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January 31, 2006
Facial Relationships
After much fanfare and anticipation on my part, I got my first ever professional facial this weekend. As expected, it felt great and left my face feeling open and clean and fresh as a spring daisy. Good thing it was a gift from my generous husband Christopher, ‘cause if I’d have had to pay for it, I’m sure I would have just elected to sit in the lobby and drink cucumber water. Still, it was a fabulous luxury, and the 50 minutes it took literally flew by. I highly recommend one for anyone who has $110 burning a hole in their wallet. Oily skin full of blackheads and ingrown hairs like I have is also helpful.
Part of the facial was the consultation with Sarah, the lovely young lady who did my treatment. She asked what I used to wash my face and when I told her I used St. Ives Apricot Scrub, I swear I heard that “pull the needle off the record” sound effect on the boring ambient mood music being piped into the dimly lit room. Sarah admonished me mightily for using that stuff, saying something I had heard before but didn’t quite believe: using that stuff actually makes you oilier. It strips your skin of its natural oils and so it starts to produce oil overtime to make up for it. Duh! “Only use that apricot stuff on your feet!” she reminded me not too gently.
After steaming, squeezing, sweeping and salving my face, Sarah told me she’d prepared a list of products she recommended for me (any of which I could conveniently pick up at the shop downstairs), and then dropped the bomb. She told me that I should only be washing my face AT NIGHT. You read that right. “Just water in the morning,” she reiterated. She said she’d ‘balanced me out’ with the treatment, and she suggested a gentle cleanser followed by a moisturizer each night before bed, and a protecting moisturizer in the morning, but no washing. Her list actually included a couple other “pore cleansing” treatments for twice weekly use and a couple of other things, but I was still reeling from the “don’t wash your face in the morning” idea.
So… we’re now on day 2 of me only having washed my face at night. My moisturizer collection is not what it should be for a gay man, and the only pore cleansing treatment I have used recently was the apricot scrub, and we saw how that turned out. My face doesn’t feel particularly greasy or anything, but my forehead does seem a tiny bit less shiny.
I wonder if Walgreen’s has any night-time alcohol-free moisturizers on sale this week?
Posted by kyle at January 31, 2006 7:00 AM
Comments
eBay, baby. That is where I get all of my spendy face care products. Not long ago I decided that it was worth $17.50/month to have skin that wasn't constantly flaking. So every other month I buy a jar of Cellex-C Sea Silk Oil-Free Moisturizer off eBay.
Posted by: Nicole at January 31, 2006 9:50 AM
How gross is your face by 5pm?
Posted by: Stephen at February 2, 2006 8:18 AM
Ahem. My face is NEVER gross.
Posted by: Kyle at February 2, 2006 10:54 AM
greasy
Posted by: Stephen at February 2, 2006 1:20 PM
Well... you've got me there, Stephen. Let's just say it's somewhere between "Exxon Valdez" and "totally mattified." 'Mattified' is a word I read on a tube of moisturizer. For men.
Posted by: Kyle at February 2, 2006 4:39 PM
Kyle, it's Bryan back in Wheeling. Love the James Posey basketball picture. Posey played for Xavier, thus my ridiculous need to reply on your blog. Looks great. And for folks calling in to bitch, since I still work for the Holy Roman Empire, I'd say 98% of my fund raising job is to apologize for things I have no clue about. It makes them feel better to empathize. Peace, Bryan
Posted by: Bryan at March 17, 2006 6:01 AM