Have you ever worked out your face? An eyebrow-raising beauty trend, called a microcurrent facial, aims to do just that.
The noninvasive treatment involves zapping your face with tiny electrical currents to stimulate, tone and tighten facial muscles.
“It’s like a little workout for your face,” actress Jennifer Aniston said in an interview with InStyle magazine last year.
The electrical stimulation technology behind the microcurrent facial has been used in partnership with various treatments for patients afflicted with Bell’s palsy, a sudden paralysis or weakness of facial muscles that causes one side of your face to appear to droop. Now the technology is making waves in the cosmetic field.
Yet some experts question its effectiveness.
“It’s been used for facial paralysis for about 70 years, and it’s a common use for other areas of the body. If you pull your back or have a sore back or go to the physical therapist, they will hook you up to an electric (stimulation) machine sometimes. Same concept,” said Dr. Daniel Knott, associate professor and director of facial plastic and reconstructive surgery at the University of California, San Francisco Medical Center.
“I’m not aware of electro-stim doing anything to the skin, the dermis, the fat. I would only think it would help the muscles,” he said. “I would be skeptical of it doing anything except improving muscle tone.”
So, for cosmetic purposes, “theoretically, yes, I see a rationale for it if you want to increase your muscle tone in your face. You could do that. I just think you’d have to do it a lot,” Knott said.
