Tag: facial

03
Nov

When one facial isn’t enough.

Occurred to me the other day, as I thoroughly (oh-man-you-can’t-believe-how-much) enjoyed a delicious, skin nourishing Sodashi facial at Made. Beauty Space in Hawthorn, that I sometimes just talk about the strong facial treatments I have, and fail to mention the other ones, which are a lot more traditional and enjoyable, but no less important.

In an ideal world, a world where we had wash-n-go hair that always looked immaculate and we never needed to wax and our manicures and pedicures lasted for six months, we would make time for both kind of facial. Because while both are helpful and useful for the skin independently, together they are like some form of magical skin superhero. One does the heavy lifting, the ugly stuff, grunting and causing discomfort with a terribly cliche no pain no gain attitude; the other coming in with a lovely soft blanket, some white chocolate cheesecake, a huge glass of hydrating coconut water and a little kiss on the forehead. (Neither facial should ever be like this.)

The Hardcore One

This one is important because not unlike a tenacious Hollywood manager, it Gets Shit Done and Makes Things Happen. This is where you actively fix your skin problems, usually ove over a program or course and a series of sessions. These are purpose driven treatments. You have targets, like uneven skin tone (pigmentation) or acne, or thick, oily skin, or dry, lined skin, and you fire with things like strong peels, IPL, LED, lasers, microdermabrasion and so on. These are not pleasant treatments. In fact they generally sting or hurt quite a lot. But man do they get results. Do not expect to float out of the clinic or salon on a high, expect to leave laden with after care products and skin care that will maintain and amplify the effects of the treatment.

When to have them: To make dramatic changes to the quality/look/state of your skin. Before a big event (wedding etc). To refresh and boost the appearance of your skin.

The Lovely One

You know this one. Mood lighting. Three deep breathes before we start. Lovely soft music. Steamer. Extractions. Lovely long facial massage. Thick (sometimes thermal, sometimes cold, sometimes stingy, sometimes claustrophobic and rock hard – depends what your facialist determines your skin needs) masks followed by a hydrating mask, a foot and arm massage and a spritz of rose facial mist before a pixie flies in and rings a tiny pixie bell to signal the treatment is over. You leave smelling like a fancy hippie and in danger of being hit by a car because you are in a state of outrageous bliss, and seriously consider having a little nap in the car. These facials are excellent for relaxation, deep hydration, revitalisation and nourishment for the skin.

When to have them: Ideally, you would have one every 4-6 weeks for maintenance, to clean out blackheads, to ‘feed’ and revitalise the skin, and boost what you’re doing at home.

Of course, plenty of salons and clinics offer both kind of facial, but I personally choose to go to different people/places with different skill sets and allow them to do what they do best.

One way to think of it is the same way as you do your serums…  One should be a problem-solver, an active, concentrated, targeted results-getter, (this is used first, on clean skin, by the way) and the other should be nourishing, comforting and hydrating, like a gorgeous facial oil, say (this goes on just before your face cream). Together they work to make your skin as good as it can be, but in different ways.

Where I go: In Melbourne I recommend Brooke at Me Skin and Body and like neoSKIN in Richmond for the hardcore stuff, and Made Beauty Space for the lovely, peaceful, relaxing one.

MADEBSMADE. beauty space

In Sydney, I see my gorgeous, magical Natasha – 0422 650 773 – in Double Bay for my lovely facials, and the insanely elegant Jocelyn Petroni for my peels and Omnilux etc… although she is also fantastic at the lovely ones. The Clinic in Bondi Junction is also a go-to for my hardcore stuff… peels but also laser hair removal etc).

Jocelyn-Petroni-vogue-picJoceyln Petroni. Cute as a dang button.

Where do you go for your hardcore or lovely treatments?

Just kidding, I already know! Been following you on Twittinstabook for years.

 

Responses to this drivel: 12 Comments
11
Jul

Who makes up your Personal Beauty Army?

CHILL. I’m not asking cos I’m nosy, or because I want to steal them.

Yes I am.

Sorry.

