A critique on acupuncture facials

It may have been already obvious that I like to criticize the tons of marketing hooplah made for the beauty industry. From unreliable active ingredients to extracts operating on naturalistic fallacy, there are many ways people can be fooled by unscrupulous businessmen. These people are too afraid of growing old or ugly that sometimes, fear gets the better of them and they take in all the false marketing hype.

And our beauty BS topic for the day: Acupuncture facials!
(Image from The Daily Mail)

Just days ago, I read an article from a local paper's online portal that one of the bigshots of Philippine cosmetic surgery is now offering acupuncture facials. For only P50,000 php (1250 USD) for every six months , a dozen or so needles will be stuck on the patient's face and will be removed after a few minutes. The facial's provider claims that it can cause facial muscle contraction, stimulate energy flow and circulation, toning up sagging facial muscles and thereby providing another very good anti-aging regimen.

Yeah right.

As with most anti-aging treatments, this expensive facial is yet proven to work, if not entirely useless and a complete waste of money. For one, acupuncture may have been studied for pain relief (best, non-alternative medicine biased article I can find), but up until now, there is a lot of skepticism on the procedure. Acupuncture critics argue that the effects can be attributed to placebo effect, and even if there are studies in favor of the effects of acupuncture in pain relief, there are still no conclusive and reliable double blind tests made, and the procedure itself may not be as safe as it seems. 

So if it is not yet proven to relieve pain, it may be much harder to support how the procedure can help with circulation and energy flow. Also, "energy flow" is something I would not like to hear from a dermatologist as it connotes the sale of a magical procedure. Plus, the fact that the whole program has to be redone after 3 months from the end of programs is quite telling of the efficacy of this procedure to lift your facial muscles back to their place. 

So please do your wallet, dignity and your family good and spend those monies on more meaningful things.