What is honey tapping?

Honey Tapping Technique Explained

With honey tapping, you pick honey up on your fingers and then using a gentle tapping/rolling motion you pat it over a section of skin, repeating until your entire face is covered. Make sure you use liquid honey that has no crystals (these can cause micro-tears). Organic, raw honey is best because it retains the most nutritive and vital activity.

Experiment with tapping with one or more fingers and with tapping slow or fast, gentle or more intense, and with rolling the fingers off vs simply lifting them off. After just a few tries you will find the exact technique you enjoy best.

Once the whole face is coated with honey, go back over the whole face with the tapping once more. Focus on areas that are dry and flaky, areas that feel rough and congested, and areas prone to congestion and blemishes. On the final tap, start at the top of the face and work your way down, the reason for this being to help the lymph drain in the right direction.

If the honey gets too dry, it will start to feel painful and tacky, like ripping a bandaid off of skin. To remoisten the honey, wet a finger or two, and resume tapping.

Be careful to not over tap – spend just a few minutes and keep making sure the honey doesn’t get too tacky and dry.

Once you are done tapping, feel free to leave the honey on the skin as a mask, and when you are done, take a warm wet washcloth and slowly dab all over the skin. Be careful about rubbing the washcloth over the skin as this is actually rough on freshly exfoliated skin (which is what the honey tapping did), it is better to press and lift and then use wet hands and running water to remove the remaining honey from the skin.

You can honey tap anywhere from twice a week to once a month – or even once a year. The results from this simple, ONE INGREDIENT, technique yield results comparable to a spa facial.

Honey Tapping Benefits

Honey tapping improves skin health in many different ways.

It helps to stimulate circulation, which is important for wound healing.

It helps to move stagnant lymph which detoxifies and depuffs the skin, leaving it looking toned and translucent.

It helps to exfoliate the skin but is not as intense or irritating as chemical peels, so even sensitive skins tolerate it well, and look radiant yet calm afterwards. In fact, it is one of my personal favorite exfoliation methods because of the amazing (and safe) results it gives.

Honey contains lots of natural salicylates, which are very helpful to people with acne since they help exfoliate the inside of pores. If you are prone to eczema, please note that salicylates can exacerbate it, and if you honey tap, rinse the honey immediately instead of masking afterwards. You may want to try this technique with another viscous saccharide like molasses, as well.

Raw honey also contains active enzymes which will further assist the exfoliation of the honey tapping, but if your skin is ultra sensitive, the pasteurized versions might actually be better for you.

Honey is also high in antioxidants, specifically flavinoids. These help to reduce free radical damage on the skin, which is incited by pollution, UV radiation and product oxididation.

Honey is also an excellent wound healer, being both anti-bacterial and anti-inflammatory. Numerous scientific studies have demonstrated its undeniable wound healing capabilities.

Honey Tapping and Acne

Honey tapping works wonderfully as a preventative for acne. It is a gentle way to prevent the build-up of dead cells and oxidized sebum and it stimulates skin detox and skin metabolism. Honey itself is wound healing, anti-bacterial and anti-inflammatory so the honey tapping technique really is just the cherry on the top of an already amazing substance.

One note: It is not recommended to actively honey tap on existing blemishes. Just work around them as you honey tap the rest of your face.

Have you tried our L4B Matcha Zinc Honey Tapping Masque?

In addition to raw, organic honey, it also contains Zinc, Matcha and Oat. The Zinc is powerfully soothing and healing for acne. The matcha adds a powerful punch of antioxidants, especially ones that have demonstrated action against hormonal acne, and the oat is in oil form, providing ceramides and helping to keep the honey from becoming too tacky and dry too quickly while conditioning the skin.

In the video that shows the honey tapping technique, it is the Matcha Zinc Honey Tapping Masque we are using.

Final Thoughts

For something so simple, this leaves my skin absolutely radiant, and I can’t believe honey tapping isn’t blowing up beauty forums all over the internet as we speak.

I’m particularly in awe of how smooth and clearly exfoliated my skin feels, yet it is not red or stinging like with peel products. It is a type of manual exfoliation, yet it does not have the risk of damage and micro-tearing that most manual exfoliation products pose due to jagged/sharp particle edges.

Have you heard of honey tapping before? How did it go for you?

Honey Tapping Video