Every couple of months, a new skin care trend arises among the Internet’s elite (read: TikTok influencers) that demands our attention. You’d think that, considering our skin is still the same organ it was centuries ago, we’d run out of things to do to do it, but alas. Today, I want to talk about red light therapy, aka these hockey-goalie-circa-1975-esque masks that give your heart a little jolt when they appear on your For You page.
There must be a good reason the girlies are wearing this thing, right? So, what does it do?
Red light therapy is basically used to heal skin that’s been marred in some way – scarring, tendonitis, etc. The light, exposed to the skin at about 620 to 750 nanometers, aims to stimulate cell production, which, if we pay attention to why products like retinol and vitamin C are so popular, is how we get plump, younger-looking skin.
The “discovery,” so to speak, of the potential benefits of red light therapy actually came from NASA – astronauts, who used red light to experiment with plant growth while in orbit, realized that scratches on their hands would actually heal (space screws up a lot of your bodily functions, so patching up a flesh wound is the least of its concerns).
Rocket scientists moonlighting as aestheticians? We love a collab.
Red light can penetrate deep into your cells and muscle tissues, energizing them and speeding up the hard work they do to heal and grow new cells. When it comes to skin care, think of red light therapy as a wake-up call for your skin cells, kicking cell turnover into gear and revealing soft, smooth skin underneath. It can also target fine lines and wrinkles by boosting collagen production to add strength and elasticity to the skin.
Another plus? Red light therapy is painless and won’t cause injury to the skin – while other treatments work by creating micro, controlled damage to trick your skin into fixing itself, red light therapy is non-abrasive. Which also means there’s no downtime or healing period, so you could, in theory, use your mask every week.
TL;DR: If you’re not worried about looking like a menace on your Self-Care Sundays and love a good trend to follow, give red lights a shot!