Face Good

Apologies for the lack of updates last week! It was a pretty hectic week, having to juggle visitations and work (with people popping in for lao qi when you’ve just got home feeling all ready to fall into bed, and those obligatory visits that simply had to be made or it would be considered rude otherwise, despite having spoken only spoken a few sentences to the host in the entire 20+ years of my life. Good grief). How nice it would be if we got 15 days of holiday like China :D I wouldn’t mind all the socializing.

So back to beauty and skin care. I promised to write more about how to protect your skin against late nights.
In the study of Traditional Chinese Medicine, it is believed that healthy blood circulation makes your skin look radiant and healthy. And what better than a good massage to relax your skin and drive the blood up your skin capillaries?

3 minutes facial massage before bedtime

You can perform a simple massaging exercise just before bed time, which will help to improve your blood circulation, as well as improve sagging and wrinkling skin!

Step 1: Rub your palms vigorously together. Place your warm palms over your face (Be sure to wash your hands beforehand!)

Step 2: When the heat has retreated, keep your palms firmly on your face, and move your palms in a gentle up-down movement for 10 times.

Step 3: Repeat Steps 1 and 2 for up to five times.

Step 4: Tap your face repetitively with the tips of your fingers, starting from your cheeks, surroundings of your eye, sides of your nose, and the area around your mouth, with emphasis on the chin. Always tap in an inside-to-outside circular motion or bottom-to-top vertical motion.

With improved blood circulation, your skin cells will mend in a shorter time!



Acupoint Eye Massage for Brighter Eyes

If you are plagued with dark eye circles, eye bags, puffy eyes amongst various problems attributed to late nights, this is a massage that’s made for you! Chinese physicians believe that massaging the acupoints above, between and at the tail end of your eyebrows reduces swelling and exhaustion in the eyes. When you’re applying your eye cream at night, be sure to massage them by using your index and middle fingers to trace a line from your temples, to the tail end of your brow, over your brow and finally stopping at the spot between your brows. You can keep retracing back and forth 20 times. Your eyes should feel refreshed!

As you can see, TCM isn't all about old fuddy duddies meddling with nasty jars of preserved centipedes. From sidelined alternative medication, TCM has progressed into a mainstream replacement for Western medical services and procedures and is now seeing an increasing involvement in beauty and slimming. Best of all, the medical procedures are usually completely natural without side effects! In the near future, I intend to do more research and share more information about TCM's relation to beauty care.

I'll complete this series of late night skin care tips with another relevant post by this week. Stay tuned!