The Face Pilates Treatment · Toronto
A personal training session for your face
Seventy-five minutes. Eight steps. Forty-three facial muscles, worked with the precision of a Registered Massage Therapist and the calm of a luxury spa. This is massage therapy for the face, and it is where Face Pilates began.
Book your treatment See the eight stepsNot a facial. A workout.
The face, from the tissue out
Most facials stop at the surface. Face Pilates is a face massage, not a facial, and it starts underneath it. Your face is muscle, fascia, lymph and circulation before it is skin, and every one of those layers has a say in how you look on a Tuesday morning.
Thomas Tullo, RMT, spent eight months building a treatment that reaches all of them in a single session. The result is part stretch, part sculpt, part stillness: hands-on work and precise tools, sequenced so that each step prepares the face for the next. You leave looking rested, lifted and unmistakably like yourself.
Because it is massage therapy, the work goes beyond appearance. Releasing the muscles of the face and jaw can ease jaw clenching, temporomandibular (TMJ) muscle pain and tension-type headaches. Lymphatic techniques help reduce facial swelling and fluid retention. And the session as a whole engages the body's relaxation response, the rest-and-recover state in which muscles let go most readily.
The protocol
Eight steps, one hour and a quarter
Every step does something the others cannot. Together, they are the reason a single session feels like a reset.
Step one
Cleanse
The reset
The day comes off first. A gentle, thorough cleanse clears the skin so that every step after it lands on a fresh, receptive surface.
Step two
Facial stretch therapy
One-pound hand Pilates ball
Every workout opens with a warm-up. Your therapist rolls a weighted Pilates ball across the face, lengthening muscle and fascia that have been holding the same expressions, the same tension, since your last visit. Mobilising the fascia first eases restrictions built up by repetitive expression and clenching, so every step that follows releases more deeply.
Step three
Reflexology
Weighted facial reflexology tools
Small, smooth instruments find precise pressure points across the face with a focus fingertips alone cannot match. Circulation wakes up locally, and stimulating these points engages the parasympathetic nervous system, the body's rest-and-recover mode, which deepens relaxation for the rest of the treatment.
Step four
Lymphatic drainage
Gua sha · facial cupping
Directional strokes with gua sha and soft suction with facial cups guide fluid towards the lymph nodes along the jaw and neck, reducing facial swelling and fluid retention. The morning puffiness lifts, the jawline reads more defined, and the complexion brightens before you have left the room.
Step five
Face massage
Deep manual work
Now the hands take over. Your therapist works through the muscles of the brow, cheeks, mouth and jaw, releasing tension that has settled into the way you hold your face and drawing fresh circulation to the tissue. Easing the brow, temples and jaw addresses the muscle tension that commonly contributes to tension-type headaches.
Step six
Buccal massage
Intraoral release · medical-grade gloves
Some muscles can only be reached from the inside. With your consent and wearing medical-grade gloves, your therapist works the masseter, the powerful chewing muscle that quietly carries the day's stress, from inside the cheek, along with the pterygoid muscles behind it. Intraoral work like this is used in massage therapy to relieve jaw clenching, TMJ muscle pain and headaches that originate in the jaw, tension that external massage alone cannot reach.
Step seven
Microcurrent and contrast therapy
Microcurrent · red LED · ice globes
The strength-training moment. Gentle microcurrent works the facial muscles through the Reformer Face Mask, which conducts the current while delivering creatine, NAD+ and NMN to the skin. Then warm red LED light and chilled ice globes take turns, waking circulation and leaving the face toned, cool and calm.
Step eight
Finishing treatment
Performance skin care
The cool-down. Serums and finishing care chosen for your skin seal in the work of the hour, so you walk back out into Toronto dewy, settled and ready for whatever is next.
In expert hands
Your therapist is a Registered Massage Therapist
Face Pilates treatments at AMAN Spa are provided under the clinical direction of Thomas Tullo, RMT. Every treatment is performed by a Registered Massage Therapist trained by Thom in his method, and tested on it regularly. That standard is the point: clinical knowledge of how the face works, delivered with the unhurried care of a luxury spa.
It also means each session is eligible for a massage therapy receipt, which many extended health plans reimburse. Check the details of your own plan before you book.
Before you book
Good to know
Where is the treatment?
Face Pilates lives at AMAN Spa, 47 Colborne Street, Toronto. While that space is being renovated, treatments are taking place at AMAN Spa's temporary home at 100 Ossington Avenue.
Who is it for?
Anyone carrying tension in the face, jaw or temples: people who clench or grind, have TMJ muscle pain or tension-type headaches, or notice facial puffiness, as well as anyone who simply wants their face to look and feel rested. Your RMT will review your health history and confirm the treatment is right for you.
How much does it cost?
There are four versions of the treatment at different price points. You will find all four, with current prices and availability, on the booking page.
How long does it take?
The full treatment is seventy-five minutes. Your therapist takes a short health history at your first visit, so arrive a few minutes early.
Can I book after Botox or filler?
Please wait seven days after Botox and fourteen days after dermal filler, so the massage work does not move the product.
Is it covered by insurance?
Because it is performed by a Registered Massage Therapist, you receive a massage therapy receipt. Coverage depends on your extended health plan.
Between sessions
Take the treatment home
The Reformer masks were built for this treatment and are used in it. Between visits, they keep the work going: the face mask twice a week, the under-eye patches whenever you need to look rested. The story of how it all began is on Who We Are.