As part of TikTok’s endless quest to invent a time machine and actually reverse the ageing process (see also: moisture sandwiches and skin icing), face taping has become an ever-increasing trend on the platform, with thousands of videos already demonstrating how users are using medical tape on their wrinkles to replicate the effects of Botox.
I’d probably describe myself as increasingly Botox-curious - I’m definitely drawn to the idea of looking slightly younger and a lot less tired, and have seriously upped my skincare game recently, but I’m not quite ready to commit more time and money to the process right now. However, using medical tape to smooth over my wrinkles? Sounds simple. But the big question is, does it work?
TikTok is full of before and after videos of women whose skin looks remarkably smooth and line-free after taping over their wrinkles, so I decide to put it to the test. I consult aesthetic doctor and GP Dr Sonia Khorana, who suggests that if I am going to do it, I need to use medical tape, to allow my skin to breathe and prevent irritation as much as possible. It takes a lot of forceful glue to stick, hold, and pull – so if you are going to do it, you need to find a tape that is breathable and classed as “medical” tape,’ (she also points out that repeated use of any tape would be irritating for most people’s skin, regardless). Dr Khorana adds that my best bet it to target specific problems areas - ‘forehead, crows feet or smile lines.’
It’s probably worth pointing out at this point that she is pretty dubious as to the efficacy of face taping - especially versus a procedure like Botox.
‘It is thought that during sleep we are rolling around, squishing things, using our muscles, so if we can hold things in place then we can avoid getting wrinkles,’ she explains to me. ‘Things only look better when the tape is on. So using it overnight seems to be a bit pointless - the tape isn’t going to reduce your wrinkles in the day/have any effect on them in the day.’
Nonetheless, I decide to persist with my plan - after all, holding my muscles in place for a full eight hours is bound to make some difference, right? I don’t have many crows feet but I’m increasingly conscious of the lines developing on my forehead. They’re much better when I’ve had a facial or made sure my skin is well hydrated, but they’re gradually getting deeper and harder to shift, so I’d love to see if taping my forehead overnight softens the those lines.
There is a bit of dissent amongst TikTokkers as to how you actually tape your face. Some videos suggest taping your whole forehead with one big piece of tape, while others cut up smaller pieces of tape and place them carefully over specific lines, crows feet and the orbital bone (the bone above your eye socket). Our beauty team have kindly found me some medical tape - it’s marketed as c-section tape (so you tape it over your stitches after a c-section to hold everything in place) but it's medical tape, so should do the job. I realise as it comes in one big rectangle and doesn’t cut particularly easily that it makes sense to tape it directly over my forehead in two places, targeting the worst of my lines.
So that’s what I did. I gave my moisturiser half-an-hour to sink in properly, then I taped over my forehead in two slightly different angles to cover as many of my lines as possible. The tape felt a little hot and itchy, I pushed it down as hard as possible based on what Dr Khorana said.
After a relatively good night’s sleep (I didn’t necessarily think the tape would stay in place if I was up and down all night with one of my children) the tape had slipped slightly that was still pretty much in place.
To my surprise, when I took the tape off there was a visible difference to my face, the lines had almost totally disappeared - in fact you could see where they stopped/started where the tape ran out. I had't expected the tape to work at all, and was amazed at how clearly it had in some places. The flip side is that the shape of the tape left visible marks, so I had to wait for those to fade before I could really see any difference.
A few hours alter I took another picture of myself - again, the lines on my face look visibly softer and less obvious which felt like a massive success. But a few hours later, and as Dr Khorana predicted, the wrinkles on my forehead were much more visible again. Here I am the following day, and even with a full face of makeup you can see the lines on my forehead are visibly back.
So, does face taping work? Sort of, for a brief period of time. But I'm not convinced it's worth all that faff for a couple of hours of slightly smoother skin and it's certainly no substitute for Botox, which lasts for several months. If you've got the time and inclination, and you're confident the tape won't irritate your skin, by all means give it a go - just don't expect it to change your life. Like most TikTok beauty trends, there's a grain of truth in there, but there's no way it lives up to the hype.
Rebecca Holman has been digital director at Grazia for the last five years, and previous to this, was editor of The Debrief, xoJane UK and Handbag.com. Her first book, BETA: Quiet Girls Can Run The World is available to buy now. Rebecca has written about dating, relationships, work, parenting, pop culture and feminism. She wears yoga leggings 88.5% of the time.