Smooth skin without having to inject botox or hyaluronic acid? This is what a new beauty trend on social media promises. Face taping is said to work wonders against wrinkles on the face. What is behind the trend that is currently generating enormous numbers of views and clicks on TikTok, Instagram and YouTube? Does adhesive tape really help against wrinkles on the forehead and around the nose, eyes and mouth?
Kinesiotape has a massage-like effect on the connective tissue. The tape helps to relax the muscles. Face taping should therefore be able to prevent and delay the formation of wrinkles. As a rule, kinesiotape also helps to dissolve lymphatic congestion and remove stored fluids from the body. The massage effect described comes about because the tape only fixes the upper layer of skin and every movement shifts the underlying tissue. This harmonises the muscle tone and relieves tension.
Various beauty influencers swear by this method to prevent wrinkles on the face and at least slow down the aging process a little. Many of them primarily use kinesiotape to smooth out wrinkles in the nasolabial area and frown lines. Most beauty tapers advise applying the tape to the skin without stretching it. In addition, the treatment must be applied regularly and carried out over a longer period of time in order to achieve visible effects. It is therefore important to always take a day off between the tape days. Especially when you’re just starting out with the method.
Sticking tape to your face at random doesn’t help against wrinkles. It is important that you place the tape correctly on your face – especially if you want to wear it for several hours to prevent wrinkles. In order to use facial patches, you have to know how the facial muscles work and how to apply the tape to these areas accordingly, explains a New York beauty surgeon in an interview with the online portal “New Beauty”.
It is therefore essential to have an expert show you how to use it correctly. It is also best to use tape that can be easily removed again. In addition, it should be made of cotton and contain a hypoallergenic glue. You should use high-quality tape, especially on the face, because the wrong adhesive can cause unpleasant skin irritation.
In addition to the kinesiotape variant, there is currently another beauty method that is supposed to ensure firm skin on the face and is currently very popular with celebrities. For spectacular red carpet appearances, make-up artists and make-up artists are apparently using transparent tape more and more frequently to create the so-called fox-eye look in their clients. This is placed on the right and left of the temples next to the eyes and thus optically lengthens the eye area. Various photos and videos on Instagram and TikTok already show how the whole thing works.
Among other things, many models and influencers use this trick in their beauty looks. “Whoever thinks I had my eyes lifted or whatever – I use face tape! The oldest trick in the world,” revealed Bella Hadid (25) recently in an interview with the fashion magazine “Vogue”. The pioneer when it comes to face tape in combination with decorative cosmetics is make-up artist Patrick Ta, whose customers include Emily Ratajkowski (31) and Gigi Hadid (27).
Eye surgeons are raising concerns about this trend, as many fox eye imitators seem unaware that this is a look created with the help of duct tape. An expert explains in an interview with “Refinery 29”: “The fox eye trend changes the natural shape of the eyebrow so that the outer third of the brow protrudes upwards. This creates an unnatural appearance of the eyes with eyebrows that are too high. Ask patients fox eye lifts or fillers because they’re trying to mimic the look of celebrities like Bella Hadid or Kendall Jenner.”
