Zheng said stagnant qi can manifest in dullness of the skin, puffiness, rough texture, and acne—check, check, check, and check. But honestly, after months of consistent practice, the results speak for themselves.
I wanted to feel sculpted. I wanted a chiseled jawline and to rid myself of puffy cheeks and a baby double chin by my wedding day. Done, done, and done. She’s bright, she’s smooth, and she’s snatched. And now, she’s officially hitched!
But here’s what I didn’t expect: I didn’t expect the textural differences and genuine smoothness. I didn’t expect the brightness nor the return of a natural flush that I might not have seen since my college days. And above all, I didn’t expect to feel uplifted in more ways than one.
As what we in the community call a “first-generation alpha daughter” with infinite caretaker duties moving through life at hyperspeed, I’m used to slapping on my seven-step skincare routine in five minutes or less and flopping on the bed past the point of exhaustion and calling that “self-care.” But something about this gua sha routine—call it the intentional focus on long-neglected acupuncture points or the art of practicing a centuries-long tradition that roots me in my ancestral past—honors traditions of my culture and connects me to my mother, aunties, and grandmothers through restorative beauty rituals. What started as a 10-minute routine has bloomed into a full-blown ritual.
So that leaves me with the final pro tip, courtesy of Zheng herself: go slow.
“This is one of my favorite elements of gua sha practice that I think people don’t often realize or think about. A big focus of mine recently has been nervous system regulation. In this current world that we live in, it’s very easy for our sympathetic nervous system—our fight-or-flight—to get activated, so I feel like practices like gua sha—which force you to slow down, to be really intentional, to think about your breathing, your body, and how you’re feeling—help activate the parasympathetic system, the rest-and-digest stage. That’s where healing and rest happen, so it’s really important to make sure that we’re intentionally bringing our body back into that state. In this world we live in, it’s really easy to always stay in a hyperactive flight-or-flight mode,” she says.
I renamed my gua sha routine “Rest and Digest” thanks to Zheng’s illuminating perspective, and I practice that intentionality like my life—or rather my qi—depends on it.
Every night, I put on an episode of a show (right now, it’s Never Have I Ever season four), snuggle under a cozy blanket with my dog, apply my toner, serum, and facial oil, and then glide my rose quartz Mount Lai gua sha slowly over each area of my face. I mentally digest my day—my celebrations and wins, my losses and learnings—and I wiggle away at my favorite acupuncture points (my temples and just below my ears), allowing the superficial concerns of the day to melt away. I close my eyes and breathe deeply. I imagine what it could have been like to wind down my evenings with my mother on our couch, unpacking our days together and grounding ourselves in the comfort of soft conversation. She has long since passed. I recall long-forgotten memories of watching my grandmother at her vanity as she glides her jade roller across her wrinkle-less cheeks with her eyes closed and picking up her jade gua sha with the wonder and confusion of a six-year-old child—“Careful, Mèimei. It’s fragile and precious.”
Does gua sha work? Yes, daily practice has yielded the snatched jawline and chiseled cheekbones that the beauty community loves to see! But it works for me in more ways than one. It grants me peace, clarity, restoration, and emotional connection to my culture in a way I didn’t know a simple beauty ritual could offer. And for those reasons alone, it’s a beauty ritual and piece of Chinese tradition that I intend on practicing (read: celebrating) every day.
