Gua sha (pronounced gwah-sha or gwah-sa) is a centuries old Chinese Medicine technique. Traditionally gua sha was performed on the body using whatever a person had on hand – whether that was a copper coin, a spoon, a buffalo horn, a hemp rope soaked in sesame oil or simply one’s hands. It is only more recently in the 21^st century that the use of Traditional Chinese Medicine techniques including gua sha have been used in the mainstream beauty industry, with the popularity of gua sha having especially soared in the last couple of years due to social media applications such as Instagram.

With this increase in popularity, it is all the more important to pay respect and acknowledge the history and culture that gua sha originates from. Far to often we see gua sha stones/services promoted and sold in such a way that does not honor nor even recognize its origins in Traditional Chinese Medicine. Much of the modern usage and techniques of using gua sha for the face stem directly from Traditional Chinese Medicine, as have the ideas of how outward bodily appearances and skin color changes are directly related to changes in a person’s health, blood, and qi (energy). Gua sha’s use in the esthetic industry has also been heavily influenced and revolutionized by Dr. Ping Zhang, a practitioner of Traditional Chinese Medicine, who is also cited as being the inventor of the original gua sha facial.

Gua sha works to release tense muscles and tissues and then nourish them by increasing circulation and bringing more blood to the area being treated. By relaxing the facial muscles and increasing circulation/bringing more blood to the tissues, we can not only help diminish fine lines and wrinkles, but we can also help to even skin tone, as well as temporarily lift, firm, and plump up the skin to create a healthy, “youthful” glow. Facial gua sha can also provide relief to those with chronic, stress induced TMJ (temporomandibular joint disorder).

Check out our Gua Sha Facial and our Based Intuitive Facial that includes facial Gua Sha as well as our handmade gua sha stones!

A Post By Based Esthetician, Shauna

            When I think of taking a more holistic approach to skincare, I am reminded of a passage from a book I refer back to every so often, called Holistic Anatomy by Pip Waller: “In the morning, an alarm clock made in a factory across the sea wakes me. I get up and dress in clothes made somewhere else. I eat food grown by people of many countries—packed, transported, and sold to me. Before I even leave the house in the morning I have been touched by thousands of other lives. It is impossible for a human being to be separate. We are connected to each other and to all life, to the earth we live on, as intimately as our cells are part of us.”         

I love this passage because although we live our lives under this veil of “separateness”, our fates are all deeply intertwined with one another’s. We may be our own person, but we are people who are a part of our own small communities—whether that be with our family, friends, neighbors, book clubs, etc. These small communities come together to form an even larger community, such as a city. Multiple cities come together to form a state, and so on and so forth until our entire planet Earth is but one small speck in the greater universe.

When we take a look at our skin from a holistic skincare approach, the same type of thought process applies. Our skin is an organ of the integumentary system, and while this system has multiple functions that it alone carries out, it cannot perform said functions without all the other body systems performing their particular jobs. Each system is but one part of a greater operating whole, where no one system is more important than the other. Applying this to the idea of skincare, a blemish, for example, isn’t always just the result of a clogged follicle. Depending on where the blemish is located on your face, it can indicate something else going on internally. Looking at the bigger picture is a key aspect of holistic skincare.

Our skin acts as a communicator; often times the first sign of internal imbalance will show up on our faces. It is the job of a holistic esthetician, then, to investigate what your face is communicating and get to the root cause of whatever it is that’s showing up on your skin. Sometimes that may mean outsourcing to other professionals, such as our in house nutritionist or maybe an outside acupuncturist or other professional to address what’s going on internally. 

Holistic skincare isn’t about a quick fix. It’s not about simply slathering on a band aid over a problem in the form of a topical solution. It’s about digging deeper and discovering what’s really going on to create lasting results and lasting health. It’s about becoming your own investigator and recognizing patterns. It’s about not only becoming more aware of the skin you’re in, but being able to really love your skin – even if it has blemishes, or wrinkles, or hyperpigmentation; because these are simply messages from our bodies that there’s something else going on. While I am here to help guide you on your skins journey of healing in whatever way I can, ultimately, our health is in our own hands. And what an empowering idea that is.  

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