Radiance Rituals: The Guide to Glowing Skin & Facial Sculpting

There’s so much noise in the beauty world—so let’s get real. In this episode, I’m sharing what actually makes a difference when it comes to your face: from facial massage and treatments worth investing in, to easy things you can do at home that truly elevate your glow. If you’ve ever wondered what’s worth it and what’s just hype, this one’s for you.

Thanks so much for listening! If this episode resonated with you, make sure to subscribe and leave a review. New episodes drop every Tuesday morning, and you can follow me on Instagram @Stephanie_Monge to stay connected and come along for the journey.

Transcript

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Hello and welcome or welcome back to the Barefaced and Becoming podcast. Today we are going to be talking about all things beauty. So if you didn't know, I am an aesthetician. I've been an aesthetician for about five or six years now. And we are going to talk about the things that actually help to change your face. They are going to help enhance your natural features, boost your facial radiance, and just elevate that natural glow. Now, by this time, I'm sure we all know that your sleep movement and nutrition habits are, of course, gonna have an effect on this. And of course, those are your foundations. But today we're not talking about that. Very quickly, I will touch on the fact of stress. I will see patients that, you know, maybe have the best skincare routine, such a high quality of products. But genuinely, if your stress is through the roof and you're not sleeping well, it really, really does have such a huge effect on the inflammation in your face and the breakouts that you can have. I just like as an aesthetician, I feel it's my duty to say that. But again, like I said, those are the foundations. And today we're gonna be talking about little habits and techniques that you can do to help to boost your beauty. I know there's so much information out there on treatments and tools and creams, and it can be really overwhelming. But over the years, both working with clients and doing my own research, experimenting on myself, I've noticed that there are a few things that really make a visible difference. So I'm gonna break those down for you today. The first one is facial massage. You can also do this with a gua sha, but just stimulation of the blood in your face really helps not only drain the lymph, but just sculpt out the face, wake up the face. It helps to boost circulation so you feel more radiant, but also the inflammation goes down so much. When you increase your blood flow, you're able to bring more nutrients to the skin. Like I said, improves lymphatic drainage, which reduces puffiness, and it actually helps to tone and lift the muscles over time. Just like we have muscles in our body, we have them in our face. So doing things like using a microcurrent or using manual massage really helps to work out those muscles, and that's gonna help the overall lift of your face. So a couple of techniques that I really like that are easy to do on yourself. First of all, you want to oil up your hands. You can use oil cleanser as you're cleansing your skin to do this. You can use a moisturizer, you could do an oil at the end of your routine depending on your skin type, but upward strokes along the cheek to jawline going up the face. You can also do like kind of little slapping motions with both of your hands. Remember, you want everything to be going up. Microcurrent treatments are really great. I do that at body well. That is definitely the most popular facial because you notice such a huge difference, even in the first session that you do it, and the contour of your jawline and your cheekbones. Another really great thing is to do circles around the bone around your eye. So with your ring finger, you would start from the outer corner and go inward towards the nose and up around the brow bone and back down. This really helps lymphatic drainage and stimulate the blood flow to the under-eye area so that it helps to plump. And then also kind of massaging your fingertips and an upward motion on the brow bone helps so much. Everything you really want to go either up or out from the center of the face to the hairline or towards your ear. Another huge thing, like I mentioned, would be with a goua sha. So the most important part about using the goua shaw is to activate the lymph before you massage with the goua sha. So to activate the lymph nodes, it's just a pumping motion. There's a lymph node behind your ear, there's one right next to your ear, next to your nose, where the nasal labial is, like right on the corner of the nose. Pumping motion there. And then there is one in the corner of your eye. And then I always like to do one just like on the temple. And just doing like five to seven pumping motions is amazing. You can also do lymphatic drainage with your hands. You don't need a gouacha. Again, just making sure that you're using a glide, like an oil, so that you're not pulling against the skin. The lymphatic drainage technique is really again starting with the pumping motion of the lymph nodes and then going from the center of your face outwards. So on the jawline, you would start at the chin, run your fingers or the gouacia along the jawline, go towards behind the ear and down the neck. Everything you do, you want to start in the center of the face, finish by the ear, behind the ear and down the neck. That helps the lymph really drain. And this actually comes out through your urine. So you want to make sure that you're staying super hydrated. And oh, sorry, last lymph node would be by your collarbone. And that's one that you would want to make sure to activate too so that everything can drain. And then you also have like face yoga, which are like exercises moving your face around so they look kind of funny, like smiling really wide or pressing and holding certain points, opening the mouth really wide, things like that can help to exercise the muscles in your face. Of course, consistency is key, just like exercising the body. You won't see results overnight, but over the weeks you'll start to notice more lift, more definition. Like I said, I do this a lot. I have a facial at work that I do. It's called the face lifting facial, and it's a lot, a lot of manual massage and then microcurrent. And you