This Intense Korean Facial Massage Can Transform Your Face—and We Tried It

Facial massage is rejuvenating, but can you use it to transform your face shape and undo long-term effects of stress and lifestyle? The answer is yes, with the right method—such as that of Ryu Bae, Korea's little-known "Star Face-Maker." Each session is intense, but you walk out with noticeable differences after just one treatment, and ten sessions can make it look almost as if you had plastic surgery—but in a good way, as you'll look like the best version of yourself. I visited her Gangnam spa—where she's treated countless A-listers to rave reviews and impressive results—to learn more about her signature technique, then ended up trying the treatments myself. Keep scrolling to get a taste of what this Korean facial massage method is actually like.

How Daily Life Impacts Your Face Shape

Ryu Bae says that the face is a reflection of your overall health, and the key to understanding how your whole body is working together. Depending on how you use your muscles, the human head's 29 bones—which aren't static—can shift in sometimes very noticeable ways. It's about more than just gravity, so if you've noticed that your face shape looks different than it did in the past, it might have as much to do with your daily habits and long-term experiences as it does the passage of time.

My Face Analysis

After studying my face for five minutes, Bae concluded that I have a taxing job, I don't sleep enough, I have a lot of stress, I cross my left leg over my right too much, and so my face is a bit longer than it probably is meant to be and not symmetrical. I told her that I generally have a long face and it was never perfectly symmetrical, but she encouraged me to find any photos of myself from ten years ago. I found some in an old Facebook album, and we studied it together. Sure enough, ten years ago, my face was decidedly a bit more symmetrical—and shorter.

I thought the changes in my face were just gravity taking its toll, but Bae told me the good news that my skin is still firm (the benefits of running a beauty company). The elongation is actually more due to my bones shifting around than gravity. According to her, some people's bones shift horizontally, which results in a wider face, while others have faces that can both widen and elongate over time. She tells me that this isn't the way faces naturally evolve, but instead, it's a direct result of poor habits and lack of health.

How Face Shape Connects to Your Health

When Bae saw my elongated face, she said it signaled a lot of tension in my neck and shoulders. These shortened, tightened muscles pull my face bones down, making my face longer. She also said that my hips were probably not aligned, which could impact the way I walk and the burden I'm putting on my joints. And with tension all over, the expert facial massage therapist concluded that I likely don't have optimal circulation, which also results in reduced radiance.

"Face massage can be helpful in increasing blood flow, which can help to decrease puffiness, improve circulation and at least temporarily make the skin more radiant," adds board-certified dermatologist, Hadley King, MD. "When done properly, lymphatic drainage can also be achieved, leaving the face less puffy."

My Korean Massage Experience

While I didn't receive treatment from Bae for 10 weeks in a row as some do, I went twice six months apart, and found that even these sessions made a noticeable difference. While the focus was on getting my face shape back in balance, the treatment itself is actually a full-body massage consisting of several steps over 2.5 hours:

• Finger massage: At the session, the first thing Bae did was press down hard on my finger joints and twist them all around. She mentioned that this helps reset a lot of the muscles throughout the body. (Pain level: 8 out of 10, with 10 being unbearable pain, or the moment I walk out and never look back.)
• Pressure points: Next, she taped balls made out of germanium to my ears all along the outer edge, which is meant to relieve tension throughout the body, as seen in the image above. (Pain level: 3 out of 10.)
• Cheek massage: She then began kneading my cheekbones to loosen up the muscles in my face so that when she worked on the rest of my body, the bones could more easily shift and reset back to where they should be. (Pain level: 6 out of 10.)
• Inside the mouth: Then, she stuck her fingers in my mouth and started massaging my gums, inner cheeks, and the inner corner of my lips. I had actually gotten a similar massage before, but this one was more intense and incredibly painful. She told me she was both working out my face muscles and ironing out some tension. (Pain level: 7 out of 10.)
• Ear pressure: She also spent a lot of time massaging the bones around the ears, including putting her finger into my ear and pressing hard against the walls. This is supposed to help boost circulation, kick-start facial muscles, and relieve tension. (Pain level: 7 out of 10.)
• Stomach massage: This next part was probably the most painful, but it was a stomach massage. (The intestines themselves; not the stomach muscles, to be clear.) Bae said that my stomach is a bit weak (it's true), and she could help get it pumping and working better. It felt like she was grabbing my intestines up, and then just sort of squeezing them. I endured this as well. (Pain level: 9 out of 10.)
• Deep tissue back massage: After all that work on my stomach, Bae had me turn over and did some sort of deep tissue massage on my upper back. (Pain level: 2 out of 10.)
• Acupressure: Throughout, Bae also did acupressure massages to help relieve tension and put my body into its ideal state. (Pain level: varied.)
• Scalp: Next came a lot of knuckle-kneading and grabbing parts of my head with the whole hand and sort of manually shifting things around. This part felt relaxing and not painful at all. Apparently, this is for further tension release as well as to see how the bones are positioned, which gives more clues to the habits I've cultivated over the years. (No pain, all pleasure!)

