What is a Faja and Why We’re Using Something Else (It’s Better!)

When it comes to methods, equipment and products that can help us lose weight, stay fit, or simply get in shape, the list seems endless.

With a seemingly endless list of products and equipment, it can be easy to get confused or dissuaded, especially if you don’t know what some of them are, their uses, and if they are right for you.

In the hopes of making the list of fitness gear that you don’t understand a little shorter, we’ll be delving into Fajas, a word you might have heard tossed around but don’t know what it means.

What are Fajas?

The word ‘Faja’ is of Spanish origin, coming from the Spanish word for ‘wrap’.

Simply put, you can define a fajas as wide bright sashes worn around the waist by Spaniards and Latin Americans. In their most wide-spread use, fajas are worn by patients during their recovery periods post-operation to keep down swelling and ensure that skin tightens as it should. It is most used for after cosmetic surgeries like a BBL or a liposuction.

However, in recent years, fajas have caught the eyes and favor of young women looking to shape their bodies and look curvier, as an alternative form of shapewear.

Fajas themselves are not new, not at all. Traditionally Spanish and Latin American women have been using fajas to cinch their waists for decades. The fajas used then might have differed from the ones that are popular at the moment.

Fajas actually went out of fashion with women, leaving them only for their medical use. Faja store owners attest to making most of their income from doctors. That was until they gained popularity again among modern women looking to use the fajas for shaping and slimming.

The rise of shape wear companies actually contributed greatly to the increased interest in fajas, which might be why you’re reading this article right now.

Types of Fajas

You could group fajas based on where they come from, however, most fajas on the market are Colombian Fajas. The reason you will find this so is because they are considered the stronger and tighter fajas on the market.

Beyond Colombia though, most Latin American countries and Spaniards manufacture their own forms of fajas with unique styles, firmness, and designs.

Fajas differ from one country of origin to the other mainly because of how fajas were traditionally made by early wearers in that region. These traditional details tend to find expression in the way that current faja producers or manufacturers design and produce their own fajas today.

However, as earlier stated, the most popular type of fajas come from Colombia. They are also called ‘fajas colombianas’ by Spanish speakers.

There is another way to group fajas apart from where they come from however, and that is based on ‘stages.’ This grouping comes from the medical use of fajas and there are only two types of fajas in this grouping: stage one fajas and stage two fajas.

The stages are indicative of what point a postoperative patient is in their recovery. For patients still in early recovery, they will generally be prescribed stage one fajas which are looser fitting, while later stages of recovery will be prescribed stage two fajas which are tighter.

Fajas vs Waist trainers: The Differences

One of the first and most obvious differences between a waist trainer and a faja is the fact that fajas have a medically significant application when it comes to post-operative recovery, while waist trainers are typically not used for such and would not be recommended by a doctor.

So, although a faja can act as both shape wear and medical aid, a waist trainer cannot. Waist trainers are simply shapewear.

Another key difference between a waist trainer and fajas is the coverage. Fajas do cover parts of the waist, but most of them go beyond that and therefore, do not specifically target shaping the waist but are considered shapewear for other parts of the body as well.

A waist trainer on the other hand targets the waist in its shaping and sculpting functions and so would not cover more than the waist area of the body when worn.

The Pros and Cons of Fajas

Like any other phenomenon, reasons exist why fajas are good, and there are also cons to the use of fajas. We’ll be exploring a few of both in this section of the article. This would help you to decide if fajas are for you based on your preferences.

Some really great benefits of fajas include:

Medical Benefits

The most obvious pro of a faja is the fact that it aids postoperative recovery for people who have just had some sort of cosmetic surgery. It is prescribed to both men and women, usually by the doctors that performed the surgery.

It aids the tightening of skin and combats swelling in the area that is healing. If you’ve just had cosmetic surgery or are considering having cosmetic surgery, talking to your doctors about fajas is something we recommend.

Combating Cellulite

Fajas are a great way to tone up your skin while also tackling flabbiness. After some surgeries, cosmetic surgeons frequently advocate its usage to improve shaping outcomes and prevent inflammation. But this toning helps to combat cellulite to an extent.

The results of this can vary depending on factors like skin type, the type of faja, and so on. Although it is a pro of fajas, it is important to consult a doctor and do more research to find out how fajas can help with your case specifically.

Slimmer look

Given the fact that fajas cover more than just the waist area, you would be able to achieve a slimmer look in more than just one area, this could include your thighs and your upper body as well.

This is a great way that fajas stand out because they don’t target just one area at once. Some fajas will cover shoulders, upper thighs, and the entire torso.

Support

If you’re looking for something to hold things together and make you feel firm and supported underneath your clothes, then fajas are a great choice. This is one of the pros of wearing fajas.

They provide you with firmness and support and you can put clothes over it and enjoy this support while you carry out your day-to-day task.

You should note that for fajas to maintain comfort, there will be a reduced level of firmness. The firmer the fajas, the less comfortable it might be to wear around.

And some cons are:

Generality

Fajas, as we have learned above, do not just cover the waist. Some fajas cover the thighs and shoulders as well. Because of this, they are not specifically designed with just waist training in mind. Instead, they tend to be designed with a more general approach to shaping or reshaping the body.

This can be a con because it means that fajas aren’t considering one specific area of the body in their slimming effect. In trying to provide general slimming, they may forego some essential designs for slimming of specific areas on their own.

Proper Use and Prescription

We also learned in this article that fajas have a medical usage and certain fajas are designed with this in mind.

If you aren’t knowledgeable about the way that fajas are made, the level of firmness, compression, and other factors of a faja may vary based on its intended use in post-operative care.

For instance, stage on fajas may have a very little effect, whereas stage two fajas would have more of an effect.

However, a doctor might know to use a certain faja based on its firmness and compression because of the special cases of a patient recovering from surgery.

For someone who is buying a faja with no doctor advising, it might be difficult to buy a faja with the right level of firmness and how to use them. This could potentially be dangerous or damaging.

Why we recommend waist trainers over Fajas

Although both have shaping benefits, there are reasons why a waist trainer is superior or might be a better fit for you than a faja. The first reason is as a result of one of the cons we talked about above.

Most Fajas are not designed to specifically target the waist, whereas waist trainers are.

This specificity is important because waist trainers like the The Luxx Curves Perfect Curves Waist Trainers are designed with firmness, compression, and measurements that suit the waist only, whereas fajas made to cover other parts of the body as well might compromise some waist-specific designs in order to cater to other parts of the body.

In this case, a waist trainer would give you a better result for a slimmer waist.

Another reason we would recommend waist trainers is the intent of their design. The fact that faja’s have a more medical use to them and can be used for post-operative recovery is because they are practically made for healing and reshaping, while waist trainers are made with the intent to contour, maintain proper posture, encourage sweating, as well as slim the waist.

In essence, what we are trying to say in this section, is that using fajas for waist training will get you some results in most cases, but in the long run, it is best to go with the item that is actually made specifically for the purpose of training the waist and those are waist trainers.

You can look at some of the Luxx Curves Perfect Curves Waist Trainers and their features and see that they suit waist training more than fajas.

Summary: Are Fajas Worth Your Money?

This question cannot be answered with a simple yes or no. It would depend on your needs. If you are looking for general shapewear that provides support underneath your clothes, or you are post-operative and are in recovery, fajas are definitely worth it.

Plus, they do provide some form of shaping to different areas of the body. They would definitely provide some form of shaping to the waist. We simply recommend waist trainers because they are specifically made to do just that – train your waist.

Don’t know where to start with waist trainers? That’s okay, we’ve got you covered on the Luxx Curves Perfect Curves Waist Trainers site.