You may have spotted a gua sha tool on your Instagram feed before. But it’s far from a passing skincare fad. Gua sha (pronounced “gwa sha”) is a skincare tool used for facial massage. The boomerang-type shape allows you to utilise the different angles and sides to target different areas on the face for a deep massage.

“It’s been widely practised in China for thousands of years,” explains Katie Brindle, founder of Hayo’u and Chinese medicine practitioner. “‘Gua’ means to press-stroke, whilst ‘sha’ describes the temporary red flush that results.”

Alongside a long list of benefits – Stylist’s senior beauty writer Hanna Ibraheem has found it particularly effective in helping to relieve the muscle tension she gets in her jaw from teeth grinding – there are a number of ways to use them and different stones to choose from. Here, Brindle explains everything you need to know about gua sha…

Gua sha: how to use it, the skincare benefits and the best ones