What are Facial Treatments?
People get facial treatments for different reasons. Some people want their horrible blackheads to be removed, others start taking care of their skin in their 20’s to preserve a youthful look and older people want some help with anti-aging regimens. And then there are the people who just want to relax and be pampered.
A facial treatment is essentially a multi-step skin treatment that is one of the best ways to take care of your skin. A facial cleanses, exfoliates, and nourishes the skin, promoting a clear, well-hydrated skin and complexion and can help your skin look younger. You also receive advice on the best way to take care of your own skin. A facial works best when it is part of an ongoing program of skin care.
It is best to find an experienced, knowledgeable, and licensed aesthetician who has special training in skin care and is knowledgeable, fastidious, and passionate about their work. Legally, a cosmetologist is allowed to give facials, but their primary training is in hair, so they might not be the best choice. There is also a trend toward dual-licensed therapists, where the person is licensed to give both massage and facials. Be on the lookout for this in a resort setting, especially if you would rather go to someone who gives facials all the time. Facial treatment is the second most popular spa treatment in the world next to a massage.
How often you should get a facial treatment will vary from person to person. Ideally, get a facial once a month because that’s how long it takes the skin to regenerate. Try to have a facial at least four times a year, as the season changes. You may need it more frequently if you are trying to clear up a case of acne, especially at the beginning. Otherwise, once a month is more than enough. Never overdo it or your skin can face damage, especially if you have sensitive skin.
Why Should You Get One?
Less acne scarring. Professional treatments like facial peels and even laser treatments work to even out your skin tone, which means that scarring from environmental stresses and acne scars are less visible. You can expect your skin’s color and texture to see a great improvement. Treatments can also help prevent further acne scarring due to a reduction of breakouts.
Visible wrinkle reduction. Stripping off the top layer of skin will allow the more evenly textured skin to come to the surface, causing fine lines and wrinkles to seem less prominent. Treatments like microdermabrasion, microneedling, microcurrent or an anti-aging facial treatment can cause collagen production to kick up that will restore skin cells, further defending against wrinkles.
Even skin tone. If your skin has scars from surgeries, wrinkles, or sun spots, a regular regimen of facial treatments such as peels are designed to treat pigmentation that can help even out your coloring so that such damage is not so noticeable. Plus, an evened skin tone can give you the freedom to completely stop using a heavy foundation.
Unclogged pores. Dirt, oil, and dead skin cells will clog up your pores and cause them to be more visible to the human eye. Having regular facial treatments with extraction, peels, or microdermabrasion and peel combination can help to decongest your pores and keep them that way. Unclogging pores helps prevent acne breakouts.
Sensitive skin. Facial treatments calm and soothe the skin from conditions such as rosacea or overly treated skin is soothing facials with a calming mask and even laser facial. These treatments help to restore the epidermal barrier. These can restore, replenish and rejuvenate the skin.
Therapy for pre-cancerous conditions. Research has shown that chemical peels, along with other facial-resurfacing techniques, help prevent skin cancers by treating precancerous conditions such as actinic keratosis, which is an early stage of squamous cell carcinoma. Because of this, regular facial treatments can be a tool in your fight against skin cancer.
Rejuvenated appearance. While getting rid of dead skin cells, laser treatments, chemical peels, and regular facial treatments stimulate the production of collagen that helps reveal new skin that looks and feels smoother and newer. Your skin will look revitalized and refreshed after a facial treatment.
More effective daily care. Once you’ve had a facial treatment, you’ve removed icky bits that have been clogging your pores. This means that your regular skin products regiment using moisturizers, creams, serums, and lotions can be more easily absorbed, and are now more effective.
That fresh, healthy glow. Regular microdermabrasion and facial treatment peels can strip away the top layer of skin, which is full of dead skin cells, to improve its appearance. These treatments can reduce the appearance of wrinkles, sun damage, and more, so that your skin becomes more luminous and healthy-looking.
Feeling good after. There’s nothing like the feeling that you’re healthy and putting your best face forward. Having regular facial treatments helps you radiate confidence and makes you feel great about yourself.
So, which facial treatments do celebrities swear by? (Whether they’re effective or not is another issue)
The Vampire Facelift
So perhaps this is how vampires stay so young with smooth skin, but truly, it’s not easy being Kim Kardashian. She has to spend so much time, money, and pain to maintain her highly photographed face. Recently, she shocked her fans by posting pictures of herself during a Vampire Facelift. Blood is drawn from the victim’s arm, platelets are extracted and then injected into the face to prevent wrinkles. This goes to say that beauty really hurts. But not only Kim Kardashian, but also Israel’s top model, Bar Rafaeli, is into this treatment, and she has the pillowy plump cheeks. The treatment also goes by the name of Platelet Rich Plasma facial. Many actually do swear (including Kim and Bar) and assure that this isn’t as gory as it seems and involves only a small amount of blood being drawn from a vein in your arm. This blood is then spun round to separate the different components and the white plasma, which is rich in platelets, is then injected back into your skin. Directed into the right areas, this encourages regeneration, specifically collagen synthesis, which helps promote firmer skin and softened lines and wrinkles. However, scientists and dermatologists are cautioning that there is no medical evidence that this treatment is truly viable since blood and its components have no regenerative abilities.
