How it works
The massage emoji is Person getting massage, U+1F486, on the list since Emoji 0.6. Unicode’s own name for the character is FACE MASSAGE, and Emojipedia records it drawn with an unseen person’s hands on the scalp and temples.
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The man and the woman
The man getting massage emoji is the person, a zero width joiner, Male sign and a variation selector: U+1F486 U+200D U+2642 U+FE0F. The woman getting massage emoji swaps in Female sign, U+2640. Both date from Emoji 4.0, and each has five skin tones.
A personal care symbol
The names list puts U+1F486 under Personal care symbols with four others: Lipstick, Nail polish, the haircut and Barber pole. CLDR, Unicode’s list of search words, files spa under two emoji and their man and woman forms: this one and Person in steamy room. Salon, soothe, therapy and treatment lead to the massage alone.
- By Wikipedia the word is French, massage, glossed there as friction of kneading.
- Two faces share the search word headache with it: Persevering face and Downcast face with sweat.
Questions and answers
Is there a massage emoticon?
None is standard, so the typed faces here are this site’s own. Braces make a hand at each temple and hyphens make shut eyes: {(-_-)}. Swap the mouth for an undertie and the face smiles.
Is there a back massage emoji?
No. U+1F486 is the only Unicode character with massage in its name, and its name is FACE MASSAGE. The combo Head, then feet adds a foot for the other end.
What does the massage emoji mean?
A massage, and relaxing more widely: its search words include relax, relaxing and tension. Wikipedia defines massage as rubbing or kneading the soft tissues of the body.