Face Taping: Does using face taping really lessen wrinkles? – GOOD SHAPE

When the subject is the treatment for wrinkles, there are many tips, tricks and treatments that have gained popularity on social media. The most recent idea – and one that went viral on TikTok – is the use of duct tape on the face.

But wait, it’s not what you’re thinking. Adhesive tapes are specific for this function – and not like the “durex” you have at home. They are thicker and more resistant tapes that, in fact, exert enough pressure on the skin to treat wrinkles.

WHY DO WRINKLES APPEAR?

Before we talk about the use of tapes and whether they actually work, we need to understand how and why wrinkles appear.

“With aging, our skin loses collagen, elastin, hyaluronic acid, loses the ability to maintain skin hydration, causing it to mark more, and it is possible to observe wrinkles marking in areas where there is more muscle movement, which are usually around the eyes and mouth,” explains the Dr. Michele Monteirodermatologist at the General Polyclinic of Rio de Janeiro, and Titular Member of the Brazilian Society of Dermatology.

Considering that this loss of skin support is inevitable and part of the aging processit is impossible to avoid them forever, but we can treat them and prevent them from appearing early, for example.

“The treatment and prevention of wrinkles can be done with the use of products that help maintain skin hydration and, more effectively, with treatments carried out in dermatological clinics, such as laser, microfocused ultrasound, filling with hyaluronic acid, use of bio collagen stimulator and PDO threads”, says the dermatologist.

For her, the treatments used at the clinic to stimulate collagen production are more effective – skincare routine it helps keep the skin hydrated, but by itself it is not enough to reverse the appearance of wrinkles.

HOW DOES ADHESIVE TAPE PREVENT WRINKLES?

“Face taping”, as this technique is called in English, is as simple as it sounds: it involves the use of thicker, high-resistance adhesive tapes in strategic places on the face, where wrinkles tend to appear – think of the sides of the mouth, forehead and even around the eyes.

Its use during the night, in theory, helps to reduce expression lines precisely by stretching the skin and promoting a type of pressure that softens its appearance – which also means that this technique gives an “instant” result, considered quite interesting in the short term.

Incidentally, that’s why this technique, despite having gone viral on a super recent social network, is not new. She is very well known among drag queens – who use the resource to change their appearance during a performance – and movie stars, who use these tapes to “soften” expression lines before entering the scene.

DOES ADHESIVE TAPE WORK?

Yes, they work, but in parts. According to the doctor, they are a mechanical structure, that is, they pull the skin preventing it from wrinkling. “However, the effect is temporary and, if we are not able to maintain the stimulus, we will not have a lasting result”, she explains.

The benefits, therefore, are short-lived, only while the tapes are being used – after all, that is when they “stretch” the skin. One can compare the use of these tapes to using makeup to cover imperfections – it seems that something has changed, but only superficially.

Other than that, there is another important point: sensitivity. “Since it is an adhesive tape, depending on the degree of sensitivity of the skin, there may be irritation and eczema in the applied area”, explains the doctor.