In This Article:
+ Recommended Products
+ Hype & Hope
+ Benefits of a Facial
+ What are Hydra facials?
+ What a Facial Cannot Do
+ Good vs. Bad Aestheticism
+ What About Devices Used During a Facial?
+ After the Facial, Get Ready for Sales Pressure!
+ The Facial Decision
Women routinely ask us if getting a facial is
worth their time and money. Facials are a confusing issue, primarily because of
the endless misinformation about exactly what they can do for your skin. In
fact, more often than not, women who have gotten facials give us mixed
feedback: Some tell us they love how their skin looks, others see no change in
their skin, and still others report that they've ended up with more problems
than they had before they got a facial.
Hype & Hope
Aside from the hype and nonsense you read in
fashion magazines and the pictures you see of women serenely wrapped in a towel
with a mask on their face and cucumber slices over their eyes (cucumbers do
nothing for the eye area), the reality is facials can be hurtful or helpful,
depending on the person who performs your facial, what exactly they are using,
and what they are doing to your skin.
Without question, facials are not mandatory for
you to have beautiful, healthy skin, but for some skin types, and when done
right, facials can be a beautiful addition to your skin-care routine. On the
flipside, when done wrong, they are a waste of time and can even damage your
skin.
Benefits of a Facial
Many women who've had facials report that they get
them because it's a relaxing experience. But, ideally, a facial should be about
skin care, not just relaxation. If the relaxing experience is the sole reason
you get facials (meaning you don't see much of a difference in your skin from
the experience), then you're better off getting a full body massage instead.
That's far more relaxing and it doesn't put your skin at risk. Here is what a
great facial can provide over and above a relaxing experience:
- Thoroughly
cleansed skin.
- Softening
and removal of blackheads and whiteheads (called milia) via manual
extraction.
- Temporary
improvement of severely dehydrated skin with rich, emollient nourishing
masks that begin restoring skin's natural barrier function.
- Plumping
skin with a well-formulated moisturizer, which temporarily smooths out
wrinkles.
- Exfoliating
skin with a gentle scrub, a light chemical peel, or a peel-off mask to
achieve a smoother surface.
- Help
to fade brown discolorations, improve skin tone, and significantly reduce
wrinkles with a professional-strength AHA or BHA treatment.
In addition to the above-mentioned benefits, a
skilled aesthetician will not let you leave without applying a well-formulated
sunscreen. The sunscreen should contain only titanium dioxide or zinc oxide as
active ingredients to eliminate any risk of irritation, especially given that
most women's skin is more sensitive right after having a facial.
It's important to keep in mind that what you do
daily to take care of your skin is more important than what you do occasionally,
but the combination of a great facial and a great skin-care routine can have
impressive results.
For most skin types a great facial should include
gentle exfoliation with a properly
formulated alpha hydroxy acid (AHA, active ingredient is glycolic or lactic
acid) or beta hydroxy acid (BHA, active ingredient is salicylic acid) product. These
are truly anti-aging, as they effectively reveal younger skin, even out skin
tone, and build collagen. (Learn
why exfoliation is so important and which method is best for you.) A facial
also should include an antioxidant treatment, along with information on why
antioxidants are so important for healthy skin. They not only repair damaged
skin cells, but also help prevent further damage to the skin.
Your aesthetician also should be able to recommend
the appropriate skin-care products for you to use at home, and not hesitate to
recommend brands or products the spa doesn't sell. Of course, if healthy,
younger-looking skin is your concern, your aesthetician should, above all else,
recommend daily use of a sunscreen rated SPF 25 or greater!
What are Hydra facials?
The latest skin-care fad is the Hydra Facial,
which is essentially a milder form of microdermabrasion (a topical scrub
procedure), combined with cleansing in a single process. The Hydra Facial also
claims to “infuse” serums and exfoliate ingredients like AHAs into skin and
vacuum substances ("impurities") from skin.
