TCM beauty · Routine
Morning 5-minute routine
晨间五分钟
Safety before anything
Safety before anything
Read this before the first time, and keep it in mind every morning.
- No broken skin. Do not do this routine over active acne, eczema, rosacea flares, cuts, cold sores or sunburn.
- Pregnancy: the Hegu, Sanyinjiao and Jianjing points are avoided in pregnancy and are not part of this routine. If you are pregnant, use only the face points and check with a practitioner.
- Eyes: nothing presses on the eyeball. Chengqi and Jingming are handled as the acupressure page describes, with Jingming excluded from self-care entirely.
- One minute of patch test on the inner arm if anything new is applied.
- Stop if the skin stings, burns or feels worse.
What this routine is
This is a putting-together of steps that already exist, not a new technique. It draws on the wash-and-mask page for the cleansing step, the acupressure page for the press sequence and the gua sha page for the light finish, and it keeps the order the tradition uses: clean, press, then move.
It is written for a weekday morning. It is not a treatment, and it does not replace the internal care described on the concern pages.
The five minutes
- Minute 1: wash. Lukewarm water and a plain cleanser, hands only, no cloth and no scrubbing. The washing section of herbal-face-masks explains why plain is traditional.
- Minute 2: dry and look. Pat dry, then look at the face before touching it. face-mapping explains what the tradition reads in colour and lustre, and the morning look is the one worth noting.
- Minutes 3 and 4: press. Four points, thirty seconds each, light pressure: Yintang between the brows, Cuanzhu at the inner eyebrow, Sibai under the eye on the bone, and Chengjiang in the groove under the lip. facial-acupressure has the full sequence and the cautions.
- Minute 5: finish. Two or three passes with the fingers from the centre of the face outward, or a light oil if the skin is dry. If you use a gua sha tool, it belongs here, at the lightest pressure, and gua-sha-face sets out the directions and the skin that should not be worked.
Afterwards. If the skin is pink for a minute that is expected. If it is red, stinging or still pink an hour later, the pressure was too much or the skin is not ready for the routine.
When not to do it
Skip the routine on a morning when the skin is inflamed, when a cold sore is active, after sunburn, after a cosmetic procedure, or when you have had a flare of a skin condition in the last few days. On those mornings, wash gently with water and leave the face alone.
What the evidence says
No verified human study of a TCM intervention for the condition on this page. Editorial policy
Traditional use. These are the human studies we found on PubMed (searched October 2026). There are none for this routine. This routine is assembled from practices that are traditional and that have no trial behind them. Each source page describes the reasoning and the limits, and none of them claims a result. The routine is a structure, not new evidence.
Common questions
Can I do this every day?
Yes, if the skin is healthy. Twice a day is the usual limit, and the evening routine is the longer one.
Do I need a gua sha tool?
No. The routine works with the fingers, and the tool is the optional fifth minute.
Can I do it in pregnancy?
The face points are the only ones used here and they are light. Check with a practitioner, and do not extend the routine to the body points named as avoided.
Sources
No studies. Every step is linked to the page that explains it.