Precise, gentle movements and a benevolent attitude help to enhance the effect of slimming cosmetics and regain contact with your own body.
The approach of summer for many women is marked by the purchase of a slimming cream – today this gesture has become almost ritual. And, as in any ritual, it has both its charm and its additional meaning. Such a purchase can be a good reason to feel the beneficial effects of not only modern cosmetic care, but also massage practices, and at the same time restore relationships with your body.
If an anti-cellulite cream or volumizer is applied carefully, thoughtfully, with smoothing or kneading movements, its effect becomes more effective. Massage improves blood circulation and stimulates cellular metabolism, saturates tissues with oxygen and beneficial substances. But not only: self-massage can also teach us to be kinder to our own body. It helps once again to remember your feminine nature and feel it again. Massaging movements can be the first step towards accepting yourself. It is worth taking care and attention to every part of your body, without exception: gentle touches bring peace, intense touches tone you up. “In the morning, it’s good to perform a tonic massage – in just three minutes it stimulates and helps to wake up, and five minutes in the evening can be devoted to draining techniques, thanks to which excess fluid leaves the body,” advises cosmetologist Elena Muravyova. A bonus will be farewell to swelling, extra centimeters and cellulite irregularities: fluid stagnation and poor microcirculation are perfectly eliminated by massage. And also, perhaps, a desire will come to change your life a little in other areas – to make it richer by including movement in it, optimize your nutrition, start the path to an active, “summer” lifestyle.
Reopen your body
Before starting the massage, it is better to rub your palms against each other so that they warm up. Then run your fingertips all over the body, like a sculptor, rediscovering his silhouette: trace the lines of the legs and waist, the roundness of the hips and buttocks. Let’s close our eyes and forget about the mirror – let’s trust our sense of touch. Somewhere you just want to lightly stroke your palms, and somewhere you want to linger … After that, you can choose a cream to your liking: one that you like with its aroma and texture and which is not absorbed too quickly so that you can perform a massage on it. Any remedy – balm, oil, cream or serum – is good to apply immediately after a shower: the body is warmed up, and it will gratefully accept what we nourish it with.
Our experts
Elena Muravieva, chief cosmetologist of Chanel in Russia; Dietberga Backhaus, cosmetologist-masseur, Clarins Beauty Institute, Paris
Self-massage as an art
Start by smoothing the arch of the foot, this will help to relax the muscles. Gradually, slowly rise to the knees and hips. Continue upward, massaging the buttocks, and then the hands – from the elbows to the shoulders, tracing the location of the muscles under the skin. Finish with a massage of the abdomen, a zone that is always sensitive to our emotions. Repeat each movement several times, accompanied by deep breathing, in which the stomach inflates with each breath.
Massage techniques can be very different: smoothing, kneading, patting … Dietberga Backhouse, a cosmetologist-masseur, recommends massaging the buttocks with fists, making sliding and pressing movements, and also, for greater efficiency, tensing the muscles being massaged: “Adipose tissue, thanks to this technique, is “ trapped” between tense muscles and massaging fingers; this activates deep circulation and the removal of excess fat and water.”
The intensity of the massage should be large enough to “get” to the fat layer. But it’s better not to overdo it: “Massage movements should be performed slowly and carefully, in no case should they be painful,” warns Elena Muravyova. The tissue in which the blood circulation is insufficiently active, accordingly, does not receive the necessary oxygen, it becomes more rigid, there is no movement in it. And it can literally be revived. Massage improves blood circulation and lymph outflow, and at the same time stimulates the breakdown of adipose tissue.
The beauty of the gesture
Especially carefully it is worth massaging the stomach. Start with pinching movements, grabbing as much skin as possible. Then knead the stomach, simulating kneading the dough with movements. You will immediately feel the return of such intense techniques – if the skin turns red, then you have worked effectively. Then, in a clockwise spiral motion, smooth out your abdomen, starting at the navel.
On the hips and legs, the same pinching technique is ideal – having gathered all the fingers, pinch the skin, as if trying to scoop something up. The pinch should be as deep as possible. Grab a fold of skin and knead it intensively, moving horizontally from the outside of the thigh to the inside. You can end with a gesture of “reconciliation” with yourself, a gesture of gratitude and love: cross your arms over your stomach, “hugging” your waist, and then wrap your arms around your shoulders. At the end of the procedure, apply a body cream with your favorite scent or perfumed powder. This is another way to tell our body how much we love it.