How to Use an EMS Facial Device, The Complete Beginner's Guide
Medically reviewed by
4 independent reviewers
Andrew Conrad Barile, PT, DPT
Doctor of Physical Therapy (DPT) | Licensed Physical Therapist (PT) | CEO and Founder, Xtreem Pulse LLC
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Dr. Andrew Conrad Barile is a Doctor of Physical Therapy and the CEO and Founder of Xtreem Pulse LLC, the engineering company behind PureLift. He earned his Doctorate in Physical Therapy from Daemen College and is a licensed physical therapist.
He brings over two decades of clinical and entrepreneurial experience across physical therapy, craniosacral therapy and medical device innovation, built on a working knowledge of human anatomy and muscle physiology.
For PureLift LAB he reviews how current is delivered across all ten levels, from sub-sensory nanocurrent and skin-level microcurrent to motor-level EMS, and how the Infuse pass fits into the same ten-minute routine.
Bertica M. Rubio, M.D.
Board-Certified Physician, Dartmouth Medical School | Medical Director, Antiaging Regenerative Medicine Clinic
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Dr. Bertica M. Rubio is a board-certified physician and Medical Director of the Antiaging Regenerative Medicine Clinic in Redlands, California. She earned her Doctor of Medicine from Dartmouth Medical School and completed her pediatrics residency at UC Irvine Medical Center.
With decades of clinical experience, she specialises in age management medicine, regenerative medicine, wound healing and growth factor therapies, and her practice integrates evidence-based medical science with advanced aesthetic treatment.
For PureLift LAB she reviews articles for medical accuracy across the whole dial, from the gentle nanocurrent and microcurrent settings through to muscle-level EMS and the Infuse pass.
Daniel Grinberg, MD, FACS
Board-Certified Otolaryngologist | Head and Neck Surgeon | Fellow, American College of Surgeons | Mount Sinai
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Daniel Grinberg, MD, FACS is a board-certified otolaryngologist and head and neck surgeon at ENT and Allergy Associates in West Nyack, New York. He earned his medical degree from Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons.
He completed his otolaryngology residency at New York University Medical Center, serves as Assistant Clinical Professor at Mount Sinai School of Medicine, and is a Fellow of both the American College of Surgeons and the American Academy of Otolaryngology.
For PureLift LAB he brings a wider clinical lens, connecting at-home facial stimulation from microcurrent to EMS to the anatomy underneath, with the same rigour we apply to every device specification.
Prof. Dr. med. Ivo Buschmann
Chair of Angiology, Medizinische Hochschule Brandenburg | Clinic Director, University Clinic for Angiology
Read bio
Prof. Dr. med. Ivo Buschmann is Chair of Angiology at the Medizinische Hochschule Brandenburg Theodor Fontane and Clinic Director of the University Clinic for Angiology at the Brandenburg University Hospital.
He trained at the University of Hamburg, was a Max Planck Society Fellow at the Max Planck Institute for Heart and Lung Research, and held senior consultant posts at the Charite Universitatsmedizin Berlin before his appointment as Chair in 2016.
One of Europe's leading authorities on arteriogenesis, with over 150 peer-reviewed publications and US and EU patents, he reviews for PureLift LAB how the evidence on electrical stimulation is read and where its limits lie.
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Your first session takes about ten minutes, three minutes on each side of your face plus a gentle pass at the end, and everything else in this guide is detail on top of that.
This guide walks you through your first session and your first month, such as:
- How to prepare your skin, and why the serum matters more than you think
- Which level to start on, and how to know when to come up
- The order to work in across jaw, cheek, forehead and neck
- What the Infuse pass is for and when to run it
- The five mistakes that cost beginners the most
and many more!
By the end you will be able to run a full session tonight without second-guessing yourself.
Key Points:
Three minutes on each side of the face is the whole session, and running it longer does not produce more change.
Start on level 1 or 2 whatever your tolerance, and come up until you can see the muscle answer in the mirror, not until it becomes intense.
Use more conductive serum than feels necessary, because a dragging device is the single most common cause of a poor session.
Every model runs nanocurrent, microcurrent, EMS and Infuse, so this guide applies whichever one you unboxed.
Expect a temporary lift on day one and a lasting change on a twelve-week clock, and judge it by monthly photographs rather than the mirror.
You have just unboxed your first PureLift, and the sensible instinct is to read everything before switching it on.
