Dr. Jennifer Ashton, MD, an obstetrician-gynecologist in New York City, said that taping your face at night won’t help wrinkles disappear.
The latest viral TikTok beauty hack involves taping your face to smooth out wrinkles.
Seen millions of times on the catwalk, it involves rolling wrinkles to straighten them and keep muscles in place. The tape is left on for hours, usually while the person is sleeping.
Advocates say it smoothed out their wrinkles and made their skin look younger.
But doctors warn that while it may give immediate results, the wrinkles will return within a few minutes—or, at best, a few hours.
The method has a “very superficial, very temporary” effect, said Dr. Jennifer Ashton, a New Jersey-based physician and ABC News chief medical correspondent.
She said nightly taping is “unlikely to do anything significant” for deep wrinkles.
The hack surfaced again on TikTok this year, with users posting photos of themselves applying tape to their cheeks, foreheads (left) and even around their mouths (right) to help avoid wrinkles. Dr. Ashton said this is likely to have a “superficial” effect on wrinkles
The doctor, who works as an obstetrician-gynecologist at Englewood Hospital and Medical Center, also warned of side effects.
She added that people may be allergic to the tape, which can leave their face swollen and red, while peeling it off can remove the top layer of skin and open up the cells underneath to damage and infection.
Scroll on TikTok for a few minutes, and you’re likely to be struck by a video of someone — usually a woman — taping their face goodnight.
Users are shown spreading duct tape, plaster, and specialized medical tapes to tighten the skin around their forehead, cheeks, and mouth.
The hack has recently returned to TikTok, after first appearing on the social networking site last year.
But this method is actually not new and dates back to 1889 when a popular face tape brand called Frownies first appeared on the market.
It was invented by Margaret Croessen of Dayton, Ohio, for her daughter Alice, a pianist, who developed unsightly wrinkles and frown lines.
It’s one of Hollywood’s oldest “secrets” that claim to de-aging skin.
Celebrities including actress and model Raquel Welch and Kardashian’s mother Kris Jenner have admitted to applying the tape at night to maintain youthful skin.
But doctors say that despite ShowBiz World’s endorsement, there is little evidence that the hack actually works.
said Dr. Ashton, who works as an ob-gyn Good morning AmericaVery superficially and very temporarily, it can smooth out those superficial wrinkles.
It depends on the age of the person, how damaged the skin is, how much elasticity or collagen their skin has, and how much volume they have lost with age.
All of these things can contribute to wrinkles.
(But) it is possible that when the tape is removed, these wrinkles can form within minutes to hours. Therefore, it would be a very transient effect.
Asked about deep wrinkles, she said: ‘You have to ask yourself if you’re dealing with wrinkles and fine lines or deep wrinkles.
Taping your face at night for several hours is unlikely to do anything significant for deeper wrinkles.
Dr. Roberta Del Campo, a dermatologist in Florida, previously warned that this method can give someone deeper lines.
I told Huffpost that if someone tries to hack facial muscles in the long term, they may actually be overcompensating by hardening themselves. This could eventually lead to deeper streaks down the line, she said, due to the more powerful contractions.
She’s also tried the hack herself, and said it created a “smoothing effect” on her forehead in the morning.
Wrinkles tend to form in areas where there is constantly repetitive movement, such as around the eyes or mouth.
They start as fine lines that look like small wrinkles on the skin.
But over time, it can turn into deep cracks and grooves on the surface of the skin.
As a result, face plaster is one of the many hacks to combat wrinkles on your face. Others include micro-needling, getting fillers, and even taking certain medications.
Pictured above is a woman applying masking tape to her face to help avoid wrinkles. Dr. Ashton also warned of side effects including a possible allergic reaction or removal of the top layer of skin. There is no evidence that any of these events happened to the woman pictured above
Dr Ashton cautioned that while the duct tape method does work, if someone does it regularly, they put themselves at risk for side effects.
She said some users experience allergic reactions to the tape, which can leave their face swollen, swollen, and red.
There is also a risk that the tape could peel off the top layer of skin, the epidermis, opening someone up to infection and damage to the layers of skin below.
She said: ‘We see allergic reactions all the time to the tape on the skin during surgery.
I would suggest if you are going to try this, try it on a part of your body that the whole world doesn’t see in case you have an allergic reaction.
In some cases, there can be burns from the tape. You can actually remove the surface level of the epidermis, and that would obviously be quite a hassle.
She said women can use Botox instead of tape, which she called the “gold standard” for wrinkle prevention.
