Gua Sha: Is it anything more than dragging a stone across your face?

We tested it out.

We've all heard of the Jade rollers, they're fast becoming iconic beauty products in their own right (I've seen three being used on zoom calls this week alone!) but have you heard of Gua Sha? Officially Gua Sha is a natural, alternative therapy that involves scraping your skin with a massage tool to improve your circulation. The literal translation of Gua Sha is 'scraping sand'. It's actually an ancient Chinese healing technique and it's meant to offer a  unique approach to better health, addressing issues such as chronic pain. Sounds delightful! I was particularly interested in the Gua Sha face tools that kept popping up everywhere I looked. In the beauty and wellness industry at the moment it's certainly all about the facial tools and although it can be daunting to try and keep up with everything, if there's a tool out there that promises to lift the sh*t out of my skin, hand it over! They're pretty reasonably priced, I bought one on Amazon that also came with a jade roller and a stick thing to put cream on with, which I guarantee you I will NEVER use. So what does Gua Sha promise? The benefits are what you'd expect, the upward motions that you use while using the stone (a rose or jade quartz is the preferred stone) is meant to encourage blood flow and circulation which not only promises to awaken the skin but also (over time) firm and lift it! I would highly recommend watching a few YouTube tutorials on how to use the stone correctly, this one in particular was incredibly helpful to me:   Apart from the lifting aspect it also promotes lymphatic drainage which can result in breakouts so don't be disheartened if that happens straight away. Will you see an immediate result? Maybe not but over time it is believed to help and if nothing else in the last week I've been using it I thoroughly enjoy the little moments to myself where I scrape a stone over my face multiple times. You do you!