my face every day was OK for my skin and general health. Sure enough, Pavitt, whose skincare studio specializes in treating patients with problematic skin, says that she usually advises clients to avoid touching their faces too much.
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“If somebody is dealing with cystic acne, hormonal breakouts, redness, rosacea or sensitivity, something like face yoga can exacerbate these skin conditions,” she explains.
If you’re too aggressive in your manipulation of the skin, you can also inadvertently worsen wrinkles. “You can stretch the skin,” says Dr Houtan Chobaki, a facial plastic surgeon in Washington DC. “Especially tissue around the eyelids, which is thinner, more sensitive, and more prone to stretching and loosening.”
But in certain cases, there are real benefits to massaging and exercising the face. “I recommend facial exercises and facial massage for some patients after surgery to promote healing,” says Chobaki. He says that these exercises – which he demonstrates to his patients himself – can help reduce scar tissue, promote lymphatic flow and improve circulation.
The lymphatic system is a complex network of organs, vessels and tissues that helps balance the fluids in the body. According to Pavitt, when these fluids stagnate in certain areas – say, under your eyes the morning after a big night of drinking and eating – moving the skin and pushing that fluid away from the face and towards the lymph nodes around the ears and collarbone can help reduce puffiness.
Pavitt’s overall view of face yoga is that it doesn’t need to be a part of your daily routine; it can be done once a week if it feels good, or on an as-needed basis to address puffiness. Plus, our faces will change no matter what, and we might as well come to terms with that.
“I don’t think doing face yoga every day is going to make a massive difference, for ageing in particular,” she says. “We’re worried about ageing and the way our faces change with time, but it’s inevitable.”
I decide I feel fully at peace with whatever happens to my skin as long as I never have to stick my fingers in my mouth again so I can massage my cheeks from the inside out.
BOTTOM LINE
How much did it cost? $19.99 a month and roughly 160 minutes of my life.
Did it work? No, but in fairness I didn’t fully commit to the program.
Would I do it again? No.
Did it fix me? It made me realize there are things far worse than crow’s feet. Like face yoga.
Overall rating: One out of five fingers poking at the flesh of my cheek.