Cortisol Face, Fascia Care and How-to Brow Lift At Home With The Facialist’s Facialist, Maria Cristina Bruno

0:00The following podcast is a dear media production.

0:07Welcome to Breaking Beauty, the podcast all about the breakthrough people, products, and moments in beauty. We're your hosts, Jill Dunn and Carlene Higgins.

0:20Welcome back to Breaking Beauty podcast, everyone. Happy Wednesday. We are in your feeds with another epic episode. How are you, Carlene? I'm wonderful, Jill. Nice to see you. You too. We got through a whole month of September of content. Everything was popping. Chriselle Lim, A Damn Goods, Fall Trends. And we have so much exciting content coming up in October. I know. We've been doing this podcast for seven years. Of course, I'm Carlene and this is Jill. We're two beauty editors turned beauty podcasters. That's right. We do the breakthrough people, products and moments and beauty. And we've been saying that for seven years.

0:55And today we are welcoming a local skin hero. Absolutely. Her name is Maria Christina Bruno. She sounds like an Italian, like movie star. Movie star. She is a seasoned skin therapist and owner of the Fix Facial Bar in Toronto. It's a tucked away kind of jewel box skincare studio known for its non-invasive holistic facial treatments. I've yet to set foot there, but I'm officially going to go this fall. Well, you need to. Yeah, in 2020, Maria Christina really coined what she calls the fix method. So this is a facial massage technique that lifts, de-puffs and sculpts the face. And it's really about relieving tension in your facial muscles.

1:40As someone who wakes up every single morning with a jaw clenched, God only knows what I'm dreaming about. I am really here for what she's up to. Yeah. So it involves fascia technique that she developed, intraoral massage, aka buccal massage, lymphatic drainage. And it really builds on all of the various methods that she's studied over the past 20 years in the spa and salon industry from kobito, Japanese massage, gua sha massage, facial anatomy, and studying how facial muscles contract and relax and move. And, you know, all of this has kind of culminated into her signature fix facial technique that is now coveted by well-known facialists around the world.

2:26so she's trained big names like candace marino the la facialist as well as joanna check and her team which is really impressive and a lot of what she says in today's episode and what her experience kind of is reminding me of is like when we were in paris with chanella they talked about the fascia and that release of the muscle and the release of that tension and that's how it's like that's the way forward in terms of skincare and looking your best for as long as you can. That's right. It's a very sensitive area of the body, much more so than we ever thought in the past. And so she is now actually trained over 10 ,000 therapists worldwide through her webinars and online courses, which by the way, any of us could take.

3:12She offers this on her website. Let's talk about the best like girls night sleepover party. And this just in, Maria Christina will launch her own skincare line. I believe it's going to be next year. It's called Focus Skin Science, and that's really designed to target hyperpigmentation and encourage users to ditch the filters. Hey, why not? Hashtag ditch the filters. Yeah. Today, we're going to chat about some of the topics that are buzzing in skincare right now, like cortisol face. What is that? And what's the fix? We're going to talk about the resurgence of glass skin and what she would do to get reflective, smooth, textured skin herself right now, along with tips on what we can do at home to get a bit of a fixed method effect ourselves.

3:57And what I thought was really juicy is when she name dropped one thing in the skincare world that she would never touch. Yes. And we also got some very specific info about microneedling and what depth to ask for with the needle. Like these are things only professionals can share with us. So I think you'll want to stay tuned to hear it all. So welcome to the podcast, Maria Christina.

4:27Hey friends, my name is Olivia Perez and I'm an entrepreneur, journalist, and the host of the Friend of a Friend podcast. Every Monday, I meet with some of today's youngest and brightest entrepreneurs to make space to tell their stories and shine a light on who I believe to be the next generation of luminaries. I'll interview up-and-comers and game changers from brand builders to personalities, activists, artists, and thought leaders from around the world. Each episode lets you be a fly on the wall during one of the greatest pep talks, like a conversation between you and a friend or a friend of a friend.

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6:41It's so nice to have you here in Toronto. We're both based here. And I understand through the Estee Grapevine that you've been training some of the really the biggest players in terms of facialists. Everyone from Joanna Check to Candice Marino, the LA facialist. They've both been on our show before with your signature facial, The Fix Method. So we need to know, like, what is this and why has it kind of just blossomed right now? Well, thank you so much for having me. I'm really happy to be here. I'm honored to be on a show alongside some of the biggest names in skin. So, yeah, the Fix Method is basically your non-surgical facelift.

