January 2019 Issue #25 January 2019 Issue #25 | Page 92

The Experience: What’s A
Facial Actually Like?
My own deep-dive into the facial begins in the rather immodest sur-
roundings of Sloane Street, London, two stories up a twee office
building and opposite the marble-laden shopfronts for Salvatore
Ferragamo and Louis Vuitton. There’s not much window shopping.
It’s mid-morning and my head is still spinning from the ugly com-
mercial lighting from our office and the greasy armpit my face had
been thrust into on the tube ride in.
“You look very stressed,” says Lisa, my facial practitioner for the
morning surveying my lemur eyes and the slabs of sweat gushing
over my eyebrows. “London has a way of doing that to you,” I say
back in between deep breaths.
A coconut and ginger tea is carefully put on the glass reception ta-
ble in front of me as I fill out a form that goes through my skin his-
tory. It tastes like health, the tea not the form, while the latter goes
into far more detail than I was expecting. Allergies, diagnosed med-
ical conditions, past rashes. It brings up some insecurities – there’s
a lot of dry skin around my eyebrows and I’ve had a minor psoriasis
flare-up that’s linked with the seasonal change in weather.
As I’m led into the treatment room Lisa assures me that the treat-
ment will alleviate not worsen these insecurities, before she warns
me about my very dull skin that needs more looking after than I’m
giving it. My haphazard shaving is another point of contention with
in-grown hairs having dug deep into my skin and caused that men-
acing razor burn up and down my neck. I feel like a plastic surgeon
has gone to town on my body with a felt-tip pen, bringing up lit-
tle imperfections I’d just shrugged off for years as ingrained in my
skins DNA.
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