I remember the first time I used a pair of cold teaspoons to depuff my eyes. I was 13 and had awakened on the morning of a school field trip to find that my eyes were swollen shut, and not for the first time; it was a semiregular occurrence an allergist chalked up to a dust mite sensitivity. My parents gave me an antihistamine, but I consulted Doctor Google for faster-acting remedies, most of which involved putting miscellaneous household items in the fridge, then on my eyes. The teaspoons didn’t work. I went on the trip, dejected, and no less swollen than when I woke up. It marked the beginning of a yearslong crusade to track down any and every depuffing hack I could find. Since then, the internet has become increasingly eager to oblige.
The beauty industry has been peddling depuffing tricks for decades, especially for the undereye area. In the ‘80s, hemorrhoid cream was sold as a quick fix for baggy undereyes; in the ‘90s and 2000s, it was chilled cucumber slices. But for the modern day, TikTok has distilled the idea of depuffing and repackaged it as vital health advice that applies to one’s entire body. In recent years, terms like “cortisol face” and “lymphatic drainage” have entered the lexicon of even the most casual beauty enthusiasts, heightening concern over even the mildest of bloating, spreading inaccurate and fatphobic rhetoric about double chins, and casting a harsh spotlight on the perfectly normal ways our body retains fluid.
@hizoo.co This is why your face always looks BLOATED. #fyp #glowup #cleangirl #hizoo #lymphaticdrainage ♬ i was only temporary - my head is empty
My For You page is a shrine to snatched young women magnanimously sharing their tips for taut faces. This guidance typically falls under two categories: beauty advice and beauty advice posing as “wellness” advice. The former tends to focus on facial sculpting tools such as gua shas and microcurrent devices alongside cosmetic treatments; the latter emphasizes things like diet, anti-stress tactics, and supplements (still with the goal of slimming or sculpting the face by reducing inflammation). While the messaging can vary, the ethos of this content is consistent: Bloating, no matter how benign, is bad.
The appearance of your face, this content often implies, directly correlates to your health and how well you care for it. Sometimes it goes even further: One creator recently argued that a bloated “moon face” is a sign of a malfunctioning liver. “Your liver is your detoxing organ, so if you’re inflamed and you’re puffy, it’s likely that you’re not detoxing properly. Looking after your liver can get rid of so much of that puffiness and inflammation.” Another kicked off a video by saying, “You’re not ugly, you’re not puffy, you just have cortisol face. I was so inflamed from so much stress and anxiety; it caused my face to swell up all the time.” (Unsurprisingly, the video was made in partnership with a company selling “cortisol-reducing” supplements.) Some creators go even deeper down the rabbit hole, suggesting that a puffy face is a telltale sign of an autoimmune or hormonal disorder, like adrenal dysfunction, polycystic ovary syndrome, or Hashimoto’s disease.
@juliaglowguide The hack that no one talks about… #puffyface #inflammation #transformation #glowup #girltips ♬ original sound - juliaglowguide
@kristinadunnn how I regulate my cortisol levels #greenscreen #cortisollevels #cortisolface #puffyface #nuray #Fuelyourstransformation #nuraybrand #nurayhealth @Nuray Brand ♬ original sound - kristinadunn
It’s true that how you feel is sometimes reflected in your face. But as board-certified dermatologist Mona Gohara, MD, explains, mild facial bloating is a normal and necessary function of the human body: “Facial puffiness is far more normal than the internet would have us believe.” She says it can be caused by a number of everyday factors, including but not limited to sleep deprivation, stress, allergies, diet, travel, and even sleeping position. Genetics, of course, impacts your overall facial structure, too; some people just have naturally full undereyes. But in most people, facial bloating and undereye puffiness are usually just reactionary. “Inflammation doesn’t always signal disease; sometimes the face is simply responding to life,” Dr. Gohara says.
Framing perfectly normal facial swelling as evidence of an underlying health problem is, at best, disingenuous. Can we all admit that we’re not really looking to get healthier when we’re seeking out ways to depuff our own faces? I think, subconsciously or not, most of us just want to be hot. I can’t judge that in a society where hotness has the power to open doors and change lives.
When I have too many martinis and wake up looking visibly worse for wear, the first thing I do is consult TikTok for an anti-bloating gua sha routine. I don’t do it to feel healthier. I do it to give the illusion that I have healthier habits than I do. By scraping my bloated face with my little rock, I’m hoping to erase the previous evening’s hedonism and look like someone who went to bed on time and woke up for a 5 a.m. run. If I were really looking to improve my health, I might have gone on that run instead of inspecting myself in the mirror for puffiness. Or, you know, consulted an actual doctor for advice.
@kokofaceyoga At 31 my face looked puffy and heavy from stress and strong masseter tension. The fix was deep shiatsu pressure, not massage strokes. Hold the area, press firmly, and move only the muscle. The second fix was stopping teeth contact. Tongue up, teeth apart. Even tiny pressure builds jaw tension all day. These habits reshaped my face over time. #KokoHayashi #KokoFaceYoga #FaceYoga #FacePosture #CorrectPosture #MasseterTension #Shiatsu #FacialBalance #JawAlignment ♬ Make It Look Sexy - Stunna Sandy
It’s only natural to want to look more put together than you feel—or to feel pressured to meet today’s hyper-snatched beauty standard—but trying to find a medically significant reason to justify this desire can be harmful. Dr. Gohara can tell you exactly why: “The problem is that online culture has moralized these natural fluctuations, equating puffiness with poor health or lack of discipline,” she says. “We’ve confused wellness with worthiness, but the face is not a report card.”
By conflating the two, we not only pathologize completely normal facial features and bodily functions, but we also uphold the exhausting age-old myth that meeting a narrow standard of beauty is a sign of a person’s value. Heather Widdows, PhD, a professor of philosophy at the University of Warwick whose work focuses on the ethics of beauty culture, previously told Allure that internet culture spreads a belief “that if we have the right face and body, if we are thin, firm, smooth, and young enough, then we will be rewarded with the good life.” But our physical features, she said, “are things that we have no more control over than we do our height or shoe size. It’s just how our bodies are made.”
If we’re willing to demonize our own lymphatic systems, I have to wonder what’s next. Will influencers start selling high-end neti pots to clean out our sinuses in the hopes of shrinking our noses? Will we frame body odor as a sign of internal decay? Regardless of which body part or function we hone in on, it’ll be yet another ploy to sell us more products. That’s really what this depuffing stuff is all about. Give us more reasons to be anxious about our looks, and we’ll buy more stuff.
It’s probably going to take a while before I stop obsessively trying to figure out if a mild food allergy is to blame for my occasional bloating, but I know the first step will be to stop comparing myself to strangers on the internet. I should also keep reminding myself that beauty trends are cyclical. In five years, I wouldn’t be surprised if round, Botticelli-esque faces are en vogue, forcing people to desperately search for the buccal fat they had surgically removed. When that day comes, I’ll clutch my frozen teaspoons and laugh.
Originally published on Allure.