The good news is that the routine itself is short and simple, three minutes on each side of your face followed by a gentle pass with your serum still on, and the rest of this guide is about doing those ten minutes well.
The device will feel unlike anything else in your bathroom, because from level 3 upwards your facial muscles physically contract, and that is meant to happen.
What is actually inside the device
Your PureLift runs four technologies, and the first three sit along the same ten-level dial.
Level 1 is nanocurrent, measured in billionths of an amp, which sits below the level your nerves report, so you feel nothing at all and that is correct.
Level 2 is microcurrent, measured in millionths of an amp, the skin-level current most facial toning devices are built around, and you will feel a faint tingle at most.
Levels 3 to 10 are EMS, where the current crosses the point at which the nerve that drives a facial muscle fires, and this is where you see the cheek or jaw move.
Infuse is the fourth, a second gentle pass after the muscle work that supports absorption of the serum already on your skin.
All five models carry all four, so nothing in this guide depends on which one you bought.
Before your first session
Cleanse properly
Start with a completely clean face, no makeup, no sunscreen, no residue, because anything sitting between the device and your skin reduces conductivity and makes the session uneven.
Use your normal cleanser and pat dry, and if you use a toner, choose one without silicones or heavy oils, since those form a film that gets in the way.
Apply the serum generously
The device needs a conductive medium to work, and this is the step beginners most often underdo.
Apply enough that your skin feels distinctly wet and slightly slick rather than lightly damp, and cover the whole area you are about to treat rather than only where you plan to start.
PureLift works with any water-based conductive serum, so you are not locked into one product, and our Activator Serum is one option rather than a requirement.
What does not work is a heavy moisturiser, a facial oil or dry skin, because none of those carries current evenly.
Start at level 1 or 2
Whatever your tolerance for other treatments, start at the bottom of the dial for your first session.
The sensation of an involuntary muscle contraction is unfamiliar, and you want to meet it gently before you decide how much of it you want.
The session, three minutes a side
Work one entire side of your face for three minutes, then switch and do the other for three, which is six minutes of muscle work in total.
Move slowly, because the device needs a few seconds of sustained contact in each position to complete a contraction cycle, and gliding quickly across your face simply means fewer contractions.
Within those three minutes, cover the areas in this order.
Jawline and lower face
Start near the chin and work outward along the jaw toward the ear, where you will feel the masseter and the muscles around it contract and release.
This is the area most people notice first, because those muscles are directly responsible for how defined the jaw looks.
Cheek and mid-face
Move up to the cheek and work from beside the nose outward along the cheekbone toward the ear.
Keep enough pressure to maintain full contact and no more, since pressing the device into bone adds nothing.
Forehead
Work in horizontal passes from the centre outward toward the temple, with a slightly lighter touch, because the skin is thinner here and the muscle underneath is broad and flat.
Neck
The neck is the most commonly skipped area and one of the most worthwhile, so work upward from the collarbone toward the jaw along the side, staying off the front of the throat.
Then switch sides and repeat the whole sequence.
The Infuse pass
After the muscle work, run Infuse with your serum still on your face.
Infuse is the electroporation mode, built on delivery science where brief electrical pulses were shown to open temporary routes through the skin's outer barrier (Prausnitz 1993), and on the device it supports absorption of the serum you already applied.
It feels much gentler than the muscle work, closer to level 2 than level 6, so a quiet Infuse pass is a normal one.
We say supports absorption and no more, since no product-specific penetration study exists.
Finding your level
The level you want is the one where you can watch the muscle answer in the mirror, and no higher.
A review of kilohertz-frequency stimulation describes three separate thresholds in everyone, the point you feel the current, the point the muscle moves, and the point it hurts (Ward 2009), and the middle one is your target.
Once the contraction is visible, turning up further mostly adds discomfort rather than benefit, and discomfort is the signal to come down a level rather than proof of a better session.
The gap between those thresholds changes with skin thickness, hydration, placement and how much serum is on your skin, which is why one person's level 4 is another person's level 6.
If a session suddenly feels weaker than the last one, check your serum, your contact and your placement before you touch the level.
Your first month
Week one is about getting comfortable, so run three sessions at levels 1 to 3 and spend the time learning the sensation and your own technique rather than chasing a result.
Week two moves to three or four sessions, and you can come up to levels 3 to 5 as the feeling becomes familiar, with the post-session tightness starting to last a little longer.
