So on Friday, I went to get my first “facial” (hahaha, yeah yeah.) I take pretty good care of my skin on my own, but after being painted all blue for the FanFaire, I figured a professional pore-cleaning was in order. It took a pretty long time for most of the blue to leave my skin, and some of my pores still had a little blue in ‘em.

I’ve checked out various different spa treatments before, so I had a basic idea of what was going to happen, but I must say I was surprised and slightly horrified at what exactly a “facial” entails.

First of all these things aren’t cheap. The lowest price to be found was $60 for the very basic facial. But, I figured this was some serious, high-end skin care, so I might as well check it out. For that price, it had better be good…..

Started off pretty simple with a face massage. It felt nice, I guess, but on this day I didn’t have any particular tension in that area (which is actually kinda unusual for me, but this was on one of my only days off last week..) and I started to hope that I wasn’t paying 60 bucks for a face massage and a mask… then the girl turned on the big machine I was laying next to and it blew steam in my face for about 10 minutes while she started getting things ready behind me, out of my vision. The steam was pretty thick, and it made me mildly uncomfortable after a few minutes. I found it a little hard to breathe, so I turned my head away from it slightly. I knew it was opening my pores though so I tried to patiently wait through it.

Then she put those round little cotton things over my eyes (they’ve got softening moisturizer in em), so I could no longer see…. This was about 20 minutes into the 45 minute procedure now. This is a normal part of a skin care routine. Soon afterwards, I heard the buzzing of some kind of tool, and soon felt it against my skin. It was rotating circularly across my skin and felt like a little massage. I was a bit confused, however, as to what the purpose of it was, because she only used it in a few small spots – my forehead, down one cheek, and then my chin – only using the tool for about 30 seconds. It felt good, and I wished it had lasted a little longer. After this I was feeling pretty relaxed. Sadly though, that feeling didn’t stay for very long, for then, without any warning, the girl came at me with some sort of instrument against my face. The next thing I felt was an EXTREME pressure against my nose – enough to make it feel like it was going to bruise. I inhaled deeply and tried to stay calm. She pushed against my skin with this piece of metal, really f**king hard. I felt my eyes start to water. “Your nose is very clogged”, she said. I wasn’t sure what she’d been doing up until that point, but then I realized she must have been squeezing and pressing, to get dirt buildup in the pores. This is what they make those weird little nose strips for … to clean out the pores on your nose.  

I held onto the sides of the chair for dear life while she continued to move around the sides of my nose, pushing in so hard that I felt like she was going to break my face. Finally, she went off onto a different area – my forehead. This was mildly uncomfortable but compared to what she’d just done, it was nothing. She moved around seemingly at random, to my left cheek, then my chin. My head was being pushed into the soft cushion underneath it from the pressure. I wondered vaguely to myself, what kind of long-term damage this was doing to my skin. Sure, I was cleaning out some dirt, but when your body feels pain, that means it’s going through something that’s not necessarily all that good for it. I once read in a magazine that lots of the damage you do to your skin at a young age (by squeezing zits, picking at your skin, etc etc) does not actually appear until decades later. The skin bounces back short-term from these things pretty easily, but it’s not until many years later that it finally shows signs of abuse. So, I wondered how much this facial was really helping me in the long run.

 

As my mind wandered through this, suddently she moved to my right cheek. I had a few little red spots there for whatever reason. They weren’t the kind of blemishes that one could squeeze and get rid of, either. They were pretty deep under my skin, and thus just some painful red bumps. To my absolute horror, she began forcefully squeezing this area with the unknown metal device. I let out a small yelp and could feel perspiration forming around my forehead as I tried my hardest to breathe steadily and not to scream while she did this. I mean, I could see using blunt trauma on something like squeezing dirt of out of some pores, but to do it to a deeply infected area that’s already going to take weeks to heal properly? Wtf!? Pain pierced through my skin as I prayed for it to end. Thankfully, after a few more presses against my skin, she stopped.

After that I was ready for a f**kin’ break, but then something else happened. She turned on something else of the machine next to me, and suddenly I heard all of these weird electrical zapping sounds. My entire body tensed up again as the sounds grew louder. Whatever she had in her hand, she’d just brought past my ear, and to my face.

I flinched when I felt something cold and round touch my face, and I guess she saw how panicked I was, as she then said something like, “I’m just calming your skin down now. It’s very irritated now, especially right here. We have to calm this down.” and brought the wand or whatever across my sore cheek. I wondered how safe it was for this thing to be so close to my eyes while it was zapping away. Not to mention that it kinda hurt a little bit, too. Again, I questioned how much I was actually helping myself in the long run by having this done. And people do this regularly??

When she put the zapping instrument away, I felt some kinda thick oil being slicked on my face. It was really thick and made me surprisingly agitated since it felt so ..gross and thick.  She then covered my face in a white mask (that I'd really hoped had some soothing agents in it, after all that)....took off the eye pads for some reason, and told me to lay back and relax, and she’d be back in 10 minutes.

Of course, as soon as she left, I got up to try and find out what the hell she’d been pressing against my face all that time. I guess I thought it was one of those little pieces of metal with the round edges, “blackhead removers” I think they’re called in drug stores. All I saw was a pair of sharp tweezers. Great. She’d been using a pair of f**king tweezers to clean my SKIN. What a relaxing thought that was.

10 minutes later, she came back in, took the mask off my face, and put a layer of moisturizer on. I put my shirt back on, paid the 60 bucks at the counter, and went on my way. Later on, I looked in the mirror and couldn’t see a whole lot of difference. At least the moisturizer they’d used was decent. It stayed on for the rest of the day…

So, uhhh…. yeah. Not exactly what I was expecting. Can’t say I’m a big fan of the “American facial”. I’d definitely not subject my skin through that sort of torture again - I can do that in the comfort of my own home, and not pay 60 bucks for it either. The supplies used, I already own, and as far as the face massage, well, most spa massages include your face anyway.

 

So there you have it, that’s what they do when you get a “facial” done. Meh.