How To Have Beautiful Skin

With Facials and A Home Skin Care Routine

It's not enough to get a facial to keep your skin clear and beautiful. You need to have a great home skin-care routine. Here are the everyday habits you need to keep your skin beautiful:

• Eat a healthy diet with lots of fruits, vegetables and leafy green. Good nutrition is the basic building block of healthy skin.


• Drink plenty of water every day. (I fill a carafe to remind myself.)


• Cut out skin-damaging habits like smoking, excessive drinking, tanning booths and excessive sun exposure.


• Search out a good esthetician by asking friends and doing some research. Then work with her (or him) on a regular basis.


• Get a professional facial to deep cleanse your skin and review your product choices at least four times a year, as the seasons change. Every four to six weeks is ideal.


• Throw away the soap and use quality products that are right for your skin type. Discuss your home skin-care routine with an esthetician.


• If you can't afford all the skin-care products right away, ask the esthetician which are most important to start. Invest in additional products as you can.


• Give yourself a home facial as often as once a week.


• Wear sunscreen, even on cloudy days and in winter. Use a good-quality, high-SPF, full-spectrum sunscreen. Sun damage is the single most important cause of premature aging. On my face, decolette and the back of my hands I use Ti-Silc Sheer SPF 45 Sunblock (compare prices). It's reasonably priced and doesn't sting sensitive skin.


• Remember to put sunscreen on exposed areas like the back of your hands, neck and chest. They're often the first place to show your age.

Variations on the Classic European Facial

Variations on the Classic European Facial

Variations on the classic European facial include the "mini-facial" (cleansing without extractions) and specialty facials. Add vitamin C, and you have an "age defense" facial. It's an "oxygen facial" when a mist of pure oxygen is part of the treatment, and a "collagen facial" when special collagen sheets are placed on the skin. An acne facial will pay special attention to extractions. A photo facial is a separate light treatment to achieve specific results like boosting collagen or treating acne

How Often Should I Get A Facial?

How Often Should I Get A Facial?

It varies from person to person. Ideally, get a facial monthly because that's how long it takes the skin to regenerate. Try to have a facial at least four times a year, as the season changes. You may need it more frequently if you are trying to clear up a case of acne, especially at the beginning. Otherwise, once a month is plenty. You can overdo it.

The Basic Steps of a Facial

The Basic Steps of a Facial

Cleansing. A facial begins with a cleansing with cotton pads or sponges and a product chosen for your skin type (normal, dry, oily, combination, sensitive, mature.)

Skin Analysis. The esthetician covers your eyes and looks at your skin through a brightly lit magnifying lamp that reveal various skin conditions.

using a mechanical or chemical exfoliant. Mechanical exfoliation has a gritty can be a stand-alone treatment or part of the facial. It is generally an "upgrade" and done in a series.

of blackheads or whiteheads if you want it and need it. (It can cause broken capillaries and discoloration if done on sensitive skin, or done improperly.) People have different pain tolerance for extractions. They can be uncomfortable, especially on thin or ruddy skin.

Facial massage using classic strokes like effleurage to both relax you and stimulate your skin and facial muscles.

A facial mask targeted to your skin type (dry, oily, combination, sensitive, mature) and condition.

Application of toners and protective creams.

Advice on home skin care.

Who Gives A Facial?

A professional facial should be given by a licensed esthetician with special training in skin care.

How Much Does a Facial Cost?

A facial usually starts around $75 at a day spa in a smaller city. Prices will be higher at and hotel spas. Special masks and serums also make the price go higher.

Four-Handed Massage

Definition: Four-handed massage is a massage where two therapists work on you at the same time, mirroring each others' movements. For instance, both your legs or arms are being massaged at the same time. One therapist works on the right side of your back while the other works on the left.

When done well, four-handed massage feels like you are completely enveloped in sensation and can be quite a wonderful experience. To synchronize, one therapist takes the lead and the other follows, but it should feel like they're doing the same thing simultaneously. It helps if they have a similar style and "touch" and have worked together before.

Four-handed massage comes out of the Ayurvedic tradition, where it is called abhyanga.

Four-handed massage is trendy and has been added to spa menus at many resort spas. (Some even have eight-handed massage.) In that setting you are less likely to get therapists who have worked together before. For a more authentic experience, get it at a spa that specializes in Ayurvedic therapies, like Elemental Embrace in Canada.

Indigenous Treatments At the Spa

Indigenous treatments are a spa trend that highlight local ingredients and therapeutic traditions -- ruby grapefruit scrubs in Texas, blueberry wraps in Maine, Lomi Lomi massage in Hawaii.

Spas use a lot of creativity to come up with these indigenous treatments. At their best, indigenous treatments are deeply authentic, giving you experiences you couldn't have anywhere else, like a highly skilled Lomi Lomi massage by a skilled Hawaiian practitioner. Sometimes they're a little gimmicky, but still fun.

Here are a few examples of indigenous treatments:

* The Arizona Biltmore Resort & Spa offers a Cactus Flower Wrap that uses prickly pear cactus extract to soften your skin, and a Sedona Mud Wrap that uses local mud to detoxify your body and nourish your skin.

* Hawaiian spas offer Lomi Lomi, a healing type of Hawaiian massage derived from ancient Polynesian traditions. It usually begins with a blessing, and the massage is given with very fluid motions using the forearms.

* Mohonk Mountain House in upstate New York has a Mohonk Red massage that uses towels infused with a witchhazel that only grows in the Shawangunk Mountains.

* The Cliff House in Maine has a Blueberry Body Wrap and Blueberry Smoothie Pedicure and offers hot stone massage with stones it collected from its own beach.

The Cotton House in the Caribbean island of Mustique uses tropical fruits in its Lime and Pineapple Extravanza. Fresh lime is mixed with sea salt for a body scrub, followed by a pineapple, yogurt and honey wrap to soothe and soften the skin.

What Is Trigger Point Therapy?

A trigger point is a hyperirritable spot that is painful. It is called a trigger point because it "triggers" a painful response.

But a trigger point is more than a tender nodule. It affects not only the muscle where the trigger point is located, but also causes "referred pain" in tissues supplied by nerves.

Trigger points are located in a taut band of muscles fibers. The trigger point is the most tender point in the band. The therapist will locate and deactivate them using finger pressure. One technique is to pick up the muscle fibers in a pincer grip.

What You Should Know About Trigger Point Therapy

It is used to treat painful trigger points that cause referred pain.

It took a while to get the muscle in that condition, and it will likely take more than one massage to get rid of it.

These points are often areas of chronic "holding" and you need to learn how to move in different ways to keep them from recurring.

It will probably be uncomfortable.