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Microcurrent Therapy: Getting an Electric Glow

Staff use precisely controlled electricity to amplify the facial’s results. Learn how this works with Groupon’s look into microcurrent therapy.

If the idea of sending electricity into your face seems a little alarming, don’t worry: the currents used to stimulate the skin and muscles during microcurrent therapy pack only one-millionth of the power needed to illuminate a light bulb. What’s more, they’re just adding to the tiny electrical signals running through your body at all times—which is part of the reason they’re used in medicine in the first place. Medical researchers have long noticed that when tissue is injured, the currents that normally run through it tend to be diminished. Physical therapists have accordingly found that electrically stimulating the injured area can help wounds and conditions such as tennis elbow or soccer head heal faster.

Whether these restorative effects extend to improving the condition of healthy tissue isn’t yet clear. Skincare specialists use microcurrent treatments in two different ways: to stimulate the skin and facial muscles for a more toned appearance, and to help water-based products penetrate the skin more effectively. The second application also has a long medical lineage, and consists of using an electrode to drive a water-based serum—which has an existing ionic charge—away from itself and thus into the skin.

The treatment often described as a “nonsurgical face-lift” is meant to make lasting (though not permanent) changes to muscle tone and to increase collagen and elastin production. So far, few studies have been done to assess these effects, possibly because scientists want to keep all the best beauty tips for themselves. But it’s likely that, no matter what, you’ll notice at least some short-term changes. Microcurrent treatments do a great job of stimulating blood flow, so clients tend to leave the spa with a rosier, plumper, and—given the relaxing effects of an ordinary facial—serener complexion.