Something that I often hear when I chat with people about gua sha facial massage is that they aren’t sure exactly how to use their gua sha stone or that they have used it a few times but didn’t see much result from their facial massage. While this type of facial massage can be seemingly simple, it actually takes finesse, thought, and detail to get these amazing, visible results we see after a professional face massage treatment.

Gua sha massage takes practice, and practice makes perfect! Once you’ve perfected these expert gua sha techniques you’ll be able to de-puff your face, lift your tissues, contour, and help your complexion to be more clear and radiant all by using your hands and a gua sha stone!

scrub me secret: I’ve spent the past few years researching, practicing, and learning gua sha and other facial massage techniques from face massage experts like Britta Plug and Cecily Braden. I’ve taken in-depth courses that helped expand my knowledge of face massage and helped my techniques get even better. I love being able to create visible results for my facial clients using face massage. And my skin benefits too! I will always continue to learn and seek education.

What you’ll need for gua sha face massage:

Clean skin and clean hands

2. A gua sha stone - below is a list of my favorites ⤵️

3. Facial Oil - my personal favorite is the nourishing serum

scrub me secret: the best time to do your gua sha face massage? I like to massage my face 1-2x a week in the morning. For morning face massage you can swipe over your face with toner on a cotton pad or plain water, then apply your facial oil and gua sha yourself. After this, you can cleanse, tone, serums, etc. If you’d prefer an evening facial massage I find it best to do your evening skincare routine and wait about 20+ minutes for everything to absorb. Then, apply facial oil and do your facial massage. You can leave the facial oil on your skin.

My expert tips for gua sha massage:

These tips are key to getting the best and most visible results from your gua sha face massage🔑

Where you start your gua sha massage matters:

Starting our gua sha facial massage on the neck area is key for opening up passageways that allow for lymphatic flow and drainage. There are important lymph nodes under our ears and lymph flow passageways that run from our neck, down through the rest of the body. Creating some release in our neck area and stimulating the lymphatic drainage will allow for better de-puffing, contour, and skin clarity results when we massage our face.

You’ll want to begin your gua sha massage by gliding your gua sha stone up the back of your neck with firm pressure and giving the stone a little wiggle when you reach the base of your skull. After a few of those release strokes, you can move to work under your ear for drainage. Use the U-shaped curve of your gua sha and gently drag downward from under your ear, to your collarbone. Very little pressure here! Do this under-ear stroke 2-4x and then move on to your facial massage.

Be mindful of the pressure you’re using during massage:

For lymphatic drainage massage, we need to use light pressure. Lymph fluid sits right underneath our skin, so it requires a delicate touch to move and manipulate it. When medium or firm pressure is applied we are no longer working on lymph fluid, we are working on our skin’s tissues. Which isn’t a bad thing! We just want to keep our goals in mind.

Light pressure: For best lymph drainage (de-puffing your face and reducing redness/ruddiness)

Medium Pressure: For tissue lifting, circulation-boosting, and skin-firming effects (anti-aging)

Firm pressure: For deep release (jaw release, neck release, forehead tension release)

scrub me secret: A great gua sha facial massage has a combination of all 3 of these different pressures at various times during the massage depending on what results you want. For beginners, it’s good to focus on keeping your pressure light during your massage so you can see the best de-puffing results.

Your gua sha stone needs to be held at a certain angle:

For best results you’ll want to hold the gua sha stone almost flat or flushed to your skin for most of your massage strokes. If we are talking geometry, you would want the stone to be at about a 20° angle to your skin. The few exceptions would be when we hold the stone at a 90° angle under our jawline and when we work on some places on the neck.

Be intentional about your massage:

What do you want from your gua sha massage? Think about your goals before beginning. When you have a specific goal in mind before the massage begins it’ll be much easier to know which techniques, moves, and pressure to use. Examples of this would be: de-puffing the eye and cheek area, lifting the lower face, smoothing the forehead, giving your skin a more even complexion, etc.

You only need a small amount of facial oil:

You need less facial oil than you think you do! We want our gua sha stone to glide easily across the skin with no tugging but you also want to be able to create a little amount of tension that feels like the smallest “pull” when you use your anchor hand. This little bit of tension is helpful for skin elasticity and ironing out lines and wrinkles. If our skin is too slick with oil we aren’t going to get this little bit of tension that we need for visible results. And I know what you’re thinking, no this isn’t going to damage our skin! Having just the right amount of facial oil will provide our tissues with the right nourishment and protection while we massage.

Your other hand will be used as an “anchor” hand:

Your anchor hand will be the hand that doesn’t have the gua sha stone in it. While you slowly glide along your skin with the gua sha stone you’ll place your opposite hand’s fingertips onto your skin and follow along right behind the gua sha stone. Think about creating that small bit of “pull” or tension in the skin that’s between your fingertips and the gua sha stone. For a better visual of this, you can watch this video. This anchor hand movement aids in skin firming, better lymph drainage, and reduction of fine lines. Think of it as enhancing your gua sha strokes.

scrub me secret: The direction in which you glide your gua sha stone matters very much! We want to lay our stone almost flat on the skin and glide outwards and upwards, our hand is arriving at the end spot before the gua sha stone does. We don’t want to “push” our gua sha stone around the face; meaning placing the stone on your skin and pushing it with a hand placed behind the stone. In the instance of “pushing” the gua sha stone would end up at the end point of our stroke before our hand.

Gua sha before and after (Top: before. Bottom: after)

I got great results using a series of gua sha facial massages for this client. I specifically wanted to highlight how I was able to smooth the forehead area, giving her a more youthful appearance. You can also notice redness and some unevenness in her complexion has diminished.
**These results were after a series of 4 gua sha face massages given over the course of 1 month**

Are you ready for your best gua sha face massage session yet? Follow my video tutorial that details a gua sha facial massage for lymphatic drainage, a circulation boost, and skin lifting.

Enhance Your Skincare Routine with Gua Sha Face Massage: Expert Tips