In the constant pursuit for the fountain of youth and something that will stop / hide the wrinkles, folks will try a lot of wackadoodle stuff (I certainly have). Today we will cover the new rage of face taping.
Kinesiology tape has been around for quite some time, and we are now completely accustomed to seeing it on Olympians in the ordinary course of competition. The bolder the colors the better! Now, the beauty industry is taking kinesiology tape to the face. Face taping is being pushed as a brilliant way to reduce wrinkles; some are saying it can reverse them and others claim it can prevent them. I found one company that claims face taping can increase hydration and cell renewal.
If you pull your skin taunt, throw on some tape, the wrinkles can magically disappear. Poof. And they do – in that moment when the tape is on the wrinkles can be stretched out and not show.
So, does this make you look younger? Well, while wearing the tape I think most would find it obvious that your skin is tight because of the tape. And you might look slightly weird that you have kinesiology tape all over your face. If you wear enough makeup to cover the tape, then you look weird for having on that much makeup. You choose.
Some beauty experts, and advocates of face taping, suggest sleeping in the face tape to restrict muscle movement and the resulting wrinkles. If the skin is taped the muscles can’t pull and cause frown lines or cause more and deeper wrinkles. This is considered a longer-term solution.
Do you believe the hype? Are you ready to go out and buy some face tape and start taping up those wrinkles?
After I saw the articles encouraging face taping, I started to dig. I decided I needed to read a bit from those who were not in favor of me ridding my wrinkles this way. Turns out, pretty much everything written to discourage face taping is either written by dermatologists and plastic surgeons or they were interviewed for the piece. And I am betting you can guess what they think. And when I sat back, it turns out just pure common sense answers every question you may have regarding face taping.
The skin on your face is more sensitive than elsewhere, primarily because it has lots of blood vessels close to the surface. So the idea of putting an adhesive on, and subsequently ripping off, doesn’t seem so great for that tender skin. Then, if you left the tape on for an extended period, it could clog pores. None of this is good for the long-term wrinkle reduction plan. As for the increased hydration mentioned by one advocate, I’m going to go with ‘probably not’. The instructions for applying the face tape says to do so on to un-moisturized skin to get it to stick.
There are other methods for preventing and reducing wrinkles, but so far mother nature is winning on my face. I’ll keep you posted if I find that elusive fountain of youth.