7:23Okay. So what makes Fix Method... Say more. Say more, exactly. Who doesn't want a non-surgical facelift? And what it is, is it's a lifting and sculpting facial massage technique. It's done by your esthetician or massage therapist using just their hands. And it employs lymphatic drainage. We do buccal massage as part of it, which is a massage technique that massages from inside the mouth. And what makes it special is that it's able to unlock tension in the facial muscles and release tension in the fascia of the face. And by doing that, we're actually able to change the expression on the face first and foremost, get you really snatched, you know, that really sculpted, lifted look because we're using lymphatic drainage.

8:12And it's really great at imbuing an overall sense of wellness. How long do these results last? The results are really dependent on who's getting the massage. So it really depends on if somebody has, you know, lifestyle plays a factor. Do they eat a lot of salt? Do they drink? Because that's going to impact how much water retention there is in the tissues of the face. And it's also dependent on do they have poor lymphatic detoxification? Do they have sufficient lymphatic flow? And if they do, the results will definitely last longer. I would say, though, to be safe, about 72 hours. So this is great if you're having an event, red carpet, 24 hours before.

8:51it, perfect timing. So you want to get it done 24 hours before. Okay. I was, I was curious about that as well. Not the same day. I mean, I have done it same day. Like I was working on the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Legends photo shoot and we actually did do it on the models like right before they shot. Oh, wow. Incredible. Now something you touched on there that people who have resting bitch face really need to know more about. You said you can change the expression. What are you talking about? Okay, so our facial muscles, we have 42, around 42 in the face. They are operating at an unconscious level, meaning they contract, they move in a way that is unconscious and related to emotion.

9:34Now, what do I mean by that? You're driving in a car. Somebody cuts you off. You get pissed off. What do you do in that? Automatically, without even thinking about it, you furrow your brows. You clench your jaw. Okay? So doing that repetitively thousands of times a day unconsciously, like any other part of your body, repetitive use of your muscles, you get muscle soreness. Like, you know, you have stress. You tend to have tension in your shoulders and trapezius muscles. Well, the same thing happens in your face. You're having that tension locking in the facial muscles. Like, have you ever seen, you know, walking down the street, you see somebody just walking and they have a scowl on their face?

10:09This is me. like I swear that's why it kind of like I was really yeah resonated with me because if I accidentally open my phone and the camera's facing me and I'm like in the middle of doing something like oh my god I look like I'm trying to figure out like quantum physics and I'm just like looking for an email you know what I mean and it's just this thing that I'm like oh my god I'm not conscious of it but I need to be more conscious of it because I'm just like furrowing all the time. So with facial massage, and this is something you can do on yourself as well, what we're doing is we're sort of interrupting that pattern of clench, clench, clench, contract, release.

10:48And we're releasing the tension in the muscle, much like when you go for a body massage and they're releasing all of that stress tension. Now, here's the fun part or the cool part. Because our muscles work in symphony to create a facial expression, when we unlock tension, for example, the muscle that surrounds the eyes, like a drawstring purse, it helps us close our eye. Well, the upper half of that muscle is responsible for closing our eyelid. And what it also does is pull down our eyebrow. So you're just pointing like underneath the eyebrow, the muscle that's under there. Yeah. Right? Because you have a circular muscle around the eye.

11:23But the upper half of that circle pulls down. It's a retractor. So it can pull down your brows. Right. Now, one of the coolest things I see in the treatment room is when we start to unlock the tension right over here, what happens is the eyebrow raises because it's no longer being pulled down the contraction. And so when you're interrupting that stress response or that contraction that's happening over and over again and you're releasing and unlocking the tension in the muscles, you change the way the face looks because the muscles are sitting differently and then the skin sits differently. Yeah, that makes sense.

12:01Is this related to the cortisol face, you know, thing we're seeing on TikTok? Do you know about this? Yeah. What is cortisol face? So I think what people are referring to when they say cortisol face is essentially the appearance of the stress hormone cortisol that is released when your body is in the fight or flight mode. And cortisol in the body, elevated cortisol has many different effects. And one of the effects and how it appears on the face is you see puffiness, you see that scowl, you see the dullness in the face. And it's the puffiness that people are really referring to. And so one of the magical things that touch can do is actually trigger the antidote to cortisol, which is oxytocin, serotonin.

12:46And it can actually put your body in the parasympathetic nervous state, which is the rest and digest. And so, yes, for sure, our stressed out lives, our fight or flight system has become maladapted. Because now even if we have traffic or we're running late, our body goes into that stress response. And that little incremental stress every day for sure shows up on our face. And so by doing facial massage, we're unlocking tension. We're also practicing self-care. Like when you go get a massage, it feels amazing. When you get a facial and they implement massage, it feels amazing. It's part of taking a moment and a break to actually practice some self-care.

