Embarking on a journey towards healthier skin often leads us to the world of facials, a realm where pampering meets skin care science, delivered by a professional. The realm of facials offers an ocean of choices, and yet similar to skin care products, though there is overwhelming choice, the reality is that there are only a few options dressed in different costumes.
In this informative guide, we will explore the three distinct types of facials that are at the core of a facial menu so you won’t be dazzled or intimidated by any fancy titles. By understanding the basic parts of facials we aim to equip you with essential knowledge to navigate the realm of skin care treatments and make informed choices.
What Does A Facial Do To Your Face?
A facial is a comprehensive skin care treatment designed to address a range of skin concerns and enhance the overall health and appearance of your skin. A facial procedure involves these aspects that are intended to improve your skin health. Here are the components of a facial:
- Cleansing: The facial begins with a thorough cleansing to remove makeup and spf from the surface of your skin. This step prepares your skin for subsequent treatments and ensures that the makeup and spf is out of the way.
- Exfoliation: Exfoliation involves the removal of dead skin cells from the skin’s surface. This process activates the production of new skin cells. Exfoliation can be done using physical exfoliants like scrubs or microdermabrasion or with acids like glycolic, lactic, or salicylic acids. Fruit enzymes are yet another way to exfoliate which is considered “chemical” exfoliation.
- Extraction: If needed, your esthetician may perform extractions to remove blackheads, filaments, whiteheads, and milia.
- Massage: A facial massage improves blood circulation, relaxes facial muscles, and promotes lymphatic drainage. This can contribute to a more radiant and toned appearance, as well as reducing puffiness and tension in the face.
- Mask: Different types of masks (hydrating, drying, soothing) target specific skin concerns. Masks deliver concentrated ingredients to the skin to focus on the prioritized concern.
- Astringents: Many facials are still being performed to include this step to disinfect with astringents like witch hazel, toners, benzoyl peroxide, etc. but these ingredients are rightfully becoming extinct.
- Serums: After the mask, your esthetician will likely apply a serum tailored to your skin’s specific goals. Serums contain potent ingredients like antioxidants, vitamins, and peptides, etc., most importantly a hydration factor. Serums do not contain carrier oils, lipids, or fats.
- Moisturization: The final step involves applying a moisturizer defined by being rich in lipids, oils, and fats and to seal in hydration and create a protective barrier on the skin so as to support natural skin barrier function. This step is often unfortunately skipped for oily and acne skin types which desperately crave a dense moisturizer.
The 3 Types Of Facials You Should Know About
- Acne Facials: Expect astringents like lavender, tea tree oil, and witch hazel. This facial may include benzoyl peroxide with salicylic acid peels, microdermabrasion, micro-needling, clay masks, or loop extractions. With an acne facial, no moisturizer or light, oil-free moisturizer is typically used.
- Anti-aging Facials: This will often include glycolic and lactic acid peels, microdermabrasion and micro-needling, and/or hydro-facials – with moisturizer.
- European Facials: This is typically gentle and hydrating, with facial massage. However, natural essential oils are often used – even though their final effect is drying. Gentle exfoliation is performed compared to the other two types of facials. Typically, these facials include a heavier moisturizer or use cold-pressed oils like jojoba, avocado, or shea butter.
How Do You Pick The Best Facial For You?
Honestly, disregard all these facial treatments, as each one confines its ultimate outcomes. Acne facials lead to skin inflammation and dehydration, triggering excessive oil production and hindering congestion relief—posing significant long-term issues. Throughout the process, acne facials loop us in an unending cycle that offers temporary and short- term results that merely manage symptoms.
Conventional anti-aging facials ironically accelerate the aging process by inducing trauma, inflammation, and dehydration, which ultimately accelerates dermal thinning. Triggering the production of new skin cells without actual sustenance is only exercising our skin into accelerated aging by increasing our dermal workload until it wears our dermal layer out- exercise without dermal nourishment is not an anti-aging strategy.
European facials exhibit comparatively milder adverse effects, but their scope remains limited—unable to actively rectify acne, be corrective, or decelerate aging. Being the best among unfavorable choices doesn’t automatically transform them into sound options.
What Is The Best Facial For All Skin Types?
Steer clear of these three mundane categories of traditional facials and set your sights on an alternative: the Medi-Holistic Deep Pore Cleansing Session enhanced by a potent infusion of Dermal Nutrients.
Dermal Nutrients provide a profound food source for our hungry dermal layer so our skin gets the right ratio of exercise AND dermal nourishment. This distinctive facial experience fosters profound corrective possibilities for acne recovery, smooth skin texture, establishes enduring skin well-being by reactivating proper epidermal function, supports dermal thickness for delayed aging and harmonizes skin equilibrium for lasting preservation. It achieves what the other trio of conventional facials merely aspire to achieve, a reality magnified when synergized with the Skin Harmonics home skin care regimen.
Final Thoughts On Facials
It is a new day for skin with the invention of Dermal Nutrients as we no longer have to default to exfoliation to solve every skin problem. Another big discovery about skin health is that our sebaceous glands were never the problem and only became a problem when we naively started sabotaging them in the 1970’s. If exfoliation and astringents are so effective why are acne, skin gunk, and hyperpigmentation at an all time high?
I agree that diet plays a major role, however most of my clients have clean diets and have still struggled for years with these problems. Why are so many people turning to injections to erase the evidence of accelerated aging and try to compensate for lackluster and textural issues? There are many pieces to the skin health puzzle and this new type of facial has all of the pieces.
About the author
I took many wrong turns when I started learning about skin at 19. The more I spent on skincare, equipment, and training, the further I felt from actually helping skin. I was frustrated with only being able to offer temporary and superficial solutions at best. What emerged from the disappointment and turmoil, I now call, The Regenerative Skin Process. Skin Harmonics is a dedicated medical fusion holistic skincare clinic that provides a root cause approach delivering lifetime skin health through medical grade skin care products, new learning, and Deep Pore Cleansing Facials.