can always add like washa onto it. I love that facial. It's so good. Like I said, you see results after the first session. But again, like it's like you go to the gym and you do a super hard, let's say, bicep workout. And afterwards, you're gonna have a pump, of course. But are you gonna keep those biceps for life? No, you're gonna need to continue to go to the gym every week to make sure that those biceps continue to grow. It's the same exact thing with the face. So, yes, after the first session, you definitely will see a difference. But those results, I would say, last maybe a week. Over time, you want to come in, I say at least once a month to make sure that you're continuously building that muscle and holding those results. Super proactive for anti-aging. And it's also great for a lot of people that don't want to do any injections. So manual massage and manipulation, any type of like microcurrent lymphatic drainage, so so good. And then number two, we talked a little bit about this on the last episode. So I won't go too in depth about it. But overexfoliation, a lot of people think scrubs and acids and peels will instantly give them, you know, less acne and a brighter complexion, which it can, but we use in a proper protocol, which is personalized to your specific skin. So when you overexfoliate, it can do things like damage your skin barrier, cause inflammation and breakouts, maybe make your skin more sensitive. Whereas I really do think less is more exfoliating two to three times a week, making sure that you're prioritizing hydration with ceramides and peptides, of course, your diet, drinking a lot of water and things like that. And then just really not overdoing it. When you overexfoliate, it can push your skin into the opposite, where as you're stripping it of its natural oils, it's gonna go into fight or flight and be like, oh, we need to make more oils. Our skin is dry. Like, produce, produce, produce. So you're actually kind of doing the opposite. So I always tell my patients, your skin barrier is your foundation. You have to protect it, and then you'll get better results from any treatment or product from making sure that you are prioritizing hydration over anything. And then number three is skin versus internal health. This is a big one that people don't realize. Like I mentioned in the beginning, I can see patients using the best products, and their stress or lack of sleep is really going to affect the external. And that's like really what my brand is about is focusing on internal wellness to optimize your external radiance. You can use the top-of-the-line creams and treatments and facials, but if you're not nourishing your body internally, you're still gonna see the issues. And I don't only mean about sleeping well and eating well, but also your hormone balanced and going into supplements. Maybe your body is needing something supplemented. Well, first of all, skin is the biggest organ in your body. So I always like to explain skin as like it's talking to you, right? You can listen to your skin rather than constantly listening to outside noise of what works for other people, what is working for your skin? Your skin is talking to you and you need to listen to it. So if you're breaking out, if you're getting rashes, if you're feeling inflamed, this all stems from inside. For example, if you're not sleeping well, your skin's gonna be dull. If you're having a super high sugar intake, you're gonna have inflammation, or maybe you're gonna have breakouts. If you're having an overproduction or underproduction of a certain hormone, so the best beauty habit is paying attention to your internal health alongside your skincare routine. So I always recommend to get some blood work done, making sure maybe you need to have something supplemented. And then, of course, stress management is so important. I find that that really makes a big difference, specifically on my skin. It's kind of like a toxic cycle. Like you get stressed, you lose sleep, you crave sugar, the sugar breaks you out, the no sleep it just kind of can be really toxic. So I do really think that honing in on how you can better take care of your body and your mental health to optimize your radiance. And again, like these are the foundations of your skin. And in the last part here, we're gonna talk about treatments that I think are actually worth it versus ones that I think are just all about hype. So for me, like I mentioned, I love a microcurrent facial treatment. There's so many people that I feel like say, like, oh, you don't need a facial every month and all these things. And it depends what facial you're getting, though. So if you're getting an extraction facial every single month and you have clear skin, like, yeah, that's definitely not necessary. But something like deep tissue massage for your face, microcurrent for the face, I think makes such a big difference. I've had patients that have been doing these facials with me for three to four years, and they just look super radiant. They have like no inflammation in their face, and it really makes such a big difference. I also love microneedling. I think that everybody should be doing microneedling. The younger you start, the better. I feel like 22, 23 is like a good age to start. So, what microneedling is, is it's a pen with a bunch of microneedles at the end of it. You can use different glides for it. So, depending on your skin type, you can use PRF, which is the vampire facial, so to speak, platelets from your blood. You can do like a hydrating glide, you can do an acne glide, like you can really personalize it so much. But like any microneedling treatment, what it's gonna do is it's controlled trauma to the skin. So your body kind of goes into like a healing mindset of like, okay, there's trauma to the skin, we need to heal it. So it helps to boost your collagen production. And the reason why it's better to start younger is because the storage of your collagen production is higher the younger that you are. So the younger that you start, the more you're optimizing that collagen production. So I love a microneedling treatment. I would say you could do like every six weeks. I at least try to do it twice a year, but I really do think it just helps your overall tightness of the skin. It helps the pores, it helps kind of even out the skin tone. I also have tried it with a peel, which is