Facial – how to select the right one for beautiful skin

Here's an insight on what happens in popular facials to help you make an informed choice.

Dr Dinyar Workingboxwalla | Updated: September 25, 2014 2:26 pm

Getting a facial is the norm today for most women. When you step into a spa or beauty parlour, you are inundated with a plethora of facial options with fancy names. Deciding on the right one for your skin can be difficult. To make things easier, Dr Dinyar Workingboxwalla, a celebrity cosmetologist with clients like Jacqueline Fernandes, Lara Dutta, lists out some popular facials on offer with an insight on what happens in each of them, in his book ‘Beauty Unleashed: A Comprehensive Guide To Getting Perfect Skin And Hair’. Here’s an excerpt from the book.

Aromatic facial: A deeply relaxing experience which begins with a back massage. After a good intensive massage with different essential oils, you will feel rejuvenated and have velvety smooth skin.

Visible brilliance facial: The facial starts with your feet being cleaned gently with a warm towel. Then, the soothing massage begins. This is a deeply cocooning treatment that includes the face, head and neck.

Bio-energy facial: It works on lifting up and smoothening the face to leave dull skin feeling soft and dewy. Apparently it’s all down to stimulating the body’s natural frequency which triggers cell renewal. Every time you get this treatment, your face will look re-sculptured and people will comment on it.

Pure massage face therapy: A one-off treatment is nice, but this therapy should ideally be taken as a ten-week course. In skilled hands, each session focuses on a different part of the face. After a couple of sessions, you are assessed to see whether the process is working for you. The results are subtle, but the treatment helps realign faces that are stiff from frowning, jaw-clenching, etc.

Tropical fruits and flowers facial: A medley massage with organic oils and balms precedes a refreshing steam and rose petal exfoliation scrub. This is followed by a cool toning pack of tropical lemon grass and green tea. The oils smell and feel amazing on the skin, leaving it cool and tingling.

Thorough deep cleansing treatment: For total deep cleansing, this is the very best for clogged pores, pimple/acne, and suchlike. Cleansing, steaming, extraction and peeling restore skin to perfection.

Bliss steep clean: This is not for the fainthearted. It is basically deep cleansing for any type of skin using steam extraction, a peel and a calming mask. Ideal for city skin and for those who suffer regularly from zits and blemishes. It is best undertaken four days before a big event.

Hydra-dermo therapy: This is the secret behind the great skin of many of my Mumbai-based socialite clients. These are totally customised facials that use electric current to drive active ingredients deep into the skin; a course of this therapy creates a clean, smooth and spot-free complexion.

Pre-party treats: All facials should improve your complexion, but these are the ones that work super fast so you look great at that party.

Marine collagen facial: A combination of relaxing movements applied with a good massage technique. Then come the all-important collagen serum, which is patted into the face, and a mask that helps your skin absorb it. Leaves your skin amazingly silky smooth and glowing.

Skin brightening facial: This hands-on facial using selected aromatic oils chosen for your specific skin needs will regenerate and even out the skin tone. Skin looks brighter for a few days, as natural acids have sloughed away dullness. It’s one of the best face and neck treats you can give yourself.

Express moisture lift facial: Using only natural ingredients, mainly seaweed extracts, this massage balances the skin, leaving it super clean and flawless; a quick beauty fix that everyone will notice.

Energy lift facial: It’s a mini workout for the face, with marine algae-based products. The therapist massages and exercises every facial muscle, working repeatedly on areas to encourage slack muscles back into the correct position. Good for mature, tired skin or any skin that needs a boost.

Bio-glow facial: Now one can have the ultimate designer facial, the Learjet of facials! The bio-glow is an anti-ageing treatment with AHA and BHA, the two highly concentrated serums that help to firm, lighten or brighten the skin as needed. It treats specific-skin complaints from congestion to pigmentation.

Antioxidant facial: This restorative treatment concentrates on repairing sun-damaged, sensitive and ageing skins. Its tailormade using products from different souped-up skincare ranges.

It works at deeper levels than most. A micro-peel dissolves dull and dead skin cells and stimulates cell regeneration. A must after a holiday in the sun, the facial involves an intensive speciality mask of super hydrating collagen. It brightens up the skin and clears up blotches.

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Total youth beauty treatment: Using pure oxygen vials and massages for lymph drainage, this facial gives dull skin a new lease of life.

Soothing facial: Great for reconditioning inflamed, irritated or congested skin. It stabilises and rebalances facial skin and is good for curing and controlling acne and rosacea.

Excel therapy facial: Makes sure your skin stays young for a long time. This beauty treat, finally available on our shores, is a detoxifying, collagen-boosting massage packed with marine and plant extracts and powerful antioxidants. You will emerge refreshed and revitalised. Think of it as ten hours’ worth of sleep in one beauty session!

Skin quenching facial: It uses the massaging of energy points and chakra rebalancing to full effect. Using 100 per cent organic products, this facial is super relaxing, deep cleansing and will leave your skin brighter, smoother and tauter.

Oxygen facials: Taking a few blasts of O2 in the face actually can and does give you a radiant complexion. Oxygen is vital to all body cells. It helps regulate hormones, blood sugar and energy production, as well as in maintaining the immune system and killing off bacteria. Hence, the case for it as a skincare ingredient seems logical. The tiny capillaries that transport oxygen-carrying blood cells to the skin’s surface thicken with age, making them less effective. If your skin has been exposed to sun or long neglect, they thicken even more.

This is lack of O2 and it causes the skin to age. So, the theory is, if you increase oxygen supply, you enable the skin cells to function at optimum level, thus slowing the ageing process. It has also been proved that O2 can help acne breakouts because the bacteria that causes acne thrives in a low O2 environment.

Blast these anaerobic bugs with oxygen and they don’t stand a chance. Oxygen facials especially suit dry, dehydrated, hyperpigmented and mature skins. They are most effective for people older than thirty to forestall ageing.

‘Beauty Unleashed: A Comprehensive Guide To Getting Perfect Skin And Hair’ is authored by Dr Dinyar Workingboxwalla and published by Westland Ltd. It can be purchased online on Flipkart. Watch this space for more excerpts from the book.

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Published: April 16, 2014 12:12 pm | Updated:September 25, 2014 2:26 pm

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