Updated 10/19/17. What are the benefits of getting a professional facial from an esthetician? If you’re seeking healthier, clearer and more beautiful skin, a facial can make a dramatic difference. Here are ten reasons why.
1. Expert Skin Analysis
Wherever you buy your skin care products (department/beauty stores, medical spas, online, beauty boutiques, pharmacies, etc.), often times, the salespeople see your face with makeup on. A benefit of getting your skin analyzed during a professional facial is that the esthetician will see you without makeup. This reveals your true skin type, allowing the esthetician to cater to your unique needs with professional treatments and product suggestions for your home care routine. In addition to his or her ability to identify and treat your needs, your esthetician also works with your skin for over an hour. This further ensures that he or she can properly analyze your skin type. This is exposure to which a beauty store consultant is likely not privy.
2. Professional Strength Exfoliation
Most facials include a form of exfoliation using ultrasound, bio brasion (a more effective form of microdermabrasion), enzymes, or acids. Some of these exfoliating ingredients can be found in your skin care products, but during a facial, you will receive them at a professional strength. Whichever exfoliation your facialist uses should be specifically catered towards your skin type. This will leave you with results that smooth the skin, increase cellular turnover, soften lines, and break up skin discoloration to promote more even-toned skin.
3. Clean Out Blackheads and Clogged Pores
With proper preparation and skin softening techniques, your esthetician will use a skilled method to gently extract clogged pores, blackheads, and impurities without causing harm to your skin. People usually have a difficult time eliminating blackheads at home because home care products typically only reduce clogged pores. It takes a professional esthetician to properly prepare and soften the skin before manual extractions can take place safely and most effectively. Of course, there’s always the DIY way to remove blackheads if you really must.)
4. Intensive Hydration
Every skin type needs hydration. It does not matter if you have oily, acne-prone skin, or dry and flaky skin. Your skin cells are like fish and need water to survive. Thus, in order to maintain healthy skin, it is imperative to keep it topically hydrated. With oilier skin types, the face tends to produce more oil when moisture is lacking which is the opposite of your intention and need. Oily skin needs moisture, too, but the moisture it’s seeking is water, not oil. Hydrated skin is healthy skin and a facial will help to regulate your skin’s proper moisture level. For home use, serums using hyaluronic acid like Skin Drink Concentrate are most beneficial for hydration.
5. Increase Circulation to Encourage a Glow
There is no doubt that the skin’s health is impaired when blood circulation slows. Aging leads to slowed circulation, which inevitably results in dull, tired looking skin. One important benefit of a facial is the massage. Along with warm steam, both processes help to increase blood flow bringing new nutrients to the skin. This encourages a youthful radiance and brings a glow to the skin’s surface. Here’s a 3-minute a day trick to get your skin to glow at home.
6. A Scope for Skin Cancer
Unfortunately, skin cancer is on the rise. Therefore, it’s increasingly important to regularly check your skin for mole changes and abnormal skin growths. Usually, these changes are subtle and develop at such a slow pace so over time you may not notice them at first. A benefit of working with a professional esthetician is that she will analyze your skin carefully. She should note any potential skin abnormalities that should be further reviewed by a medical doctor. An esthetician can be viewed as a new set of eyes that may notice skin imperfections that you may have been blinded to over time.
For example, years ago I had a client who had a dry patch on her nose. No matter how much she moisturized, it wouldn’t go away. From studying skin all of these years, I knew that skin cancer does not always evolve and take shape from a mole. Skin cancer can be as simple as a rough, dry patch. I advised my client to seek a medical doctor’s advice as soon as possible. The small dry patch of skin on her nose ultimately ended up being skin cancer that caused her to have the lower part of her nose removed. She continues to thank me to this day because, although she still faced a challenge, we caught it before it could spread further. Her story may not have had as successful of an outcome if it wasn’t for her getting a facial with me.
7. Stress Release
Aside from the various skin benefits facials offer, they are also extremely relaxing and immediately de-stress you both physically and psychologically. Imagine a room with dim lighting, soft music, and a warm, comfy bed. Then add on a face, neck, and shoulder massage. This is the ideal environment in which to completely relax and unwind. Studies show that stress can lead to unhealthy skin, so what’s a better way to eliminate stress and promote healthy skin than a facial? Take my advice—schedule some “me time” and treat yourself.
8. Problem Solve
Whether it’s dry skin, brown spots, redness, irritation, or inflamed acne, a good facial is always customized to focus on your specific skin issues. For example, if your skin is prone to brown spots and discoloration, your esthetician will use skin brightening or lightening treatments. If your skin is dry, she will use lipid increasing ingredients to repair your skin’s protective barrier to reduce dryness. The level of your facial’s intensity is contingent on the severity of your skin’s problems. By using the right combination of ingredients, estheticians can really create change in the skin to improve your skin’s appearance to achieve your greatest complexion.
9. Professional Advice
During a facial, you are with an esthetician for over an hour. This opens up an opportunity for the esthetician to give you her professional advice and skin tips and tricks. Perhaps the biggest benefit of getting a facial is receiving an expert lesson on how to care for your skin properly. After all, this is knowledge you can take home that will last well beyond the duration of your appointment. The lesson will include product recommendations for your skin type and how to care for your skin at home so you can best maintain the results of your facial.
10. Because You Deserve It!
Humans tend to spend an exceptional amount of time caring for the other people in their lives. While this can be rewarding, at times it’s just mentally exhausting. Take just a couple of hours to yourself to do something that you’re not required share with anyone else. A facial is just for you and will give you time to re-energize and clear your mind. Nourish your soul and pamper your skin in just a few blissful hours at the spa.
Celebrity Esthetician & Skincare Expert
As an esthetician trained in cosmetic chemistry, Renée Rouleau has spent 30 years researching skin, educating her audience, and building an award-winning line of products. Her hands-on experience as an esthetician and trusted skin care expert has created a real-world solution — products that are formulated for nine different types of skin so your face will get exactly what it needs to look and feel its best. Trusted by celebrities, editors, bloggers, and skincare obsessives around the globe, her vast real-world knowledge and constant research are why Marie Claire calls her “the most passionate skin practitioner we know.”
