💪 To get fitter 🧴 To improve skin

to tone up

3.9

To make the skin look firmer and more even using skin care

phrasal verb

: tonificar

To achieve a firmer look, you should regularly apply products that tone up your skin.

Examples

Those dry sort of like powdery tone up creams will be the death of me.
It's called a tone up sun cream, but I don't know if it's going to actually like tone up my face.
She uses a special lotion every day to tone up her skin and improve its texture.
The new serum is designed to tone up the complexion and give it a radiant glow.

Synonyms

to tone

vsto tone up

30 3.9

To make muscles firmer and more defined by exercise

targets skin appearance and evenness rather than muscle firmness

to tonify

vsto tone up

Specialized

8.3

To make the body or its parts stronger and firmer

focuses specifically on improving skin appearance and firmness

Antonyms

to damage

885 1.4

To harm something so it becomes less useful, valuable, or healthy

How Firm

to tighten

145 1.5

to tone up

3.9

to even out

18 3.4

Surface Forms

tone up infinitive

toned up past

toned up past participle

toning up present participle

tones up third person singular

Morphology

tone + up

The sense 'to improve firmness or appearance' is directly derivable from combining 'tone' (to firm) with the particle 'up' (indicating increase/improvement), so a learner who knows both constituents can infer the cosmetic meaning. This is a productive verb+particle construction found in many languages and in English usage, making the expression predictable rather than idiomatic.

Etymology

Tone up in skin care comes from tone meaning the skin's color and firmness and up meaning to improve it. One popular image is smoothing an uneven wall so the color looks even and the surface feels firmer, and that's why to tone up your skin means 'to improve the appearance, evenness, or firmness of the skin'.