The First Time I Got Facial-ed
Not the kind you’re thinking, you pervert!
It’s been exactly 6 hours since I got out of the salon after my first facial. I can still feel my pores screaming for help.
I swear! I was thinking up the lines of this post when the beautician was kneading away at my face. I may or may not be able to iterate my exact feelings in this post because my face has PTSD. Before the PTSD warriors come baring their teeth at me, please hear me out. 🙏
Disclaimer: This post has potentially disturbing content that could turn you against facials (especially if you are first timers). Read at your own risk. Not you, PTSD warrior, you gotta read this anyway.
I walked into the salon with zero clue on what I was about to consent to doing to my face. I wanted a facial; how bad could it be, right? WRONG.
The person at the reception brought me a huge menu of facials — everything from unicorn dust to elephant poop — you name it, they have it! And because you have no idea what you should go for your skin-type and face-type, you’d you just gape wide-eyed at this document, which is a cross between a boutique hotel’s bar menu and a jewelry store’s online catalog that went too far.
Anyhoo, the person at the reception insists I should go for the most expensive one because it’s my first time but the ingredients and the routine of the facial is as long as an eighth-grade child’s essay, so I pass.
I instead (carefully) choose the intermediate pack — not too basic, not too hi-fly and this feels like a win. Kiwi-Cherry Healthy Shine Glow-Berry Go Fuck A Yam Pack.
Satisfied, but somewhat nervous (because the person at the reception had a creepy smile plastered on her face), I allowed myself to be led into a room at the corner of the salon. I managed to not slip on the chunks of hair that carpeted the floor.
There was a brown bed-on-wheels; the ominous-looking ones that you lay on in a doctor’s room when you’ve gone for a check-up. The room was well lit. There was a weird-looking machine, about 5'5 foot-tall that looked like it’d spit something in your face. There was a movable rack on the other side of the room. A small sink snuggled in the corner.
The person at the reception handed me a black synthetic bag-like thing that had it’s bottom undone and asked me to undress. WHAT!
Person at reception (PAR): You can take off your top, madam.
Me: Why do I have to?
PAR: Because this will keep your clothes from getting soiled!
Saying this, she left. I could feel the anxiety rise slowly in my body but I just took off my t-shirt and struggled my way through that bottomless plastic bag, tying the noose right above my chest. I then climbed on the bed and distracted myself with the phone for a while when another woman came in.
She walked in with a bowl of pinkish-looking cream and a lifetime of wet-towel supply. She smiled and asked me to lay down. I did as I was told.
She closed the door.
She touched my forehead and closed in on my face with her palms and proceeded to apply abnormal amounts of pressure while she did that.
When was your last facial?
This is my first facial.
Oh! You’re going to love this, then. You should come on Thursdays. We have an offer running on facials.
Sure! I’ll come back if I like this one.
Oh! Im sure you’re going to come back for more.
#CREEPY
She went on to massage my neck and back and pressed the middle of my chest to ask if I was feeling cold!!!! WHAT?
She kept squishing my face and my neck only to pause and ask “if I wanted more pressure”!
NO.
Nobody had touched me like that. Not in a while. Not in forever. Never!
I was uncomfortable.
Just when I thought my skull would crack open, she stopped. She applied some cool liquid on my face and pressed her fingers into my skin in circular motions. After the initial torture, the liquid felt good. Apparently, it was a cleanser. This round was pleasant. She just slathered it across my face and chest, circling with her fingers and wiped it off with cold towels.
Relief.
I had just begun to think this was what the pleasure of a spa/facial is that my friends talk about when she pulled that face-spitting machine closer. She and the machine peered over me like I was a human on an alien’s lab, on the cutting table.
Without any warning, she turned that thing on and it started spewing smoke on my face. I couldn’t breathe. I coughed.
But that didn’t seem to bother her. She kept peering at my face through the smoke while the machine went all Stephen-King-Misty on me! Now, I started feeling hot.
The smoke hadn’t cleared when this woman came poking my nose with a silver tool that looked like a scalpel through the mist. She grazed my nose hard with it and commented, “Does it hurt? You have a few whiteheads, so…”
I heard myself respond with a “uh..um” and silence. She went on to scrape my chin as I prayed silently for mercy.
After the scraping, there was more cool liquid that smelled like fruit. It was massaged in similar fashion all over my face and neck. She placed two cold towels on my eyes and I was left in the room to nurse my wounds, while Enrique’s “Ring My Bells” played softly in the background. She switched off the lights before she left, saying “10 minutes”.
Was I supposed to rest while my face felt like it had been hit with a basketball multiple times and shoved into frozen yogurt right after?
Was this a facial or just my bad karma?
She walked into the room, broke my reverie and my already broken face, with light and more cold towels. She cleaned the fruity pack off my face and applied another glue-y solution on my face.
“Don’t wash your face today,” she said, leaving.
Verdict: The facial took turns at pain and pleasure. My mom thinks my face looks brighter. The woman smiled at me before I left. The person at the reception (PAR) was counting money. I didn’t notice what happened to the carpet of cut hair.
