How Touch Enhances Wellbeing
One of my favourite areas of interest in skin science is how touch can have a beneficial effect in a person’s skincare regime and on their wellbeing. The effectiveness of a product goes beyond simply the ingredients and how beneficial they are for the individual’s skin type – how is the skincare applied is crucial for reasons much deeper than you might think. When I talk about “touch”, I mean the pressure, the direction and style of the strokes, and whether a product is applied with the hands or a tool of some kind. It is quite incredible how many different approaches there are to facial massage. It varies from one culture to another, such as French Jacquet massage and the Japanese art of Kobido, for example. I have believed for a long time that the right type of touch can boost skincare product efficacy and generate a wave of positive emotions to make people look and feel well. Now, advanced research techniques can detect changes in brain wave patterns and different brain area activation. For the first time, the science provides evidence of the effect touch can have on the whole body. Skin is the largest sensory organ. New research has shown that skin senses external information in the same way that the brain does; it