Compared to a standard microdermabrasion treatment
(which can be rough on skin if not done with great care), the level of
abrasiveness from Hydrafacials is low. Although that may sound better, it means
that the unimpressive results from microdermabrasion are going to be even less
impressive with the HydraFacial! At best, microdermabrasion makes skin smoother
and the inflammation swells skin so wrinkles and large pores are temporarily
less visible.
Back to the “infusion” of serums and AHA/BHA
exfoliants—few spas (none that we could find) were willing to disclose the
ingredients used in this procedure. Given what we know of how such ingredients
work, the whole process doesn’t make sense. AHA/BHA exfoliants at professional
peel strength must be applied with caution and rinsed from skin. Since skin
isn’t rinsed during the HydraFacial process, we suspect at best you're getting
a fancy application of a mild AHA or BHA exfoliant (that may or may not be at
the correct pH to work properly).
The “serum” stage couldn’t possibly be more beneficial
than simply applying your own serum. Besides, you need some ingredients to
remain on skin’s surface to repair its barrier, strengthen its environmental
defenses, and help mitigate the free-radical damage we get from being in an
oxygen-rich environment or being exposed to pollutants. If everything
penetrated past the surface, nothing would be left to protect skin’s first line
of defense! Bottom line: Hydrafacials aren't really worth your time or money.
You'd get more bang for your buck investing in a cleansing brush such as the
Clarisonic!
Collagen has no benefit when applied topically
beyond moisturizing—even if you could force collagen into the deeper layers of
skin, your body wouldn’t know what to do with it. Unfortunately, the only
collagen that matters where anti-aging is concerned is what’s produced by your
own body.
What a Facial Cannot Do
Many people look to facials to address a range of
skin-care concerns, from acne to wrinkles. A skilled aesthetician, using
superior techniques and products, can help you address most of these issues to
some extent, but facials are not cure-alls, and they absolutely do not replace
what you use at home on a daily basis. Here is what a facial cannot do:
- Eliminate
acne.
- Permanently
fade discolorations.
- Replace
cosmetic corrective procedures such as Botox, lasers, or dermal fillers.
- Treat
rosacea or persistent redness (oftentimes the products and the amount of
manipulation involved during a facial make sensitive, reddened skin
worse).
- Lift
sagging skin.
- Eliminate
dark circles or puffy eyes.
- Decongest
skin and/or eliminate "toxins." (Skin cannot become
"congested" and it doesn't contain toxins that your body cannot
eliminate on its own via the liver and kidneys.)
Good vs. Bad Aestheticians
A good aesthetician (and there are many) will know
how to help repair and maintain a healthy skin surface. This is important for
all skin types, but especially if you have reddened skin, rosacea, eczema,
acne, or sensitive skin.
A well-trained aesthetician also should ask you
detailed questions about your skin, including what you do to take care of it
and whether or not you're using any topical or oral prescription medications.
All of these impact how the aesthetician will treat your skin, including what
type of products he or she will use. Above all else, a good aesthetician will
take every precaution to avoid causing needless irritation to your skin. He or
she should know that irritation can cause a host of problems, such as the
following:
- Steaming
skin, especially with abnormally hot steam, can worsen redness and
potentially result in broken capillaries that show up as thin, spider-like
lines.
- Being
too aggressive with extractions for acne or blackheads can make clogged
pores worse and push acne lesions deeper into your skin.
- Using
essential oils, all of which may smell divine, but fragrance isn't skin
care. All fragrance, synthetic or natural, causes irritation, and
irritation harms your skin.
- Using
products that contain irritating ingredients such as alcohol, camphor, or
menthol. Even if you cannot see or feel the irritation, it's happening
beneath the skin's surface. The result? Damaged collagen production and
destruction of vital substances your skin needs to look young and healthy.
- Using
"facial rejuvenation" devices without proper training or a
working knowledge of what the client can realistically expect.