amazing. I really also do love peels, but I think that this can go into the hype category is like overdoing any. Actually, well, really any treatment would be like overhype, but definitely like going too crazy on a peel. And yeah, I think that a lot of people can just kind of go overboard with it. Like they find a good thing, and you know, too much of a good thing isn't good anymore. So I think making sure that you're, you know, going with a trusted provider and you're following a protocol is so important. I also really do love lasers. I tried CO2 laser, although it is so intense. I noticed such a huge difference in the texture of my skin and the radiance of my skin. I felt so much more glowy. I really do also want to try clear and brilliant. We have that on my job. I just haven't tried it yet, but I've seen such good results with that one as well. Also, so simple, but pimple patches are my best friend. I always recommend these for my patients because I think a lot of time people that are acne prone, like they fidget with their skin too much because I mean, I'm guilty of doing this too. Like, even if you're not popping the pimples, like just touching your skin so much, it's transferring the bacteria. So pimple patches are my best friend. And then for the hype stuff in this section, like I said, just like any treatment that goes way too overboard, I think is just unnecessary and too much. And then I would also say at-home devices, to be honest, I think aren't really worth it unless you're someone that has the time to do it and you're gonna be super consistent and you know that for a fact, I think it's not worth it because I see so many of my patients that spend so much money on these crazy expensive devices, and then you don't really have time for it. Well, first of all, it's so much nicer to have something done than to do it yourself. So most of the time you're not gonna do it, but then actually, like the time it takes and the routine it takes, the consistency it takes, like I find most people aren't really gonna do it unless it's super easy and simple. And usually the simple things are not very expensive, anyways. So manual massage, like I mentioned, gua shaw, not expensive, dry brushing for the face could be great, cold therapy for the face, like like a cryo ice mold, super inexpensive from Amazon. So I think that like really at-home devices for the face are not really that worth it, in my opinion. And from my experience, like things like the new face, first of all, the new face is not very strong. So for you to have the results that you would get from coming and doing a facial is so competitive because the device that I use when I give facials is I think like 16 times stronger than the new face. So for you to get the same results that you would get by going and doing a facial, like you would really have to be doing the new face like every single day for I don't even know how long. Like, I just don't think that that is worth it. And then last but not least is supplementing collagen. I think that a lot of the brands out there just way too gimmicky. I need to do a little bit more research on this, but I know that most collagen supplements out there, the molecule of the collagen is way too big to actually be penetrated into the body to help you produce more collagen. I know there's something called hydrolyzed collagen, which is a little bit different because your body is able to absorb it a little bit better. I need to look more into that specifically, but I think it's just really important to do research on, I mean, really any supplement or anything that you're consuming. But I think this is a huge one that went super viral and that a lot of people didn't really like kind of question and that a lot of people are wasting their money on. So making sure that the molecule is actually small enough to penetrate into the body, but also doing things that can help to boost your collagen production. So, for example, microneedling treatment, things in your diet can help to boost collagen production. So, for example, eating foods with zinc in it and vitamin C, sleeping good can help your collagen boost. You know, thinking about things that can help to boost the collagen that you already have rather than like just completely supplementing it as a whole, I think is more beneficial in my opinion. But again, like I said, I do need to do more research on hydrolyzed collagen. So oh, also I forgot to mention this one, but a lash lift is so life-changing. I love, love, love a lash lift. Just makes my life so much easier and I just feel like more put together all the time. But yeah, these are the beauty habits that I think help to really enhance your natural beauty, just to go over again. Number one is face massage and or lymphatic drainage. Number two is gentle exfoliation and not overdoing it. Number three is prioritizing internal health, really honing in on the foundation of your health, sleep, stress, etc. And number four is choosing treatments wisely and consistently in making sure that you're choosing ones that are actually worth it and not just all hype and you know, questioning the treatments and supplements of you know what scientifically can actually work. Remember, beauty isn't all about products and procedures, it's about how you care for your skin and body as a whole. It's really not about chasing instant results. Consistency in this subject is so important and caring for your skin and body to enhance your natural beauty. I would encourage you to try one of these habits this week. Facial massage is my favorite. I love giving it and being the receiver of it. You can go ahead and check out my Instagram, see a recent post of how you can do a facial massage. I will upload it there. My Instagram is Stephanie underscore manji. I will make sure to upload that for you guys so you can see a visual of it. Cause I know it was kind of hard to explain just through the microphone. I definitely want to make sure to give you guys a visual. And any products that I mentioned, you can check in the description down below. You'll see there my shop my link with all of the products mentioned. And if you do want to come in and get a facial with me, I'll put that down below as well. I am located in Miami Beach for any facials. Thank you guys so much for tuning in to All Things Beauty this week. This was a fun one. I will see you next week. Bye.