A Natural Face Lift: What the Session Is Really Like

I am in my fifties, and it is hard not to notice the lines arriving. I have made my peace with most of it — this is simply what growing older looks like, and I would rather look my age than look startled. But I am still interested in whether there is anything gentle I can do that makes my skin feel better in itself.

Which is how I ended up lying in silence on a heated couch in Bourne End, having my face worked on for seventy-five minutes.

What the session involves

The Zone Face Lift is a natural facial technique that pulls together several traditions. There is facial reflexology, which works with points on the face in the same way foot reflexology does. There is gua sha, the Chinese practice of stroking the skin with a smooth flat stone. There is pressure-point massage, facial yoga, and a mapping approach that reads different zones of the face as connected to different parts of the body.

Susanne Aram, a pro-ageing therapist and coach, works with all of it. When I arrived she explained what she would be doing and then told me something I found more daunting than the work itself: the whole session would happen in silence.

The hour of not talking

My first thought, lying down, was that I would never manage it. I am not a naturally quiet person on a couch.

Susanne began with the small chime of a gong, and I settled almost at once. What I had not expected was how much difference the silence made. With no obligation to make conversation, no polite questions about my holidays, there was nothing to do but be there. I dropped into it in a way I rarely manage when someone is chatting to me.

The work itself varied a great deal — some of it firm and rhythmic, some of it barely there. She used a UK-made natural skincare range to cleanse and hydrate as she went, and a small collection of tools I did not entirely identify. What came across throughout was that she knew exactly what she was doing and why, which is not always the case with facial work.

"Ageing is going to happen. What I am interested in is whether it can happen in a body that feels looked after rather than fought with."

Afterwards

At the end she handed me a mirror. I had arrived without make-up and had none with me, and I would normally have felt underdressed leaving the house like that. My skin looked soft and had a genuine glow to it, and I walked out perfectly happy without anything on my face — which, for me, is unusual enough to be worth reporting.

I want to be honest about what that is and is not. It is a real, visible difference on the day, of the sort you get from an hour of skilled hands, warmth and good circulation. It is not a surgical result and nobody claims it is. Whether it accumulates over a longer course is the sort of thing that varies from person to person.

What I found more useful in the long run was that she showed me several skin-sliding techniques to do at home each day. Two minutes in front of the bathroom mirror is a small enough ask that I have actually kept it up.

Who it tends to suit

This is for people who would rather not go near injectables, and who like the idea of learning something they can carry on with themselves. It suits anyone who wants an hour of proper stillness as much as they want the skin result — the two are not really separable here.

Sessions can be taken one at a time or as a longer course, which is where most practitioners will tell you the visible changes accumulate. Prices vary by practitioner and by region, so ask when you book, and ask what a course involves before committing to one.

A sensible caveat: if you have a skin condition, take blood-thinning medication, or have had recent facial procedures, mention it when you book. Gua sha and pressure work are not right for every face at every moment.

As Susanne put it to me: ageing might be inevitable, but how we go about it is not. I left that afternoon with better skin than I arrived with, and — rather more usefully — an hour of quiet I had not realised I needed.