Unless you are having extractions performed, a
good facial should include a relaxing face massage and/or hand and arm massage.
Learning how to perform such massages generally is included in the training
curriculum at state-accredited aesthetician schools (often with a European
influence). However, you should not get a facial massage if you have broken
capillaries, rosacea, or sensitive skin. And, if you do get one, it should
never involve pulling or tugging at the skin because the pulling and tugging
can increase sagging by breaking down the elastin in skin.
What About Devices Used During a Facial?
Many facials include the use of hand-held devices
or "machines" claiming to do everything from improving wrinkles, dark
circles, and puffy eyes to dealing with acne, blackheads, and on and on. As
intriguing as these options sound (and you will be tempted), for the most part
they are either a complete waste of time and money or, depending on how often
they're done, actually have negative consequences for your skin.
The most typical treatment machines you are likely
to encounter when getting a facial include oxygen-infusing machines, peeling
devices, product-infusing (i.e. "microcurrent") devices, and
microdermabrasion systems. Here is what you need to know about these devices
and their use.
Peeling devices (not
including microdermabrasion machines) are hand-held tools with a hard metal
edge the aesthetician scrapes across the surface of the skin, much like you
might scrape a layer of frost off your car's windshield. Sometimes these
peeling tools are combined with another type of treatment in one machine, such
as a device that uses the peeling step along with an oxygen-infusing option.
- Pros: When
used by a skilled aesthetician for the proper skin type (and used with extreme
caution), a scraping tool can effectively exfoliate skin.
- Cons: Device
is "dragged" and pulled along the skin to exfoliate. It's an
archaic and potentially damaging way to exfoliate skin.
Product-infusing devices can
be separate machines or can be combined with a peeling device for an all-in-one
treatment. Product-infusing devices (often referred to as
"microcurrent" devices) typically use either electrical currents or
ultrasonic waves. Supposedly, the currents or waves open pathways between skin
cells so the ingredients in the skin-care products can go deeper into the skin
to perform all sorts of miracles, such as lifting, firming, and reducing
wrinkles. The sales pitch usually mentions that the more often you have these
treatments the longer these pathways will remain open. As it turns out, there's
no substantiated research proving these machines work as claimed.
Even if these machines could "infuse"
ingredients deeper into your skin, what happens if those ingredients go right
past where they can do your skin the most good? Plus, there's the potential
risk of getting unwanted ingredients (like preservatives or problematic plant
extracts) deeper into the skin, where their negative effects may be worse. Even
beneficial ingredients like vitamin C or retinol might be more sensitizing if
they are "pushed" deeper into the skin, rather than being allowed to
penetrate the uppermost layers on their own.
- Pros: None.
- Cons: The
claims for product-infusing devices are complete and utter nonsense. There
is no published research showing these devices have any benefit for skin.
Even assuming that electricity or ultrasonic waves could open pathways
into the skin's dermis (lower layer), doing so would actually damage your
skin. "Pathways into skin" means the surface and lower layers of
the skin would no longer be cohesive, but torn open, which would allow
penetration by bacteria, pollution, and ingredients in skin-care products
that should remain on the surface, where they can be washed off.
Negative ion pore-clearing therapy (often
administered by a peeling device or product-infusing device) doesn't have any
impact on skin, whether for opening pores or removing toxins or anything else
having to do with skin. Negative ions cannot "resonate" or move
through skin, whether they are in the air or generated by a machine, so they
can't affect the pore. It may be a surprise to you, but skin has no ability to
excrete toxins.
Toxins cannot leave your body through the pores or
through your skin. Real detoxification of foreign substances takes place in the
liver. The liver changes a toxin's chemical structure so it can be excreted by
the kidneys, which filter it safely from the blood into the urine. Skin can't
modify toxins in any way, so the toxins can't exit through the skin via sweat
or other means. People often think sweating eliminates toxins, but sweat's
chief function is to cool the body, not eliminate toxins. Sweat can eliminate
some by-products, such as urea, but these by-products aren't the kind of toxins
spa personnel are referring to. They usually are referring to chemicals in
skin-care products, processed foods, or air pollution.