13:26You know, it's kind of meditative as well. Yeah. Yeah, I agree with that. I mean, remember there's that when babies are born, it's like they actually crave touch more than food right away. It's the way they communicate actually with their parent before they have language. And, you know, as a mom, this is like so heart-wrenching, but the studies that show, you know, babies who are born in, let's say, war-torn areas who are in an orphanage and they don't get that touch. They actually have emotional and developmental problems. Yeah, it's so, so important. So let's say I was having a party with my girlfriends and we were going to give ourselves face massages through your Zoom.

14:03What would we need to have on hand to make this happen? So first of all, I would say everybody come with a clean face, no makeup, you know, freshly cleansed face. You need some sort of lubricant, facial oil, a facial. I wouldn't say cream because cream can pill and sometimes it doesn't work. But I would definitely say some kind of lubricant. Like a balm or an oil? Yes, a massage balm particularly is what I love because it melts into an oil. That's going to give you glide because you don't want to tug at the skin. And then depending if we're going to do buccal massage, I would say have a pair of disposable gloves.

14:37Even if it's your hand going inside your own mouth, we don't want to introduce bacteria into the oral cavity. And we don't want to take the naturally occurring bacteria that's in our mouth and put it on the surface of our skin. We don't want to cross contaminate. Right. And then if we're doing gua sha, I would say have some sort of gua sha tool with you. Right. Okay. So you have, I know you brought one for us today, but you have like a little pot that you developed yourself of a balm that you can use. Is that right? Yeah. It's called Miracle Melt. It's basically a balm to oil and it was developed out of necessity really because when I was teaching facial massage to other estheticians, they would ask, what do we use.

15:16And a lot of the massage oils that are on the market for body massage are not great quality. They're mineral oils. They're non-comedogenic. They're not high quality oils that you want to apply to the face. And then some of the facial oils absorb so quickly. So they don't give you enough glide. And so this is like a combination of really healthy oils that melt into a balm. I feel like the May Lindstrom, we were just talking about that would be amazing for this. the blue cocoon would be so good and it like smells like heaven yeah it's a little tough for me to use though as an oily skin person because it does what would you what would you recommend for an oily skin person okay so for an oily skin person there's two things you can do you can either use it and cleanse immediately double cleanse immediately right but if you're super anti-oil for the skin which i i understand i actually would get like a facial mask yeah and use your facial mask product yes there's also this really great cleanser that i love from is clinical called the warming honey cleanser.

16:15I use that for my oily skin girlies all the time to massage. Very cool. Okay, that's a great tip. The buccal massage. We've talked about this before. I know this is great for people holding a lot of tension who have like TMJ. Is there anything else for those of us who are very shallow and only care about our looks? What is the benefit? Okay, so if you want to get deeper, you want to go deeper with your facial massage and you want to sort of amplify the benefits. Strictly from a vanity standpoint, buccal allows us as therapists to just get deeper into the facial muscles. We can access muscles you can't access even when you're massaging superficially.

16:53So there's two things. Number one, we're lengthening the cheek muscles. So you're getting that nice cheekbone sculpt. And for women who are starting to hollow out and they're starting to notice that they're getting a little bit of volume loss in the face, which typically happens as we age. I find buccal is really great for increasing blood flow and circulation and sort of revolumizing the face, albeit it's a temporary effect. Anytime we're increasing circulation and bringing that nutritious oxygenated blood flow to the surface of the skin and to the muscles, it's always a good thing. Right. Do you do this at home daily?

17:29Or how often do you do it? So I... Are you the cobbler with the bad shoes? Many times I am the cobbler, although I booked myself in for a facial tomorrow. Oh, nice. But what I do, because the reality is we don't have 20 minutes every single day to do facial massage. So I try and sneak it in when I'm washing my face. Okay. I do like five moves. And as I'm washing my face, I sneak it in and then I know that I've done something. That's very French, I think. You know, like that whole just taking the consistency and doing it every day over time, you know, the facial massage. what would be one lesson you can share with us that would benefit all of us to do at home?

18:09Can you like show us a move or talk us through like an instant game changer that, as Jill says, would be good to just do consistently as part of your routine? Okay. So I would say there's one move that I call the no talks brow lift. Okay. And I'm going to show you, although I have a full face of makeup on, so I'm going to demo it lightly. Yes. Okay. But essentially it would be to lift your brow so you're going to take one hand so this is the right side of my face I'm going to take my left hand and I'm going to put it over top of my head okay it's like reach reaching around right and I'm going to with these fingers start to kind of like pull up and then with my other hand so this hand is going up and then this hand is going to go across the brow so up and across Press up and across.

