All About Facial Massage

Like the rest of your body, your face has many muscles, and like your shoulders or back, it gets tight and holds on to stress.

As we age, our skin loses the ability to replenish lost cells, which results in sagging skin and wrinkles. While a set of anti-ageing moisturizers is a good place to start when you notice the first signs of fine lines, a facial massage will really get your skin back to it's beautiful best.

So here are the facial muscles... of topic but very helpful, right under the Zygomaticus muscle you apply blush /contour products. There is the correct place to put your blush.
 
A massage stimulates the muscles and lymphatic system. Every area of the body responds to facial massage. We have 300 pressure points on the face, which relate to every part of the body, so when you have a good face massage you impact every organ. It makes the face glow and takes the tiredness and sluggishness away.

In other words a facial massage is like coffee for the skin. Most of us do the facial massage wrong, with circular motions.

Massaging your face in circular motions only drags at the skin without working the muscles at all. Your facial muscles are actually arranged diagonally in line with your cheekbones (see the imagine above), so long, diagonal strokes upwards will engage with them and tighten up skin.

Thought you had to massage the neck upwards? Wrong, it's actually downwards to get rid of excess fluid being held there....... To my surprise a lot of trained personal from spa and beauty salons does all these things wrong. I am going to explain a little bit how it works and what are the benefits, how to do it by yourself at home and why you should implement facial massage in your skin care routine, starting with today .

It is very important to try and stimulate the centers of your face, temporarily improving the blood and lymph circulation of the skin which will help remove toxins and boost the skins immunity against bacteria. The facial massage will  also brighten the skin and relax the skin around the eyes to reduce puffy eyes and drain dark circles. From experience I know that often people try without much success to cover baggy eyes and dark circles with just makeup. I think it is really important to try to reduce problem areas  before camouflaging them with a heavy layer of makeup.

You have lymph nodes on your face near your ears and eyes. There is a chain of lymph nodes that reaches from the inner corners of your eyes to your nose. Around the bottom of your head there is a ring of nodes - the occipital nodes in back at the base of your skull, nodes under and behind your ears and nodes under your jaw line and chin. Lymph fluid that moves from your head into these nodes then drains into two chains of nodes on your neck, leading down toward the collar bone. Eventually lymph, once it has been processed in the lymph nodes, empties into blood vessels near your heart, to circulate around the body again.

Benefits of facial massage

Working over blood vessels, bones and lymph nodes stimulates the right areas to really detox and rejuvenate the skin of the face. The pressure created by the massage technique helps move blood through congested areas, causing new blood to flow in. That boost in circulation is what gets you glowing, but other benefits include improved skin tone and muscle contouring; instant headache, neck-tension and stress relief; alleviating nervous disorders.By relaxing muscles and connective tissue, massaging the face softens expression-induced lines around your eyes, lips and brows, helps expel acne-causing toxins and depuffs and brightens the eye area. It also increases circulation, oxygenating the blood and encouraging the presence of fresh, healing red blood cells, and adds vitality to a dull complexion.

Insert your new facial massage routine into your daily skincare regimen right after you cleanse but before using toner and moisturizer. I promise you will not be sorry!

When to avoid massage.

When your skin is inflamed after UV exposure When you have skin rashes .In areas with cuts, wounds. On parts of the skin with acne or boils (especially when inflamed or suppurating).

How to perform the facial massage: 

Work in sections - forehead, cheeks, jaw, neck and always start with clean skin.With your fingertips and applying light pressure. Then move to the cheekbones and then on to the jaw. Finish by sweeping upwards along the jawline with the heels of your hands. Only a few minutes of facial exercise once a day will make a difference after one week.

If you wake up with puffy skin, go for light tapping motions. This will stimulate the lymphatic system which lies just underneath the skin's surface and gets rid of excess fluid. Work towards your ears where the lymph nodes are located to flush it all out. 

For puffy eyes and dark circles, always stroke from inside of the eye socket outwards. If you do it the wrong way round (out to in) the other way can make eye bags even worse.

Because so many of your lymph vessels are located right below your skin, use light pressure - just enough to move the skin without pressing more deeply. 

Massage the neck downwards to get rid of excess fluid being held there and not upwards.

Use a light non-comedogenic calming oil, such as jojoba since its molecules most closely resemble your own skin’s sebum. If you are concerned about using oil on your skin, use your favorite moisturizer. Also, massaging an oil cleanser into your skin — instead of just rubbing it on and immediately rinsing it off — can increase its efficacy.

I don't think that facial massage is complicated, specially if you know how your facial muscles are positioned and where are positioned the lymph nodes.
I hope you will try to implement some type of facial massage in your skin care routine because it is such a life changer on a lot of levels and it covers most of the skin concerns- puffy eyes, dark circles, swollen skin that retains water, acne, dull tired looking skin, fine lines and so much more.