Beauty products alone may not be able to beat the ravages of time. As its name suggests, Thai cosmetic brand @skinexercise encourages women to give their skin a workout that will help them look younger for longer.
One fitness routine is facial yoga, which inspired the brand's Yoga skincare products, launched earlier this year.
The latest additions to this line, Brightening Eye Serum and Facial Multi Peptide Cream, come with yoga poses for the eye contour as well as the whole face.
"Facial muscles are no different from the muscles of the rest of the body in requiring regular exercise, which helps keep them firm. If you don't exercise these muscles, signs of ageing can easily develop and make you look older than your age," said yoga instructor Walaipat Aksorndee, who demonstrated the facial exercise at the launch of the new products recently held at the Four Seasons Hotel Bangkok.
The eight-step routine starts off by doing the detoxifying Breathing Like Sea Waves, which begins with inhaling through the nose. With hands on the neck, exhale through the mouth with a vibrating sound. After you're good at it, inhale through the nose followed by exhaling through the nose while keeping the mouth closed.
This is followed by deep breathing accompanied by stomach movements that aim to improve circulation and brighten up the face.
For a firmer eye contour, the Ah Muay (Chinese Girl) movement uses the index and middle fingers to lift up the corners of the eyes followed by narrowing the eyes.
Many of the facial yoga poses are derived from animal movements. The tortoise and its strong retracting neck, for example, inspired a pose to strengthen the chin and neck muscles. It simply starts by placing your hands on the neck, then inhaling and exhaling while stretching the chin and bottom teeth forward.
Other poses for the lower-half of the face include the puckered Goldfish and bloated Puffer Fish, which involve deflating and inflating the cheeks to firm up the skin of the cheek lines.
The Lion pose exercises every part of the face. Firstly, inhale through the nose and exhale through the mouth while extending the tongue to release a sound and at the same time, with the eyes looking up and arms stretched out forwards.
While the animal poses make you look ridiculous, it's the fun part of facial yoga to "roar" the wrinkles away.