Interestingly, when I asked her if results are temporary, Bae said that as long as I keep good habits and can manage stress to reduce tension in my neck and shoulders, my facial bones should not shift downward again. All of her sessions produce incremental results as opposed to temporary fixes that will reverse back to how they were pre-treatment. This means it's a worthwhile investment if it's an option for you and you're ready to adjust your habits to maintain your results—even if you're only able to do one or two sessions. If it's out of budget and/or you can't make it to Gangnam, though, you do have options to get some of the benefits—more on that later.

The Results

After the first treatment, I noticed five remarkable things:

1. Return to my natural facial structure: My elongated face was shorter—more than face length, though, I just looked more like myself in my 20s.
2. Enhanced glow: My skin was so radiant, I felt like I could glow in the dark.
3. Better symmetry: With all that work to release tension and undo unevenness caused by habits over the years, my face looked much more symmetrical.
4. Better gut health: I had a stronger stomach after receiving this massage treatment—I didn't experience any indigestion, no matter what I ate, for the next couple of months.
5. Increased energy: We all know that massages are a great way to relax and restore your energy, so it's no wonder that such an intense session resulted in me feeling generally much, much more energetic.

I loved the results of the session so much that despite the 150 minutes of mild to severe pain, I signed up for more. Treatment number two yielded much of the same, but in a more dramatic way because all the results build on each other.

Bae pointed out that she's not in the business of making clients fit an ideal beauty standard (even if on television she does emphasize the aesthetic results, like having a slimmer face). Rather, her goal is to help people look how they should when your body and bones are in their best alignment. She was simply returning me to my most natural, harmonious state—and that made me both look and feel much better than before. After around 10 treatments, when clients' bodies typically align back to their most natural and healthy state, faces can look dramatically different—and often, that's exactly the kind of reset you need for a major confidence boost.

Bae also treated my husband, who came to Korea with me. While he didn't see results as dramatic as mine, he noted that overall, he felt more energetic and stood a bit straighter.

How to Get Massage Benefits at Home

I asked Bae what I could do at home to keep the structural bliss she'd helped me achieve, and she gave me these three straightforward tips:

• Take the palm of your hand and press down hard on your cheekbones and massage. This will keep your facial muscles loose and prevent them from hardening and tightening in a way that moves your face bones around. This can help slim down a face that widened from muscle strain.
• Squeeze the joints around your fingers (both the top and middle joint), press hard, and roll your fingers around each joint as you squeeze it. This helps keep the muscles throughout the body loose and relaxed, which also can prevent your muscles from pulling bones in unnatural ways.
• Take your index fingers, find the little bone right in front of your ear, and rub it intensely for about two minutes. This is supposed to relax the muscles that can cause wrinkling around the eyes.

The Final Takeaway

Korean massage techniques like Bae's are an investment of time, money, and willingness to endure some degree of discomfort, but for those who choose to try it, it's a great way to restore your face and body to their most balanced state and undo years of tension and habits. Even after a single session, the results are noticeable, and you'll be amazed at how great restoring overall alignment can make you look and feel. Even if you can't make it to see Bae herself, her at-home massage tips—as well as looking into other holistic techniques like macro beauty massage—can make a major difference in the health and appearance of your face and body.