Plastic Wrap: What’s The Hype All About? And What Is It For?

Plastic wrap is for your microwaveable food, or for keeping bugs off of your party snacks, right? Well, now it could be used to help you look slimmer.

How? It’s called body wrapping, and it is what it sounds like. You wrap your midsection, thighs, arms, anywhere with some flab in plastic wrap, and it tightens and firms the skin.

Of course, it’s not just plastic wrap. A lot of body wrapping treatments come with botanical creams to make your skin feel softer, and use special plastic wrap specifically for that purpose. Not only that, but it’ only takes 45 minutes! Just wrap your belly, wait a little while, and bam! You're slimmer.

Yeah, it sounds too good to be true. So let’s look at the science.

What’s happening to your midsection is some dehydration of your skin, which makes the skin tighter. While this could mean that you do look slimmer, it will probably wear off within a day or two. Even though you may lose a pound or two, that’s more than likely water weight that you’re losing as the wrap dehydrates you. 

While it can be great if you need to look slimmer on beach day or for your wedding, it’s definitely not a long-term replacement for diet and exercise. It’s not supposed to be for long-term weight loss, and in the end, it’s mostly a modified spa treatment.

But if you are looking to shed a few pounds for a special occasion, there are worse ways to do it. So go for it! Just be sure and stay hydrated.

What do you think of this slim-down solution?