Do facial exercises work?

There's something slightly comical about facial exercises. In fact, they're just the sort of thing that would crop up in a TV sit-com, with the middle-aged mother gurning at herself in the mirror, as assorted teenage offspring, lodgers and husband snigger. But are they just a laugh or are they akin to a mini face lift as devotees claim?

The internet is full of facial exercise gadgets and gurus with tempting testimonials from believers. Here in the UK Eva Fraser is the best known facial exercise expert and has a number of books and DVDs, as well as a facial fitness centre in Kensington in London, to her name. In her photographs she looks 20 years younger than other women of her age thanks to her facial exercise routine, and her clients certainly rave about her methods.[quote]

In general, the argument for doing facial exercises is compelling – just 10 minutes a day, four times a week, and after a few months you'll see a firmer jawline, your eyelids lifted and nose to mouth lines softened. The theory is that the muscles in your face can be trained to become firmer just like muscles in other parts of the body, and that they need to be worked, otherwise they will slacken. Ageing, it's argued, is not just a skin problem, it's also about muscles drooping beneath the surface.

However, critics of facial exercise counter that they actually add to lines through repetitive movement, especially on the forehead and from the nose to mouth. Dr Patrick Bowler, author of 'The Nervous Girls Guide to Nip & Tuck' (£7.99 Harper Thorsons) and Medical Director of Court House Clinics (0870 850 3456 www.courthouseclinic.com) comments: 'It's an attractive theory, toning muscles to keep skin taut, but contracting facial muscles also causes lines and wrinkles to develop. When the skin is young it is full of elastic fibres that help it spring back into place, but as we age this elasticity is lost and facial expressions leave creases in our skin, hence the popularity of Botox that relaxes the facial muscles to prevent wrinkles becoming established.' He adds, 'there is no scientific data to prove that facial exercises work, but there is also nothing to prove they don't.'

The latter is a view echoed by Dr Norman Leaf, a US based plastic surgeon and co-founder of the Leaf and Rusher skincare line. He explains, 'it is true that facial muscles of expression cause the skin to wrinkle, but the other side of the coin is that when they are kept taut and strong, they keep the deeper facial contours better supported.'

So would he recommend facial exercises? 'I am neither an advocate nor a critic of them,' he says. 'I have had patients who are lifelong devotees of facial exercises and they have held up their looks very well. But I think they must be a part of a complete program, including, most importantly, sun protection. The most devoted exercise program will be useless if one does it lying on the beach, smoking a cigarette.'