I Tried, and Survived, The Hardcore Facial Workout Responsible for Celebrity Cheekbones

“I want you to touch yourself!” cries Inge Theron, founder of FaceGym, to a gathered group of beauty editors and influencers at the P.E Nation Sydney CBD flagship. We’re kitted out in P.E Nation activewear for our “workout” as Nelly Furtado’s Promiscuous Girl blasts full force.

Theron is walked through exercises that will sculpt, tone, and retrain the “forgotten 40” muscles in our face — the muscles we clench, frown, and smize with. This concept is causing some confusion among attendees.

Introduced to one workout that strengthens the upper brow, one Sydney influencer is perplexed: “The frontalis, don’t we freeze that one?” she asks. While most frontalis muscles are static in Sydney, FaceGym promises lifted, smooth, and plump features sans needle — and both the fitness program and the skincare line have just launched in Australia with MECCA.

24 Hours With FaceGym

FaceGym isn’t a facial. It’s a workout… for your face.

This is my second-day working out with FaceGym. Yesterday, I was invited to trial the “in studio” experience, loved by Lizzo, Sean Combs, Bella Hadid, Paris Hilton, and Karlie Kloss (whose cheekbones I grew up admiring). Now I’m back, discovering how to take the workout routine home with me.

As an underslept individual with far-from-Kloss-y cheekbones and under eyes, I’m ready to drink the Kool-Aid, which here is cold-pressed beetroot juice.

FaceGym Day One

Ahead of my FaceGym experience, I’m sent a few items from the FaceGym skincare range, now available at MECCA.

The product line includes bio-engineered dissolving balls of yeast, a “dry” hyaluronic acid and niacinamide serum (you mix the dissolving yeast balls into it) and a silky toner essence. All of the formulas are clinically trialled and all surprise me. The toner is thick and hydrating with “succinic acid” — an ingredient I have to Google, a rare experience. Meanwhile, the hyaluronic acid is dense but absorbent and I’ve never seen anything like the dissolving yeast ball.

I am also gifted an actual rubber ball that looks like something you’d find in a physiotherapist’s waiting room. This feels slightly ominous. While I slide the ball around my face aimlessly I wonder where the “Gym” is in all of this “Face” stuff.

The next day I arrive for my FaceGym experience fresh from sleeping through morning pilates. My yeasty hyaluronic acid experiment has left my skin startlingly bright, and I’ve been makeup-free and collecting compliments all morning. I’m still slightly concerned I might be asked to do actual exercise, though — the weighted rubber ball is playing on my mind.

I quickly realise best way to “get” what FaceGym is about is to “get” Inge Theron, who I sit down to interview post-treatment.

Before founding FaceGym, Theron had a 15-year career as an undercover beauty journalist. This was back in the good old days when publications like the Financial Times gave beauty editors stipends to sneak into clinics, spas, and resorts worldwide. They got the real treatment, not the media treatment, and reported their experiences unfiltered. For her column Spa Junkie, Theron tried everything from botox to laser, lipo, threads, and fillers in what was, at the time, a largely unregulated market.

“Aesthetic doctors like to treat you like a pin cushion,” she quips. “Every doctor thought the one before was wrong and suggested more and different treatments.” By the time Theron was in her mid-30s, she’d been pinned, pricked, and threaded in every direction, and felt she looked worse for it. “I was happy with my body,” she tells POPSUGAR Australia, “but I looked old, tired, and aged from all of the procedures.” Like any good beauty editor, she retreated to an ashram in the foothills of Mexico where, she jokes, the idea for FaceGym came to her in a vision, with a shaman and a swirl of Palo Santo.

Theron wanted a gym that would do for her face what her workouts were doing for her body — and she achieved it with FaceGym. “Fast, affordable, democratic, and androgynous” is how she describes FaceGym, which offers both an alternative and a complement to more invasive cosmetic treatments.

The FaceGym Studio Experience

FaceGym sessions are fast. They’re 30-minute express treatments featuring everything from buccal massage (inside your mouth) to radiofrequency, cryotherapy, and even IV.

