After you reach a certain age, you may be concerned about the fact that your skin is no longer looking the way it used to. You see fine lines and wrinkles, your skin is beginning to sag, and there’s one thing that you see celebrities all over the world doing when that time comes: they get Botox filling.
However, can’t you get a facelift without actually plugging needless into your skin and injecting yourself with God knows what? Isn’t there a more natural way to do things – one that’s a bit more harmless in comparison to Botox? Well, we do seem to have gua sha massage – the miracle alternative to Botox injections.
Botox was originally a medicine to treat certain muscular conditions, such as the lazy eye – but once they saw its anti-aging properties, they began using it for wrinkles and fine lines as well. Made from Botulinum Neurotoxin Type A, this substance will seep into the muscle, strengthen it, and loosen the contraction. Once the contractions in the skin and muscles are removed, the appearance of aging will be minimized.
Botox is also often referred to as the “miracle poison,” mostly because it paralyzes the muscles, offering short-term smoothness of the skin. What it does is fill the skin and freeze it in its “better state,” temporarily minimizing your facial lines until the Botox wears off.
Like with Botox, guasha also promotes the filling of those fine lines – but rather than filling your body with foreign substances, it helps your body naturally create them instead. Gua sha has been known to boost collagen production, a naturally occurring substance that keeps the skin from sagging and wrinkling.
The effectiveness of Botox is short-lived – and after a month or two, your skin will begin to return to its natural state. This is because what you injected in your skin is a foreign medicine – one that your body would not normally produce. That being said, with guasha, you are triggering your body to once more release those substances that you are lacking – therefore, giving you benefits in the long term. Unlike Botox, your beauty will not wear out.
Plus, unlike the very expensive Botox, gua sha will not take so much from the budget. Your typical gua sha facial kit will cost less in comparison to Botox injections, and you may simply do your routine from the comfort of your own home.
Botox also practically injects you with foreign substances – in which case, you may expect some side effects. With guasha, this is not the case, mainly because you are not injecting anything in it; you are encouraging your body to do its natural routine.
Is it true that the moment you search for pictures, you see people with red patches on their skin – some of them looking like they are in pain. Is guasha supposed to be painful – or is that only a visual side effect? Is this technique dangerous, or is it safe to use?
After a gua sha session, you will see that your skin shows some bruising – a redness mixed with yellowish-brown and/or purple that might make people think you just got a good beating. Still, that is extremely far from the truth.
In fact, those marks are a good thing: it means that your body is healing. The red markings that appear on the skin are called “sha” by Asians – or in scientific journals, “petechiae.” To the untrained eye, it will look just like a bruise – but in fact, it is just your blood being forced out from the sub-cutis fine vessels.
The blood eventually gets reabsorbed into the body, but by that time, the toxins will have already come out of your body. You have broken down the hemoglobin, allowing your blood vessels to clean themselves. It might not be the image of self-care and beauty at that point, but if you do it correctly, your skin should be smoother than ever.
Is gua sha rubbing supposed to hurt? The answer to that is no: guasha is not supposed to be painful. This could only happen if you use the wrong lubrication or scraping tool, which can end up breaking or scratching the skin. However, right and modern tools should not hurt you at all. This is why gua sha is a common tool in facial care.
In the end, if you are doing it correctly, it should not hurt. It should feel nothing less than invigorating, removing the congestion and toxins from your body with a adequate amount of pressure applied. Granted, the chances are that you might see some fine bruising – but it should not hurt in the slightest. In one or two days, those bruises should go away.
In the end, if you want to indulge in self-care and look younger, then you might want to invest in gua sha rather than Botox. With regular skincare routines, you should be able to give yourself a facial lift at a lower cost, and with better effects.
