For context, it is best to know that gua sha just isn’t a brand new follow and its origins don’t have anything to do with aesthetics. “Gua sha is an historic Chinese language medication follow that goes again centuries,” Sandra Chiu, an authorized acupuncturist, herbalist, and conventional Chinese language medication practitioner primarily based in Brooklyn, tells me. “It’s before everything a therapeutic approach used to alleviate ache and strengthen the immune system.” Stephanie Zheng, a licensed esthetician primarily based in New York Metropolis and founding father of Mount Lai, a gua sha model rooted in conventional Chinese language medication, elaborates: “Gua sha loosely interprets as ‘to scrape’ in Chinese language and is the follow of utilizing a flat device in opposition to the pores and skin to focus on stagnation and assist restore the movement of qi. Qi is vitality power within the physique and has a detailed relationship with blood movement.” At present, gua sha stays “an vital modality” that conventional Chinese language medication practitioners use for the remedy of ache and to help the immune system, in response to Chiu.
The follow wasn’t used on the face till just lately and, even then, the supposed use of facial gua sha is to not erase a double chin or to slim the face by any means. “Facial gua sha is a comparatively new ‘beauty’ remedy derived from conventional gua sha,” Chiu says. “It’s a gentler, softer variation that improves blood circulation, releases extra muscle rigidity, and smooths fascia” (the connective tissue that basically holds all of your muscle fibers, bones, blood vessels, and so on., collectively). “The purpose remains to be to focus on stagnation and restore the movement of qi for wholesome pores and skin and wholesome tissue,” Zheng concurs.
Western tradition roughly took that idea and threw it out the window in favor of strategies that appear to offer extra drastic visible outcomes at the price of muddling the intentions and talents of conventional gua sha. On our facet of the world, the follow has been broadly lumped along with lymphatic drainage, which Chiu credit to the West’s cultural appropriation of the follow. Whereas the 2 are related in some ways, they aren’t the identical. “The concept that gua sha is a lymphatic drainage follow comes largely from estheticians, Western MDs, and influencers who interpreted gua sha by means of that lens,” Chiu clarifies. “Calling gua sha a lymphatic drainage approach is form of like calling yoga a kind of Pilates as a result of they each stretch the physique.”
If you apply that perspective to TikTok, it is clear to see how folks on the app obtained wrapped up in the concept that gua sha can and/or needs to be used as a device for double chin discount and basic facial slimming — lymphatic drainage is definitely supposed to reduce swelling and puffiness, in any case. However within the case of gua sha, the subtly sculpted look of the face is merely a facet impact of improved circulation and the discharge of rigidity within the chin, neck, and jaw. “Stagnation can appear like extra fluid buildup within the face, which gua sha may help with, leading to much less puffiness or extra outlined facial options,” Zheng explains. Connecticut-based, board-certified dermatologist Mona Gohara, MD, agrees: “Gua sha may help to shift fluid from one space to a different,” she explains, likening the shift of inside fluids towards the lymphatic nodes to pushing water towards a drain utilizing a mop or broom. “It might probably improve circulation, elevating radiance.”