After writing up a delightful beauty space earlier this week, one which I have decided has become part of my Melbourne Personal Beauty Army (a very specific appearance-based army focused on grooming and maintenance) I realised I still had a way to go in terms of my Melbourne PBA.

Like, just say I can’t shimmy back to Sydney to have Lien Davies masterfully, lovingly tend to my eyebrows for six weeks (I’m at seven and counting, things are getting tense) – who will do them?

[Just on Lien, she has released a fantastic ebook called How To Create Your Ultimate Brow Shape At Home – complete with How To videos and a mountain of gorgeous illustrations and photos. Yes, I see the irony of promoting her DIY Brow Shape book in the same paragraph as detailing my desire for a new professional brow shaper. Shut up.]

And what if I need a spray tan? FOR GOD’S SAKE WHAT IF I NEED A SPRAY TAN.

I don’t even have a hairdresser down here. Still pop up to Barney Martin for my hairs. (Finally getting my ‘underlights‘ put in this Saturday. Thinking very hard about installing a fringe as I do every now and again, but then remember do not have Jane Birkin’s hair texture/lack of cowlicks and am forbidden.)

 

02_jane_birkin

Jane Birkin arrogantly showing off her great hair texture and terrific fringe.

Anyway.

As I mentioned the other day, the way a dame generally finds her PBA is via word of mouth. And what better use of the comments section than for us to all share our PBAs? Let’s use our keyboards as our mouths, and our eyes as our ears and our teeth as our teeth! (In case we’re eating almonds.)

Just before we begin, let’s clarify the Personal Beauty Army Code.

To be considered a member of ones’s PBA, one must be not only reliable, talented, honest, skilled, pleasant to be around and offer better results than any other in their field, but they must thinly skate the line between being too good to share with others, and so good they must be shared with others”

Probably most women have a hairdresser, waxer and facialist in their PBA, but those who are slightly more invested in their physical upkeep, or who may be in a profession which demands a higher level of personal grooming, may also occasionally employ spray tanners, massage therapists, manicurists/pedicurists, eyebrow shapers, Botox injectors, dentists (for Invisalign/whitening, say), makeup artists for special occasions and of course, an ear polisher.

So, share!

Go right ahead and share. First clearly list which city you live in, and then list the members/salons of your PBA. And don’t be all greedy and keep some for yourselves. This is the sisterhood we’re immersed in here, we need to help each other out.

Just think, maybe one day your job as a Nanotechnological Bioinformatics System Integrations Researcher might see you transferred to Wollongong, and wouldn’t it be nice to know where to get some decent highlights when you arrive? Yes. It would be splendid.

In a perfect world, this post will become a kind of Little Black Book for Excellent Australian Beauty Services, where you can type in a search word (such as “Burleigh Heads”) and then just find the waxer of your dreams instantly…

So I dare to dream big. Sue me*.

A VERY HANDY HINT: Press Control F (“find”) and type in the city or state you’re looking for.

*Please don’t sue me.

Responses to this drivel: 330 Comments
07
Jun

The worst facial result, ever.

I had a facial this week. It was delightful: a relaxing and nourishing Kerstin Florian facial at Aurora spa in Melbourne. My skin looked glowy for the second round of Amazing Face app how-to videos I shot yesterday and I’m very happy.

A makeup blogger from Singapore, Juli (AKA Bun Bun) however, didn’t fare so well after her facial this week. In fact, she fared about as well as a kilo of electric spinach at Denpasar.

She had what was a fairly innocuous facial at a regular salon, no needles, no peels, no fancy machines. But over the next few days, rather than plump, radiant skin, she has been through a nightmare of epic skin proportions.

She went from this…

My-Skin-Ravaged-Allergic-Reaction-After-Facial-Experience_day-1-after-facial_2

 

To this…

My-Skin-Ravaged-Allergic-Reaction-After-Facial-Experience_day-3-after-extraction_1

 

To this…

My-Skin-Ravaged-Allergic-Reaction-After-Facial-Experience_day-4-after-extraction-4

To THIS.

