SINGAPORE, Aug 19 — Something a woman said in a TikTok video made me sit up: "You're not ugly. You just have cortisol face." Wait, what is a "cortisol face"? Isn't cortisol a hormone? Once the algorithm on my mobile phone started recognising my “interest” in the topic, I was gradually fed videos of more women talking about "cortisol face", showing pictures of them with bloated and puffy faces.
Then, they talked about how they successfully “reduced their cortisol levels”, resulting in a magical glow-up such that they now have slender faces. A search on Google threw up some content on "cortisol face", which supposedly refers to the look of someone who has a rounder, puffier face due to “elevated cortisol levels”. Cortisol is a hormone released by the body’s adrenal glands in response to stress.
I was puzzled. I looked at my visage in the mirror and wondered if it could look so bloated when I am under stress. Is cortisol that bad? As expected, these TikTok videos don't elaborate much about this.
Yet these women share what they did to combat “cortisol face” as if they were professionals, such as by drinking apple cider vinegar in the morning, avoiding caffeine right after waking up and stopping high-intensity workouts. I turned to a health specialist and a psychologist to get the truth. Right off the bat, the experts told me that "cortisol face" is a social media trend that exaggerates the effects of cortisol instead of being an actual medical condition.
Dr St.