Three Free Tweaks

After my recent story about The £1000 face, I thought I’d better tone it down a bit and write about three things that you can do to improve your face that won’t cost you a penny. The first one does require a good deal of practice – there’s a knack to it, but I’m told anyone can do it; the second is very easy indeed; and the third only needs a period of adjustment. Here they are…

Learn Dr Doris Day’s ear trick

Dr Doris Day – a globally renowned board-certified dermatologist from New York -can use the muscles by her ears to pull the skin on her mid-face back towards her hairline; training the muscle to hold it there. It’s a movement, she points out, that happens naturally as you smile, and it tightens the lower face.

The technique is something she talks about and demonstrates on social media – where I follow her keenly. In fact, I once shook her hand at a conference, and I take her word as gospel.

I’ve started trying to do it too, and have been asking other people if they can do it. One practitioner said, ‘No, but watch this!’ and lifted the entire top of his forehead and his hairline upwards and backwards by a good three centimetres. Astonishing, but it did look weird and though I begged, he wouldn’t let me film it.

Can I do it? Not yet. I can get my ears to twitch, but can’t move them significantly. Yet.

The cold spoon massage

Particularly good for soothing a puffy morning face and softening bags under the eyes, this is a classic that’s worth remembering. All you need is two teaspoons that have been in fridge for a bit (not the freezer), and a bit of lightweight serum or cream to give them some slip.

Use the backs of the spoons in a light, sweeping motion beneath your eyes, from the centre outwards, then back towards your ears, to help get the lymph moving and reduce any puffiness. Sweep them just underneath your eyebrows, from the centre outwards, across your forehead, and then work under your cheekbones out to your ears, as if you were sculpting them. You can use the spoons wherever feels good. Is this like gua sha? More or less. Same-same but different.

Do I do this? Not often – I don’t often have puffy eyes – but I know it feels fab.

Sleep on your back

Why sleep on your back? Because then you’re not squashing one side of your face into the pillow, creating creases and increasing wrinkling in the skin (tweakments practitioners say they can tell which side people prefer to sleep on from looking at their faces). Smooth and slippery silk or satin pillowcases can help to counteract this, but if you sleep flat on your back, you avoid it altogether.

Most of us sleep on our sides, so learning to sleep flat on our backs takes a bit of practice. First you need to learn to drop off while lying flat, and you may need to wedge yourself up with pillows to stop yourself from automatically rolling over onto your side once you’re asleep.

Won’t you snore if you sleep on your back? Possibly, but then you could tape your mouth shut with a bit of micropore tape to make sure you breathe through your nose.

Do I do this? Yes, up to a point. I start off sleeping on my back, but then each time I wake in the night (quite a bit) I turn to a different side, so my spine doesn’t seize up in one position.

Of course, there are also in-clinic tweakments that don’t have to cost the world on hand to improve your skin too. Read more about the ones I’m predicting to be most popular this year in my Top Tweakents Trends for 2024.