My-Skin-Ravaged-Allergic-Reaction-After-Facial-Experience_day-4-night_5

It looks like severe cystic acne, but in fact is an allergic reaction to one of the ingredients used in the facial, most likely a plant extract. Yes, it can happen, and no, it’s not easy to know if you’re allergic until, well, you’re allergic.

The second doctor she saw (the first was, rather the like the clinic who gave her the facial and then erroneously popped all of the pus bumps as a cure, therefore making it far worse and making her liable to scarring – top work guys, take five!) advised that this can sometimes happen and although it will settle, she will have hyperpigmentation for many months.

And a morbid and nightmarish fear of facials forevermore, I expect.

Poor poor girl. Read the full post on her terrible and rapid reaction here (but maybe skip it if you are the queasy type).

I feel for her because her face is her trade, but also because this kind of enormous, swift and unsightly descent into angry all-over pustules would be a fucking huge blow, not to mention incredibly scary, except for the bit where I did mention it, because that’s exactly what it would have been.

I had my own allergic reaction in a skinclinic back in 2010 which I’ve never written about MOSTLY DUE TO EXTREME ANGER AND AN INABILITY TO WRITE ABOUT IT WITHOUT SWEARING and not wanting to take down said skin clinic in flames, even though they deserve it. Can’t say something nice, rah rah rah.

In a nutshell (probably a highly allergic one, like a peanut) my face blew up to Will Smith in Hitch proportions within about three minutes after some anaesthesia was applied. The nurse took one look at me, a bad, scary look, and then left the room. She returned with the Doctor a few minutes later (I’m in full panic mode by now) and without a word, he quickly administered Phenergan (and anti-histamine) intravenously, then made me take two 25mg Phenergan orally. “Are you allergic to anything?” he asked.

“I didn’t think I was…” I said, touching my face which was easy since it was about a km further out that it normally was. (They refused to give me a mirror.) (Really.)

Now, I don’t know if you’ve ever had Phenergan, but one 10mg tablet sends me straight to sleep. So you can imagine how cool and together and alert I was at that stage, having never had it before, and with no concept of its T-Rex tranquiliser effect on my body.

After 15 minutes, they let me DRIVE HOME, (!!!!) looking like a child’s inflatable toy, terrified, and sleepy as a bear. They gave me no phone number for after hour care and told me it would be fine.

Next day, worse. I waited til 9am then called in a panic and was told to take more Phenergan and it would go down. Also, ice it.

No apologies, no call us if you’re worried, sweet fuck all.

Five days I had that swollen face. Couldn’t go outside, felt like a monster, couldn’t write my book I was on deadline for because I was so doped up. Skipped several events and spoke to my solicitor who advised unless I was seeking damages (i.e.: loss of income, so, say, if I’d been booked to host an event and couldn’t do it because of my face) the costs of legal chasing would cost more than we could hope to earn. I was so stinkin’ angry. The aftercare was a farce, and the fact they let me drive home high as a kite was disgusting; I could’ve had 10 car accidents and to this day am thrilled, shocked and grateful I didn’t. I was also embarrassed. I’d tried to make a good, young face “better” and this was my result.

I don’t know exactly what my point is, except that I guess I thought if a beauty editor with the power of the media behind her can’t get decent treatment and is sent away when her face looks like a beach ball, then what hope do the general public have for good care and intelligent proceedings when a freakish allergic outcome occurs? Poor Bun Bun suffered a deluge of terrible advice and knee-jerk reactions with hers, and it absolutely made everything worse.

One of the comments under Bun Bun’s post was “don’t fix what is broke,” which is a hard pill to swallow when your job is to review facials and have good skin, but it was the exact same thing my then boyfriend/now husband said to me after my mess, and the reason I won’t touch lasers and so on now.

(On the plus side, I learned what Phenergan was that day, and now try to procure them to take on 14 hour flights.)

Have you had a horrible, terrifying facial experience? I feel like today might be the day we all share them…

 

Responses to this drivel: 40 Comments