18:59If I wipe my makeup off, it's no big deal. But I just want to show you the instant sort of brow. And you're pressing. Like this isn't a light touch. This move requires some pressure. Yeah. Key thing. Don't go on your eyelid. You don't want to tug at that skin. Yeah. But immediately you can see one eyebrow versus the other. I mean, my eye feels more open and it just immediately lifts. Yeah. So if you can do that, a minute on one side, a minute on the other. Believe it or not, when the Dermalogica came out with their most recent eye cream, that was the move that they record. And I did do it multiple times because that eye cream, a bit of a sidetrack, but you could use it all around the orbital bone.

19:40You could use it on the lid and whatever. And I was doing that because I did a little social media video for it and it feels amazing. Yeah. I feel like this would be good for like sinus tension as well. When you train other groups, like other facialists and stuff, is there something that you do or teach them where you feel like it's an aha moment where they're like, oh. So related to the pressure that we just talked about, I think we're taught to believe that we have to be only light on the face. And yes, the general of thumb is, you know, you definitely want to be not tugging at the face when you're putting your skincare on.

20:15But when I teach massage, the number one thing other estheticians say is like, oh, you get in there. Like you actually use pressure. And yeah, number one, it feels good. And it actually moves the needle in terms of lifting and sculpting. Okay, there you have it. Don't be so shy, everyone. Now, if people haven't tried bucco before, I just need you to kind of like dispel. Because people are afraid to try because they think it hurts. I don't think it hurts, but maybe. I had it done once and it hurt really bad. I did not enjoy it. I feel like you have some expertise in this. So share. So I agree. And I'm sure you've all seen those crazy videos on Instagram where they're just tugging the face.

20:54And I'm really intentional, especially when I teach buccal massage, that we're not applying a ton of pressure. Inside. It's not aggressive. Also, the thumb, if the thumb is inside the mouth or the index finger, the nail has to be extremely short. And you have to be very, very aware that you're not digging into the gum line. Or like, you know, that little membrane of tissue that's called the frenulum that you're not going over it with your nail. So that's on the opposite side of the cupid's bow, guys. You know, that little underside of your top lip. Yeah. Here and bottom and top. Yeah. Bottom and top.

21:27Yeah. And if you're going over that and you're banging into people's gums, of course it's uncomfortable. Yeah. Also, the length of time matters. Like the most I'll ever do on buccal is like 10 minutes. Yeah. Okay. Okay. Now, I know that Gua Sha is also, you're a big proponent of this. What is one thing that a lot of our listeners or us may be getting wrong when it comes to using Gua Sha at home? And what's the fix? So whenever I have clients who tell me they do Gua Sha at home, I'm like, amazing. And I hand them a Gua Sha and I'm like, okay, now show me how you do it. No pressure. And nine out of 10 times, they're like going hard and like tugging.

22:07And I'm like, whoa, Like as much as yes, pressure is good at some points. A lot of times with gua sha, I think people think you have to go hard or go home. And believe it or not, gua sha is magical. Gua sha can do magical things even if you're not applying a lot of pressure, specifically with lymphatic drainage. It requires a feather like touch. Oh, interesting, because I have seen on TikTok and that where it's like a scraping and sometimes you can see the redness on the person's skin. Okay, so you don't need to apply that much pressure. And then in terms of direction or where to start, is there?

22:45So definitely direction matters, especially when it comes to lymphatic drainage. You know, our body has 600 lymph nodes and we want to be, imagine like you're squeegeeing, you know, on a shower. You want to be squeegeeing the fluid towards the drains. Right. So definitely direction matters. So that would be outwards. Outwards and upwards. Outwards and upwards. Outwards and upwards. Can I ask you something? I just saw this kind of blowing up on TikTok the other day. Someone was talking about using gua sha after fillers and or after Botox. And some facialists were like, no, it's good to do it. You're actually like improving the efficacy of the filler.

23:20Other people were staunchly against it. So where do you stand? I always say no gua sha or any facial manipulation, like massage, buccal, nothing for a minimum of two weeks. Filler particularly is very malleable and it takes time for it to integrate with your tissues. And we do not want to change the position of where it is. Right. As for Botox, specifically in the orbital region, we don't want to move that product and, you know, God forbid, cause a drooping eye. So I have a hard line two weeks. Okay. Okay. That's really good to know. Yeah. Because I think people are like, oh, let me get my bang for my buck and just move it all around with my Gua Sha, you know?

23:59Yeah. So because they think it might like improve the benefits. but good to know.

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