Everything to Know About Gua Sha Facial Massage
If you’ve visited, well, any clean beauty brand’s website in the last year, you’ve undoubtedly spotted it: the Gua Sha tool. Sleek, smooth, and often created from vanity-worthy gemstones, the lymph-flushing skin care darling has an impressive past. To learn all about the trending tool and massage technique, we asked celebrity facialists Georgia Louise Vassanelli.
What Does Gua Sha Mean?
“The term Gua Sha itself is defined in two parts: ‘gua’ for scraping; ‘sha’ for redness of skin,” explains Caglia. “It may also be called skin scraping, spooning, or coining,” adds Vassanelli.
The Original Gua Sha Tools
These days, beauty and wellness brands place special importance on the stones—often jade or rose quartz—that Gua Sha tools are crafted from. However, this wasn’t always the case, according to Vassanelli. “Gua Sha, which was used for generations by Chinese mothers as a home remedy for sick children, could have been made from any house-hold tool such as a coin or a tin lid with a sharp edge to scrape the skin,” she says.
Why Use Gua Sha On Your Face?
For many skin care fans, their first glimpse at the tool is through a website or video tutorial. So, how did Gua Sha go from full-body scraping to facial companion? Vassanelli credits its ability to break down muscular tension, as well as move qi. “At first, it’s a little painful,” she says. “But the more you practice, the less painful it gets because the inflammation is reduced, easing away discomfort, tension, and puffiness. I think we can all relate to a tool that doesn’t require batteries and can be done at home. Plus, it feels good.”
Need a little more guidance? “Using a proper Gua Sha tool, such as my Georgia Louise Lift + Sculpt Butterfly Stone, work with soft pressure (versus scraping) and glide over the face contours, working inwards and outwards to create a flushing of the skin and avoid bruising,” recommends Vassanelli.
