You’ve probably heard of “face time” as in when some swanky self-possessed business person wants a meeting with another similarly empowered person face-to-face, they say: “Let’s schedule a little face time”.
Or if you have some of that Mac gear, Apple has a Skype kind of thing they call Face Time which allows you to connect with someone on the phone through a video link so you can see if they are still wearing their pyjamas at noon when you chat with them.
And speaking of faces we all know that scanners have been created that have “facial recognition software” so that in the near future even when old friends don’t recognize you now that you’re older and much more wrinkly the new security system on your front door can still beam your face, recognize you, and let you in. Sort of like a James Bond movie without the fun.
And in a related development you may also have noticed that there is a veritable plague of Fitness Centres popping up everywhere lately. They have been showing up in abandoned department store locations in shopping malls, in trendy new commercial districts, and former Burger King outlets. There are now more Fitness Gyms than Dairy Queens! A disturbing trend, I know, but there it is.
But what have Fitness Gyms have to do with “faces?” you may ask and I’m glad you did. Because just this week it was announced that world’s first “FaceGym” is opening in NYC (where else?). That’s right – finally you can take your face to a gym and tune up those occipitofrontalis, temporoparietalis, and zygomaticus muscles! And I’m sure you’ve been thinking lately that you need to do a little work on your ole orbicularis oculi and levator labii. I know I have.
Forget the glutes, abs and pecs – it’s the 40 plus facial muscles that are facing off at the FaceGym. And lest you think this is just another money-grab involving applying cosmetics and getting Botox-ed, you’d be mistaken.
No, it’s another money grab involving “kneading, massaging, and contorting the face to best sculpt and tone facial muscles, much like a non-invasive DIY face-lift”, and it starts at $70 (US) a pop. And founder Inge Theron, a British beauty journalist, says at the end of the 30 to 45 minute session your face will definitely feel the burn.
“At the end, your muscles hurt just as much as if you’d been to the gym,” she says. “We call it ‘sweet pain.’”
Just what we all need, don’t you think – pony up a hundred Canadian bucks so we can have more ‘sweet pain’ in our lives.
But if FaceGym means lookin’ good, you can bet the place will be packed with the same faces that spend buckets of dough on cosmetics and other more radical attempts to hang onto rapidly fading youth.
Because Miss Theron appears to be onto something.
A 2018 study by Northwestern University found that “face yoga” – 30 minutes a day of facial exercises - can “plump up cheeks, reduce visible signs of aging and tone the shape of one’s face”. So if you figure you want to be even better looking than you already are, fear not, Theron has plans to expand FaceGym to other cities. Who knows, we may even get one here. Probably in an old Dairy Queen location near you.
But then again, maybe we should all be like my father in law. He’s 87 and he says he likes looking in the mirror.
“I can’t wait until tomorrow,” he says, “Because I just get better looking every day!”
Harley Hay is a Red Deer writer and filmmaker.