In the age of #notox, can cosmetic acupuncture be the new Botox?

Ms Amy Abrams, who owns and operates New York City's Manhattan Vintage Show, has been getting regular cosmetic acupuncture facials for five years.

- Laura Neilson

NEW YORK - Ms Amy Abrams, who owns and operates New York City's Manhattan Vintage Show, has been getting regular cosmetic acupuncture facials for five years. "I've been going every four to six weeks," she said of the routine she sees as part of a "self-care commitment" to looking and feeling her best. Lanshin, a beauty spa in Brooklyn, New York City, that draws from traditional Chinese medicine practices, is her go-to. But recently, the 52-year-old has found appointments with her acupuncturist difficult to come by.

"She didn't have anything for six weeks," Ms Abrams said. "I mean, that's great for her, but wow."

When it comes to achieving youthful-looking, rejuvenated skin, do all roads eventually lead to needles? It seems so, given the multitude of ways to poke one's face, from Botox injections and plumping fillers to microneedling facials and PRP (platelet-rich plasma) and salmon sperm DNA injections, all sought for the promise of a more glowy, supple visage.

Cosmetic acupuncture, or facial acupuncture, the injection-free outlier of the bunch, uses needles about one-fifth the diameter of typical hypodermic needles. It is said to increase circulation and collagen production, and improve skin tone.

Long favored by American celebrities-turned-wellness moguls such as Jessica Alba, Kim Kardashian and Gwyneth Paltrow, it has grown in popularity as more people turn to holistic skincare methods.

As one of the Western Hemisphere's more widely known forms of traditional Chinese medicine, acupuncture's stateside popularity reaches back to the 1970s, when an American journalist trailing President Richard Nixon's 1971 delegation to Beijing reported on having received the treatment there.