What makes a good facial? Intention. Experience.
The intention behind the service.
The experience during and after.
Intention
I once heard a company trainer at my workplace say “As soon as someone sits in my chair, I’m thinking what can I get from them, how much can I add on, how many products can I send them home with.” I was aghast. It has been over a year since this trainer told on themselves; their emails remain muted and to this day I still opt out of all development workshops led by them.
Conversely, August 2023 I was sitting in a Philly hotel conference room, stars in my eyes as I listened to veteran esthetician after veteran esthetician talk about their work. At this industry event (unaffiliated with my employer but that I attended with some work besties because we are nerds) one stand-out panelist said “I do not sell. I have never successfully sold anything. I educate. Knowledge is what I have to give. After that, clients can make educated choices.” I beamed widely, ear to ear! Wrote those words down, triple underlined, highlighted, never forgot them.
Experience
A common assumption is that estheticians are always receiving facials, but this line of work has a high-turnover rate with low worker retention precisely because if a practitioner is not booked and busy they cannot afford to be an esthetician. So after the initial three to twelve month curve of book-building (yes it can take up to a year, sometimes more), any facialist worth their salt in this trade is too engrossed in the work of crafting offerings to be receiving a facial themselves. This means that we either get lucky and are asked to model for a training or, we budget and schedule just like our clients do.
Consequently, I am way overdue for a facial from someone else that isn’t me looking at me in the mirror. It will be one year next month since my last facial and the irony of this reality has been eating me up inside.
On the flip side, my home-care routines are fire and I practice my technique on myself at home pretty regularly. Go-to at-home modalities are red-light therapy, gua-sha, deep tissue sculpting massage, lymphatic drainage, dermaplaning with a scalpel as God intended, and peels. However I am firmly in the “no-peels during summer” camp so I will be waiting until autumn to experiment with different iterations of what is essentially a controlled burn to the face. I do not yet have a souped-up microcurrent device at home but one day I will, I am calling it in.
Beyond actually working while at work and going-all in on my skin at home, the real reason for my hiatus from the treatment room as a client is that last December I had a nightmare micro-needling experience that left me contraindicated from everything for at least six months. If I ever turn-on the paid subscriber option I will divulge the details in a share on that end. For now, what I can share broadly is that I came out of that recovery process doubling down on the importance of collaborating with a client and engaging with their concerns because at the end of the day, they are literally inside their skin 24/7 whereas I as a practitioner only see them once or twice a month.
Before that nightmare appointment, I had experienced four facials from February 2024 through August 2024 so not too bad. Two at work, one for market research, and one that was technically also for market research but turned out to be so much more in the end.
The Delightful Facial
My first facial at work last year was as a model for a peer who had just completed her certification for buccal facial massage. A gifted early-career esthetician, she was dexterous and precise with her movements. Afterwards, she went in with microcurrent turned all the way up and my face plus neck were snatched to the heavens for days. She was an incredible asset to our team and we lost her last summer because corporate decided to play games - more on that below. I miss her daily.
The Cringe Facial
Second facial at work was with a new peer who was fresh out of beauty school and gave me a training facial as part of her onboarding to our shop. At one point, she mixed a colloidal oatmeal paste and applied that to my face as the exfoliant. When I inquired about her reasoning for this as the exfoliation step, she replied “oatmeal has texture.” When the time came to provide feedback I found myself wishing I were anywhere else except giving feedback. Her tenure with our team was short-lived.
The Subpar Facial
I work for a fast-casual skincare company. The very concept of a fast-casual facial is something that merits its own in-depth insider critique which is the kind of thing I have catalogued as a potential paid subscriber piece down the line. But I mention this fast-casual facial concept because it means that a lot is excised out of the classic 60 to 90 minute service in order to get down to 40 or 50 minutes. Some fast-casual beauty companies chip away at the value of licensed labor even further and market 20 to 30 minute facials as part of their branding. All of this is to say, that I experienced this subpar facial at a fast-casual competitor’s location in the name of “market research” ie: casual job searching just to see what was out there. The experience was uninspired. My intake form was not reviewed with me. At no point was I walked through an analysis of my skin. Products were applied sans clarity about what was what. No inquiry was made as to what my goals for the service were and no questions were asked about my comfort levels throughout. The backbar was woefully limited and it was clear from the service line-up that estheticians were not a part of the creative process in formulating the service offerings. My service provider’s hands were lifeless for most of the 50 minute facial, though they did come to life during extractions. She couldn’t help herself I’m sure! I appreciated her passionate scavenging of sebaceous filaments along my nose because my extraction technique always has room for improvement. I left with copious mental notes about her approach and some new tricks of the trade from someone who made sure that no pore was left behind. On the other hand, she went from zero to one-hundred without prepping me and never asked about whether or not I have a tendency to experience post-inflammatory hyperpigmentation (PIH) - which I do. This is something that should be discussed with all clients at initial intake, particularly when planning to go all-in on extractions, and especially with richly melanated clients because more melanocyte production increases the probability of hyperpigmenting in response to injury which is always a risk with overzealous extractions.
The Transcendent Facial, an Unsponsored Review
The best facial I had last year - and so far, still best facial ever - was with Andrea Torre at Bespoke Aesthetics in Georgetown, D.C. I had initially booked with her due to “market research” and yes I had booked around the same time I booked what would eventually be the subpar facial. The reason for these two facials being so close together was because last August, company leadership had implemented pay-cuts far below our local market-value and our small team of shop employees was collectively exploring unionizing. The logistics of organizing a union in a right-to-work state were a minefield. After several phone calls, meetings, emails, further research, and evaluation, we found the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) barriers to entry for collective bargaining quite high and the probability of a drawn-out timeline was not worth risking our jobs for. In the end, our group chat tabled the idea. Anyways back to the review - Andrea’s touch was therapeutic on a soul level and the experience was so pleasantly sensorial, that my left-brain checked-out as soon as she started cleansing. I came-to with no notes, only energy that had surged me into another plane of existence. My face, neck, shoulders, and décolletage had been worked on by someone with a deep knowledge of facial anatomy and an even deeper connection to Source. It showed. My glow was effervescent and I had never seen myself that way before. The entire service was performed with just her hands and tailored backbar selections. NEXT LEVEL.
Bespoke Aesthetics has been on my radar since I finished beauty school in 2014. It is the kind of place in both ethos and service offerings that I have on the vision board of my mind as inspiration for the quality of service I strive to embody in my own practice as an esthetician. I have been thinking about that facial often since last summer and I need to book with Andrea again soon. One of my favorite things in life is experiencing the care of a practitioner who moves from a deep wellspring of love and devotion to craft. Every time I remember that facial, I think of Alice Walker’s essay “Saving the Life that is Your Own: The Importance of Models in the Artist’s Life.” That appointment with Andrea reinvigorated me as a practitioner and reminded me of what is possible inside the treatment room independent of what corporate “leaders” try to dictate.