Weeks three and four move to four or five sessions at whatever level lets you see a clear contraction, typically somewhere around 4 to 7, and this is where cumulative change begins.
After the first six to eight weeks, most people settle at two or three sessions a week, which maintains what you have built.
Take at least one rest day a week, because facial muscles recover the way any others do.
The five mistakes that cost beginners most
Moving too fast across the face, which reduces the number of complete contractions in each area.
Skimping on serum, which is the single most common reason a session feels weak or drags.
Starting too high, which produces discomfort on day one and makes you less likely to keep going, and consistency is what actually drives the result.
Running longer sessions in the belief that more is better, when three minutes a side is the whole session by design.
Skipping the neck, which ages as visibly as the face and takes seconds to include.
What you will feel, and when to stop
A light flush and a mild post-session tightness are normal, as is a little muscle fatigue in your first weeks, similar to the day after any new exercise.
Stop the session if anything stings, if the skin reddens beyond that light flush, or if a sensation persists after the device is off.
If irritation lasts beyond a day or gets worse session by session, stop using the device and speak to a dermatologist.
If your skin is reactive, start at level 1, run two or three sessions a week rather than five, and leave 48 hours between a session and any strong active such as a retinoid or an acid.
Anyone with a pacemaker or another implanted electronic device, anyone pregnant, and anyone with epilepsy or a seizure disorder should not use the device at all.
Anyone with metal implants in the treatment area, a history of facial nerve damage, severe rosacea or an active skin infection should speak to a clinician first.
When to expect results
Your first session produces a temporary tightening, the facial equivalent of a pump after training, and it fades over the following hours.
Weeks two to four build cumulative tone, and weeks six to eight are where change becomes visible in photographs and to other people.
In the largest facial trial of its kind, 108 women used daily muscle stimulation for twelve weeks and ultrasound measured an 18.6 percent increase in cheek-muscle thickness, with a clear difference from the untreated group at six weeks (Kavanagh 2012).
That is a category study run with its own device, so it shows what facial muscle stimulation can do rather than what your PureLift will do for you.
Take a baseline photograph with a neutral expression in consistent light, then repeat it monthly, because the mirror is a poor judge of slow change.
Why the signal keeps moving
Send a muscle the same fixed signal for ten minutes and it gets used to that signal, your nerves get used to it too, and the session fades even though the output has not changed.
PDM, the delivery architecture inside every PureLift, keeps the signal moving across 361 frequency points between 1,370 and 1,730 Hz so it never repeats, which is why minute nine is designed to feel like minute one.
Pooling 22 studies, researchers found that stimulation which keeps changing produced more evoked force with less fatigue than a fixed pattern (Cavalcante 2026), and a randomised crossover trial found that varying the frequency reduced how quickly people habituated to it (Avendano-Coy 2019).
Not every study agrees (Papaiordanidou 2014), so PDM is designed to reduce accommodation and we never claim your muscles cannot adapt.
Common questions
How often should I use it?
Three sessions a week for the first month, then four or five while you are building, then two or three to maintain. More frequent use does not produce faster change, and a rest day is when muscles actually adapt.
What are the signs I am overdoing it?
Muscle soreness that has not settled within a day, tingling that persists hours after a session, or redness that lingers. Drop to two or three sessions a week and come down a level.
Can I use it around my eyes?
Follow your model's guidance for the eye area and use the gentle end of the dial there, and on GLOW never use the light over the eyes or eyelids.
Does it matter which model I have?
Not for this routine. All five run the same four technologies on the same ten-level dial, and what changes is the top of the dial, up to 7 milliamps on Face and Pro, 7.7 on Pro Edition, and 9 on Pro Plus + and GLOW, all measured at 500 ohms and always written as up to. GLOW alone adds light, red at 634 nm, blue at 465 nm, and purple, which is red and blue together.
Every model is cleared through the FDA 510(k) pathway, under records K190269 for Face, K230506 for Pro and Pro Edition, K221443 for Pro Plus + and K243587 for GLOW, and all five are made in Japan in an ISO 13485 facility.
For what each level feels like in more detail, read what EMS feels like, and for how the technologies compare, read the complete technology guide.
Model figures verified on 8 September 2026 against the PureLift LAB store and FDA records K190269, K230506, K221443 and K243587. Every model runs nanocurrent, microcurrent, EMS and Infuse; consumer copy always says up to.