- Pros: Because
both positive and negative ions can be inhaled and because negative ions
are generated in abundance after a storm (when the air is calm and seems
very fresh), we know they can have a relaxing effect on the body. There is
some research showing that negative ions can have the same relaxing effect
on the body when inhaled, even if they are mechanically generated, but
this inhalation of ions has nothing to do with eliminating toxins or
clearing pores of cellular debris that leads to clogs and acne.
- Cons: Ions,
whether positively or negatively charged, cannot open, close, or clarify
pores, nor can they eliminate toxins; this type of treatment cannot
improve acne.
Microdermabrasion,
also called the Lunchtime Peel, Italian Peel, or Paris Peel (among other
names), is a non-surgical skin-resurfacing procedure. A machine with a small
vacuum-like tip shoots a jet of small, abrasive crystals (usually aluminum or
magnesium oxide) onto the skin, and then vacuums them off the skin. Depending
on the pressure and intensity settings (which are controlled by the
technician), you get different depths of exfoliation. The stronger the setting,
the deeper the effects, but that also means more risk to your skin. Despite the
"peel" names microdermabrasion also goes by, technically, it is not a
peel (like an alpha hydroxy acid peel), but rather a machine-calibrated way to scrub
and polish skin.
- Pros: Because
microdermabrasion is an effective way to exfoliate skin more deeply, it
can help refine pores, improve the appearance of acne scars, and help even
out blotchy, thickened, sun-damaged skin.
- Cons: It
can be too harsh on skin when overdone or done too often, leading to
collagen breakdown. Some skin tones may get dark or light patches as side
effects from the treatment if it is too strong.
Oxygen-infusion machines
apply a concentrated amount of topical oxygen to facial skin via a small tube
hooked up to an oxygen machine. Your face is covered with a special domed mask
to keep the oxygen from escaping. Before the oxygen is turned on, your face is
prepped with a product-infused cloth or a facial mask. Once the dome mask is
secured and the machine is turned on, it's left running for about 20 minutes.
Depending on the spa and the aesthetician, a special tool that delivers
concentrated bursts of oxygen to key areas may be used during the treatment.
- Pros: Although
theoretically this procedure can improve circulation and promote healing,
most researchers find this highly unlikely, especially if used on
otherwise healthy, intact skin.
- Cons: There
is no research showing oxygen-infusion machines have any benefit for
wrinkles or aging skin whatsoever. Oxygen cannot pass through skin unless
it is delivered in a hyperbaric (pressurized) booth. The short-term impact
can be an increase in free-radical damage, thus negating any positive
results.
After the Facial, Get Ready for Sales Pressure!
The retail portion of your appointment is a major
way salons and spas make money. Most aestheticians and support staff are
expected to make monthly sales goals, so you can expect a fair amount of
pressure to buy products. Although you may be tempted, more often than not the
products are absurdly expensive, with equally absurd claims. It is also
shocking how many spa products are packaged in jars, when so much research is
available proving that many of the key anti-aging ingredients will not remain
stable in this kind of packaging.
Also worth knowing:
Spa staff often receive training from the product lines themselves, which, as
you might expect, often is biased, based on a lot of hype and reinforcement of
the brand's absurd claims. An aesthetician who has been to the
company-sponsored training sessions, and then clearly gone beyond that to learn
about the actions of specific ingredients and devices, and about skin-care
products is one worth getting to know!
The Facial Decision
After considering the information above, the
bottom line is this: A good facial can make you look and feel better than when
you arrived for your appointment, but whether done once or routinely, facials
cannot perform miracles, and they have their limits. Now that you have the
facts, you will get the best results possible from a facial, not waste money,
and feel great!
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