Doctors weigh in on TikTok trend of face tapping for wrinkles trends now
Dr Jennifer Ashton, an obstetrician and gynecologist in New York City, said that taping up your face at night will not help wrinkles to disappear
The latest TikTok beauty hack to go viral involves taping your face to iron out wrinkles.
Watched millions of times on the platform, it involves taping over wrinkles to straighten them and hold muscles in place. The tape is left on for hours, typically while someone is asleep.
Advocates say it has smoothed their wrinkles and made their skin look younger.
But doctors warn that while it may give immediate results, the wrinkles will return in a few minutes — or at best a few hours.
Dr Jennifer Ashton, a medic in New Jersey and ABC News chief medical correspondent, said the method has a 'very superficial, very temporary' effect.
She said nightly taping was 'very unlikely to do anything significant' to deeper wrinkles.
The hack has re-emerged on TikTok this year, with users posting images of themselves putting tape on their cheeks, foreheads (left) and even around their mouth (right) to help avoid wrinkles. Dr Ashton said this likely has a 'superficial' effect on wrinkles
The medic, who works as an obstetrician and gynecologist at Englewood Hospital and Medical Center, also warned over side effects.
She said people can suffer allergic reactions to the tape, which could leave their face swollen and red, while peeling it off can remove the top layer of skin, opening up cells beneath to damage and infection.
Scroll TikTok for a few minutes and you'll probably be hit by a video of someone — normally a woman — taping up their face before bed.
Users are shown deploying scotch tape, plasters and specialist medical bands to stretch skin around their forehead, cheeks and mouth.
The hack has made a recent comeback on TikTok, after first popping up on the social media site last year.
But the method is actually nothing new and dates back to 1889 when a famous brand of face tape called Frownies first hit the market.
It was invented by Margaret Krosesen from Dayton, Ohio, for her daughter Alice, a concert pianist, who had developed unsightly wrinkles and frown lines.
It is one of Hollywood's oldest 'secrets' claiming to de-age skin.
Celebrities including actress and supermodel Raquel Welch and Kardashian's mother Kris Jenner admit to applying the tape nightly to keep younger-looking skin.
But doctors say that despite the endorsement of