Water Therapy (Or Just Drink Lots and Lots of Water)
The claim by Gwyneth Paltrow – not the only water-obsessed celebrity – is that water is full of healing power especially for the skin so you need to drink lots and lots of it. But the real truth is that while drinking water is undoubtedly good for your overall health, it’s actually proven to be the least effective way to hydrate the skin. Apparently, much of the water we drink is filtered out of our bodies by our kidneys, and never actually reaches the skin’s surface. It’s helpful to understand that hydration levels in the skin have very little to do with drinking water and much more to do with how you hydrate topically. Instead, the simplest and easiest way to effectively hydrate your skin cells and keeping them moist and healthy-looking are by using an alcohol-free toner and sealing that in with a skin serum that contains hyaluronic acid and sodium PCA.
Foreskin Cell Facial Cream
Celebrity Oprah Winfrey certainly got some heat several years ago for having endorsed this controversial moisturizer to her fans. SkinMedica’s anti-ageing TNS Recovery Complex contains a nutrient solution derived from foreskin cells. The company describes the solution as “Human Fibroblast Conditioned Media,” a growth factor that reportedly corrects all woes of aging skin such as lines, wrinkles, age spots, dullness, and uneven texture. Various products from SkinMedica’s line have been reviewed and loved by beauty editors far and wide, but this one kind of takes the cake you will certainly cringe at the thought of adding this 0.63 oz skin serum to your shopping list for $179 a pop. This almost sounds like the Vampire Facial but instead of drawing blood, now they draw from flesh as well. Again, there is no factual medical research and evidence to prove that this facial treatment is effective, let alone safe.
Snake Venom Botox
The Iron Man starlet swears by this synthetic snake venom complex that has been engineered to be a non-invasive alternative to Botox. Gwyneth Paltrow is known to frequent Sonya Dakar Spa in Beverly Hills, where the complex is used in anti-aging facials. According to some experts and dermatologists who are trying to study this new facial treatment, this facial mimics the effects of actual snake venom by reducing muscular contractions and cell movement, thereby keeping skin smooth, and this is similar to how Botox functions. The spa complex can be found in a variety of different products and price ranges in the beauty industry, so it is for sure that Paltrow isn’t the only A-lister getting in on this beauty scam that they don’t know is a scam. But while there are similarities in the ways the two compounds function, most dermatologists and doctors agree that there are no well-done clinical studies showing the showing the specific effects of using snake venom topically on the skin. None at all. Your skin will look paler if you just let a rattler have a bite at you.
Bird Poop Facials
David and Victoria Beckham swears on this one. Now, there are feces facials. Yes, feces, as in poop. But not just any poop, because it has to be bird poop. And not just any bird poop because it has to be special Nightingale poop to be exact. Manhattan’s Shizuka New York Day Spa was the first to advertise their latest, and probably most cringe worthy skin facial. It is new to the United States but bird poop facials, in fact, come from ancient Japan. Geishas used powdered nightingale droppings to remove the white makeup that they wore on their faces. They found that the bird poop concoction not only cleaned their skin, it also left their skin brighter and smoother. The Shizuka Spa asserts that the bird droppings are sanitized and powdered under a UV light, which apparently makes putting feces on your face acceptable. Unfortunately, no scientific or medical evidence exists to prove that bird poop on your face will truly brighten up your skin. Perhaps bird poop is more effective if you just consume it orally.
Bee Venom Facial Care
We can excuse all the fans who swoon over how cool Kate Middleton is. She’s bonafide royalty on top of being an incredible philanthropist, and she has declared once and for all that leggings are indeed pants. She also set this bee venom beauty trend a few years back when she revealed it as a staple in her own beauty routine. Bee venom in beauty products touts the same benefits as that silly snake bite (or was it snake venom) treatment, but with a few extra in tow. The celebrity brand responsible for bringing buzz-worthy skin care to the public is called Rodial, and their bee venom products also contain peptides that increase skin elasticity and firmness, as well as stimulating collagen production in the skin. But according to some dermatologists and doctors, while honey itself from the bees has shown clinical results in reducing fine lines and wrinkles and also causes an increase in Epidermal Growth Factor – the protein responsible for cell growth – and accelerates cell regeneration, leading to a higher level of skin elasticity and an increase in collagen production, there is nothing to be said about enhanced and purified bee venom, which is just as poisonous as snake venom. And be wary though, because if you’re allergic to bees (or if you’re not sure), this facial treatment could pose some serious health risks.
Red Wine Skin and Facial Baths
According to Teri Hatcher, a former Bond girl, the wine skin and facial bath are fast becoming popular in most countries. Bathing in the fermented grape juice is supposed to have a rejuvenating effect on the body. This we may believe given the effect wine has on us when we’re only drinking it. This practice goes way, way back in times of antiquity, according to the Japanese. But the Egyptians also thought of this and in fact, it is recorded that Cleopatra loved this bizarre treatment. However, medically speaking, though it has some exfoliating qualities, the attributes of red wine that have a truly positive impact on your health will not cross the dermal barrier into your skin when bathing. The best way to internalize wine’s antioxidants is through drinking or cooking with it.
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