The first step is identifying your areas of concern with your trainer. I have a perpetual frown, squint at a screen 5-9 hours a day, and am a chronic jaw clencher. “Chronic” as in I once had to take time off work because I’d given myself actual lockjaw. I also rise every day at 4 a.m., so my under eye area has the haunted look of someone whose life is ruled by their cat’s mealtimes. (Which is accurate.)

Related: “Prejuvenation” Is the Next Big Skin-Care Trend

I’m amongst the first in Australia to try FaceGym, and it’s a testament to the importance of the launch that there’s a TV crew present when I arrive. A morning television host is “working out” next to me, narrating his experience to camera. (I recommend receiving at least one facial — or workout — narrated by a morning television host at least once in your life.)

I’m comforted to hear identical complaints from my male peers. Turns out almost everyone in Sydney, wherever we sit on the gender spectrum, is frowning, squinting, and hunching our way through lunchtime, brewing migraines, and contemplating the inevitability of botox.

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by MECCA (@meccabeauty)

Stretch, Cardio, Strengthen, Tone

I’m already glowing and fresh when I start my workout thanks to my yeast balls. I’ve decided I’m addicted and will do anything to get my hands on more. And while I was greedy for even better skin and more compliments, I was genuinely unsure how much better things could be.

I’m seated and tipped back in a recliner that sits somewhere between a dentist’s chair and a Lamborghini Huracan. My workout starts with a stretch. The weighted rubber ball is rolled across areas of tension (my entire face) using acupressure techniques. We then move on to buccal, which involves having the inside of your mouth massaged. While it’s initially confronting, I soon realised this is probably the best way to stop your face from feeling like a clenched fist. I mentally take note for the next time I have lockjaw.

Related: After 2 Years of Searching, I’ve Finally Found An At Home LED I Can Commit To

Then we move to cardio, my trainer oiling me up with a FaceGym enzymatically activated vitamin C oil. Cardio is the part of any workout that I resent the most, so I’m surprised by how fun it is to have your face rapidly slapped and pinched. Afterwards I can feel the blood pumping under my skin.

Following cardio is strength. At home, this might be the aforementioned brow-lifting technique. In studio this could be anything from radiofrequency to cryotherapy intensive sculpting and tightening treatments. Finally, we cool down using the FaceGym, Multi-Sculpt High Performance Gua Sha ($89), a six-sided stainless steel instrument that makes lymphatic drainage a breeze.

FaceGym Studio Result

As mentioned, I was already feeling fresh AF going in, but post-workout my face looked DANGEROUSLY snatched. My cheekbones were Karlie Kloss-carved out, and my under eyes looked like they’d had an exorcism.

As someone who, like Inge Theron, gets facials during work hours on the reg, I’m used to returning from lunch slippery with the product, blowdry ruined, and makeup pilling. It’s a hazard of the job. Still, I can imagine if you’re an M&A lawyer negotiating a hostile takeover, or an investment banker doing… whatever it is they get do, returning to work drenched in essential oils is a potential problem. This is why the FaceGym workout is designed to leave no trace. I skip back to the office makeup free and strangely elated. Maybe it’s the controlled breathing, maybe it’s releasing the enormous tension I hold in my face, but I leave feeling calm and full of energy; two moods for me that rarely co-mingle.

FaceGym Day 2

So, how easy is it to attain these results at home? With the right stuff, very. As we’re walked through the training, I’m surprised to see that activating pressure points with the rubber balls does yield results. My brow is significantly perkier. I do receive feedback on my technique, though — apparently, I’ve been Gua Sha-ing my face with the aggression of an MMA fighter, as evidenced by the bruise I leave on my left cheekbone. I usually don’t Gua Sha to Nelly Furtado so I guess I got caught up in the moment. While Inge Theron is quick to clarify that many FaceGym acolytes use botox and filler in conjunction with their routine and the program and brand is in no way critical of more invasive measures, it does offer an alternative for the vain but needle shy (me).

I’m sad to leave FaceGym — and reluctant to give up my glow and my facial workout euphoria. Fortunately for me and everyone else, there are QR codes on all FaceGym products that direct you to easy-to-follow facial workouts, and you can hit up their YouTube channel. As I was #blessed with a full suite of FaceGym skincare, I’ll be “working out” for the next few weeks, and fully expect to be able to lift a 5kg dumbbell with a single brow movement. Stay tuned for my results.

My FaceGym Skincare Routine: