Facing It
Photo: Bina Khan
The Case for a Proper Skin Care Regime
Before I start a facial, I ask my client if she knows how a facial works and why she is getting one. While the answers vary wildly (from “to get a glow” to “because my mother said so”) I rarely find anyone who knows what the logic behind a facial is. While it may indeed give you a good glow and your mother’s advice may be excellent, the actual function of your facial, for men and women, is to promote the health of your skin. Here is how it works:
The Science Behind the Relaxation
To understand a facial, you must first understand your skins own desquamation process, or to put it more simply, your skin’s ability to shed its dead cells. At your skin’s deepest layers, new cells are forming all the time and pushing their way to the top. People with healthy skin, what we call “good skin,” have a healthy desquamation process. That is, their skin sheds its dead cells quickly and turnover is efficient. Children, for example, have a desquamation process that takes just one week. As we age, this slows down, typically to 28 days, but by the time you are white haired and weak jointed, it can take up to 90 days!
How a Facial Works for You
A facial is a synthetic desquamation. Your facial begins with a thorough cleansing and progresses to a professional-grade exfoliation. Exfoliation sloughs off the dead skin, either physically (like micro beads, etc.) or chemically (this is typically what you will get with a professional-grade exfoliation). This is the actual function of the facial. The rest of the facial is in support of this main component. The massage afterwards promotes circulation, while the mask calms your skin down after the exfoliation and nicely tightens up your pores. Supplementing your skins own desquamation with a facial means your turnover process happens every 14 days. A substantial improvement.
Healthy Turnover = Healthy Skin
Ever notice how kids have flawless skin, no open pores, no pimples, no scars? Then puberty comes along and makes us all hideous. But pre puberty, cell turnover is so rapid that our skin does not have a chance to develop any problems. In adults, exfoliation becomes super important to prevent your pores from getting clogged, filling up and gaping wide open with sebum or dead skin. Regular exfoliation will keep your pores clean, meaning that they can tighten up and look smaller. Plus, that dull, uneven look becomes history!
Exfoliation and Acne
At the base of every shaft of hair sits a small p bacterium. In healthy skin and healthy hair the bacteria climbs up the hair shaft like a ladder, hits the oxygen in the air and dies (thus the “oxy” in so many acne creams like Noxzema or Oxy On The Spot). If your pore is blocked, then the bacteria gets trapped and an infection starts. You got it: Zit City! Regular exfoliation means that your pores are clear and bacteria can make its ascent unhindered.
Of course there are many reasons to pimples forming. When you wax your face, you remove the ladder, and so you will most probably break out. Or your skin is so dry that the bacteria cannot manage to climb the dry baby hair. This is why there are moisturisers for dry as well as for oily skin, because drying out your skin (and the tiny hair on it) is not very good for you.
Oily or Dehydrated Skin
I wanted to touch on a massive misconception. Often dehydrated skin is mistaken for oily skin. There is a difference. If your skin is moist and greasy and you have oily patches on your skin after some time, your skin is oily. If, however, your skin is oily on the surface but rough underneath, you most probably have dehydrated skin. This means that your skin, far from producing excess sebum, has lost its ability to hold on to any sebum at all in the first place. This leaves you with an oily surface of sebum with parched thirsty skin underneath. Visit a professional to find out which you have.
For the Boys
The reason men get away with a little less skin care is due to their shaving regime. You guessed it, that’s an exfoliation, albeit a brutal kind! You should not, therefore, shave on the day of your facial. However boys, your upper cheeks, forehead and especially your nose are getting ignored. And I have to say, nothing ages you more than big gaping pores on your nose. If you already have the beginnings of them and you are young enough, you can still clear them out and shrink them down to size. Get to your nearest skin technician ASAP! (That applies to the ladies too.)
Blackhead Strips are the Creation of the Devil
The least pleasant part of a facial is the blackhead removal. I can promise, though, that if you are very regular with your facials your blackheads, once removed, return as easily removable sebum (kind of a white paste, and while that may gross you out, you don’t have to see it and your skin technician will celebrate when you reach that stage). The logic here is that your exfoliation degrades the edges of your blackhead or white head and with steam they should be eased out of the pore that they are blocking. If they are not ready it means they need another exfoliation. I would say that by facial number three you are usually all clear. Once you are all cleaned out, post extraction solution is used to disinfect the pore, a massage encourages your skin to be supple and a masque and toner tighten every thing up again. Nice, clean, closed pore. You treat the cause, the symptom and provide after care.
Now let’s think of what those infernal strips do. They glue themselves to the tiny hairs on your nose and then you basically give yourself a nose wax. With each hair your blackhead or white head is ripped out with no preparation to the skin at all. Your pore is left gaping wide open, even if you did not have a blockage. Then each open pore is left untreated and rolling out the welcome mat for a bigger blackhead to form and for ones to form where they didn’t even exist before! Making you yearn for that next blackhead strip. Genius marketing!
Diagnostics and the Skin Technician
The final point to really take home (no pun intended!) is your at-home skin care regime. Do not treat a facial as your monthly rescue plan. Your skin technician will diagnose your skin issues within the first five minutes of touching your face and your skin care regime will get discussed. There are those who are just trying to sell their products (this is true of doctors too, though), but most will try and give you reasonable solutions to your needs. If you need the slightly more expensive stuff, then you just do. However, you and your skin technician have to work hand in hand to get the results you need. Like you and your personal trainer, scarfing down cake and running to the gym is going to get you nowhere. Working with your pro for hire is going to get you results . . . for everyone to see!
The opinions expressed in this article and the views shared by readers in the comment forum below do not necessarily reflect the editorial stance or policies of Newsline.
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y am i not surprised to see dermalogica written all over !!!!!!!
give us a break!
that article really helped! I get cleansing done but im way too afraid to get a facial done. I feel that a cleansing is just like a facial! Atleast your facial description sounds exactly like my cleansing treatment. Thanks for the good reads bina!
oh sebum, you enemy of mine…
oh sebum, you enemy of mine…! bina, this business of the little hair ladder is news to me and has me thinking ‘oh, NOW i get it!’. what a great article – explains much!
oh sebum, old enemy of mine, it seems i should not have hated you alone, but those damn hair ladders too! bina, what a great article, i had no idea about so much of this!
Hi Bina,
I recently discovered that changing my shampoo did wonders for my skin. I did some research and discovered that most face washes and shampoos contain SLS – Sodium Laureth Sulphate (I think that is how it is spelt) which acts as an irritant to acne prone skin and which makes your acne worse. All shampoos have it, except herbal ones. Most face washes also have it. Most make up removers also contain this chemical or a not-too-distant cousin. All St. Ives products have it. So I’m really wary of facials because most salons tend to use a product that does contain SLS.
Since i threw away my shampoo and resorted to home exfoliants like basin and stuff, my skin is less inflamed and my acne has gone down. I’m just waiting to get rid of the marks.
Shazaf
Binaaaaaaaaa!!!!!!!!!!!! u rock!!! love love love ur blog posts….they r always so informative!!! and absolutely love getting facials from u cuz i trust u completely and u never keep us in the dark ab what u r using and how it’ll effect our skin! hats off to u babe!! so glad u r offering so many services at ur salon! and plz keep posting these amazing posts:-)
Great article and extremely informative! I don’t think I have read an article that explains the step by step processes involved in a facial and their reasons quite so well before. Keep up the good work! I wish I was in Karachi so I could drop by your salon, take part in your classes, and avail myself of the fabulous deals you offer.
Love this….Cleared a lot of misconceptions
Now, for those of us living in countries where facials – let alone regular ones – are hellishly expensive, is there some sort of base maintenance we can do every couple of weeks or so, beyond our regimen? Involving steam or masks or something? ^_^ Just to keep the skin happy while we’re savin’ up for that trip to the spa!
i definietly agree with the blackhead removal strips.but what about people like me who find themselves suffocating even with the thought of getting a facial? i am 32 and the total no. of facials i have had is 4. i do want to get better skin but the thought of vigourous massaging and face touching just freaks me out.are there ne other alternatives?
i was not a believer in proper facials to be honest till you forced me to come to one on gunpoint and i think i shall be your slave forever now for that
its really amazing how MUCH of a difference it makes and to understand the science behind it makes you get why skin behaves the way it does. common sense really, but not so common.
Hey Bina! Loved your post. It gave such a great insight into what’s happening on our skin. I wanted to know if you yourself give the facials at your salon? Is it possible to consult with you as to which facial would be best suited for my skin?
[...] The Case for a Proper Skin Care Regime May 3rd, 2010 | Tags: Health, health skin care | Category: General [...]
Great article– I’m going to bookmark this one and share.
[...] even at all. Obviously the need for a monthly facial has been discussed in this column before (see Facing It: The Case for a Proper Skin Care Regime). But what to do in an [...]
[...] Facing It By Bina [...]
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