A 51-YEAR-OLD has shared her failsafe hack to banish smile lines in a minute.
Kat James is a celebrity make-up artist and anti-ageing whizz – but she doesn’t agree with getting filler or Botox everywhere as it can distort your face.
Instead, she’s devised a one-minute routine to smooth out smile lines without a needle in sight.
Also known as nasolabial folds or laugh lines, are the lines that run from the sides of the nose to the corners of the mouth.
They are a natural part of the facial structure and often become more pronounced with age, which not everyone likes the look of.
Luckily for those who want to banish them without filler, Kat has a three times a week routine nailed down.
She shared a tutorial for loosening up lymph, fluid which causes puffiness, by wiggling a gua sha by your nose and then driving it down the nasal fold.
A gua sha is a traditional Chinese skincare tool used for facial massage to improve circulation, reduce puffiness and promote lymphatic drainage.
Lymph is a clear-to-white fluid that drains from cells and tissues in your body, but it can cause facial puffiness when it accumulates in facial tissues.
The lymphatic system is a network of vessels, nodes, and organs that help drain this fluid.
As we age, the system’s efficiency can decrease and lead to slower fluid drainage and, as a result, more puffiness and lines appearing in the face.
“What we are doing is not actually working on removing lymph, but releasing it,” Kat explained of her technique.
Once you’ve massaged the lymph loose on the outside of your face, she recommended going internal with the gua sha.
You can rub it on the inside of your lip where the nasal fold forms to massage the extra fluid out from the inside too.
“It’s a little painful in the beginning because you want to really get up in here,” Kat prefaced.
Her internal massage technique helps “all that stress” held in your facial tissues to disappear.
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“It will allow the area to smooth,” she said.
“Try doing this about three times a week and you will see such a noticeable difference in the smoothness and depth of these lines.”
Kat also strongly advises against getting filler in your nasal folds.
“I do not love filler in this area because you move so much,” she explained.
“There’s so much animation that filler can sometimes show.
“It really is not ideal to have filler where there’s high movement.”
There’s also a risk that the filler might not be distributed evenly, causing an asymmetrical face.
And if too much filler is used, it can lead to an unnatural, overfilled or puffy look – not what you want when trying to age gracefully.
