Beauty Tips

Is It Time to Take Your Face to the Gym?

A buzzy new facial workout is here to exercise the 40 muscles in your face

by Sharon Feiereisen | COMMENT

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No-workout workouts have been trending for a few years now — and so has an obsession with meeting impossibly high beauty standards. Both of these trends meet at a much-buzzed-about new facial workout spot, FaceGym, which recently opened at Saks Fifth Avenue in New York City (it has been in the UK for a few years already).

So, what is a facial workout?

It's pretty much exactly what it sounds like, a workout, albeit a passive one, for your face. "We designed a workout to target the forgotten 40 muscles in the face and we mimicked exactly the same journey we perform when we work out our body," says FaceGym founder Inge Theron. Each workout has been designed to feature a warm-up, cardio, sculpting and cool down. Fittingly, facialists are called trainers at FaceGym.

"In the warm-up, the trainer starts with light face balling to release muscle tension then, knuckles in the cleanser and lightly stretches the muscles in preparation for the cardio," Theron explains. "During the cardio phase, your trainer takes the speed right up to help detox your face from toxins associated with excess stress, sugar, caffeine, alcohol and water retention from flying, making your face start to sweat. This is done with high-speed hand whipping, flicking and pinching, as well as some lymph draining to depuff the face." The trainer then uses deep finger sculpting and lifting techniques to lift the jaw and cheekbone area. A much gentler technique is used around the eye muscle to lift and sculpt the whole eye area, reducing any unwanted puffiness. "During the cool down, we use a cooling jade stone to take some of the heat out of your face and drain away toxins lengthening and cooling down the muscles, which have just been worked out," Theron adds.

While FaceGym may be the first to push this concept on a large, glossy scale, beauty brands have been talking about this for years. At a press event for Mama Mio's new face care products circa 2011, all of the brand's products included a pamphlet outlining facial exercises that they claimed would improve the efficacy of their products. So should we be paying more attention?

Image via @face_gym

SEE NEXT PAGE: Are facial workouts painful or relaxing?

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