Fabulous Facials For All Faces – 13 Tips For Glowing Beautifully

We go behind the masks, steaming, sloughing and pampering to find out which facials are best for all faces.

Facials are a luxury. For some women, they’re a luxury they ‘can’t live without’ to brighten dull and dingy skin – or to plump it up before an important event. There’s a beauty salon boom in facials for younger and older women. In mid-life, we’re supposed to have more money – and (allegedly) more leisure – to indulge ourselves. And when we look in the mirror on a bad day and start to fret about lines that didn’t seem to be there last week, a time-defying salon treatment can be highly seductive. But not all facials are created equal. And not every skin will benefit. So here’s what you should know before you put yourself in a beauty therapist’s hands.

• First of all, remember that no once-in-a-while treatment can make a significant long-term impact – although it can whisk away drab-looking dead skin cells, leaving your skin looking brighter and (depending on the ingredients) temporarily ‘tighter’ or ‘lifted’. What you do to your skin daily—religiously cleansing, lightly exfoliating, moisturising, and applying sun protection—makes a long-term difference.
• However, in a regular skincare regime, there is a place for facials. If people want a pleasant, pampered experience and have pretty normal skin, they will not have any problem if they undergo regular facials. However, people with normal skin are advised to wait six weeks between facials because too much of anything, like intense cleansing or vigorous massage, can irritate the skin.
• Anyone with inflamed acne, rosacea or skin conditions like eczema and psoriasis should avoid facials, as they may aggravate the condition.
• If you’re suffering an infection – such as impetigo or herpes – you should also forego a facial.
• Women with sensitive skin- which is often a problem for menopausal women – should also be very cautious about facials. Such persons should have a ‘patch test’ done before the facial. They can apply their products on your face to an out-of-the-way area behind your ear to establish no reaction.
• Most mature skin should not be steamed, a procedure still integral to many facials. Ask before the facial if steaming is involved and say you want to skip that step. Don’t let a beauty therapist try to persuade you; steaming can lead to broken capillaries. (And in women suffering hot flushes, it can be extremely uncomfortable.) The only mature skins that can be safely steamed are the 2% of the population with sallow, tough, Mediterranean-type skin that needs stimulation.
• Most facials consist of cleansing, exfoliation, massage oil, extraction, a mask and a finishing dab of moisturiser before you enter the world.
• If you use Retin-A or Retinova, tell the therapist beforehand that these skins should not be exfoliated as these prescription creams have already thinned them.
• Anyone with a tendency to broken capillaries should also ask for exfoliation to be skipped.
• AHAs—alpha-hydroxy fruit acids—can also be used as chemical exfoliants as an alternative to the ‘grainy’ kind of scrub; again, any woman with sensitive skin should avoid these.
• One step that many people find particularly uncomfortable is ‘extraction’, squeezing the pores to remove blackheads and clean out clogged pores.
• This should only be done to warmed skin, and manual squeezing, which is commonplace, makes dermatologists blanch. Sterilised implements are far superior to the two-finger technique.
• Dull skins almost always need a hydrating mask, except in rare cases of oily skin.

Above all, the expert’s tips are not to be bossed around. So if you don’t like what’s being done to your face during any part of the treatment, or you feel claustrophobic, communicate that to the facialist and ask her to move right along to the next step. If you follow these guidelines, you should emerge glowing beautifully.

Key Words To Look For In A Facial For All Skin Types

Glowing

Moisturising

Replenishing

Anti-Ageing

Brightening