After going for regular facial treatments for about 2 years, I noticed that my skin is less prone to acne (but I do have occasional breakouts if I’m under stress) and more importantly, there are fewer imperfections on my skin as compared the pimply and rough skin I used to have a few years back. Though my skin condition has improved quite a bit with facial treatments, there are still a couple of problems I’m left to deal with. And one of the problems I’m faced with is skin dehydration.
It sounds pretty easy to treat a dehydrated skin but it isn’t for my case because I have an oil-dry skin combination where the skin around the T-zone area is oily and while the skin are the cheek and forehead region is dry. I thought that the dehydration problem could solved by slapping more moisturizers over my face but it didn’t help much because somehow the product could not penetrate into my skin to replenish moisture. But things took a 180 degrees-turn after receiving a customized facial treatment at Estetica by their highly-experienced beauty therapist.
Established since 1980, Estetica is our home-grown beauty institute has won numerous awards for its high efficacy beauty treatments and products derived from Nobel Prize winning research. Recently, they had just launched their 9th beauty studio at Westgate mall in December 2013.
It was such a pleasure to be invited to their outlet at Plaza Singapura to try out their facial treatments.
Prior to the treatment, I had a skin analysis and consultation with the beauty therapist using a skin scanner machine. What you are staring at now are my enlarged clogged pores dotted all over my nose. Whiteheads, blackheads and whatever impurities you name it, it’s all stuck in my pores. Gross. Well, that would mean that I need to thorough extraction to remove all those junk before it gets inflamed and pimple starts to pop all over my face.
Estetica treatment rooms are equipped with this comfy bed that is designed and shaped according to the curvature of our body. It would be nice to have a bed like this in my office so that I could catch a few winks of sleep.
Going for facials is a good excuse for me to take my mind off things and just meditate, zone out and rest while the beautician does the cleansing job on my skin.
It isn’t that horrifying or painful if you tell yourself that all the pain would be worth once all the impurities are extracted out. Whenever they pricked my skin with a needle, my brain would practically scream, “Hang in there! You’re on the road to achieve flawless skin. Flawless skin, baby!”
The therapist would swipe some toner to calm the skin after the extraction.
What a relief! After activating all the pain sensors over my face, here comes the facial massage to calm my shocking nerves. During the massage step, the therapist will use either massage oils or creams to lubricate the skin. However, if the therapist has did an extensive extraction process on your skin that results your skin have several patches of redness, it is not advisable for you to receive a facial massage as it might aggravate your skin condition.
After the facial massage step, it is usually followed by the application of ampule or any other treatment essence or cream before applying the facial mask.
The facial treatment steps employed here at Estetica are quite standard except that the products they are used which had help them to garner several awards such as Harper’s BAZAAR Spa Awards 2013 where Estetica emerged as the winner of Most Hydrating Facial.
My facial treatment lasted for about 2 hours and it is followed by a short consultation with the therapist who shared with me on some tips to take care of my dehydrated skin. Right after the treatment, the redness ( due to extraction) in my face has subsided because during the extraction process, the therapists applied toner immediately on the skin which reduced the redness.
A few days after facial, my skin got better in the sense that it didn’t felt as dry as before. More importantly, I felt that my skin could absorb the products better. At least for now, I don’t have to pile up my face with layers of moisturizers just to hydrate the skin!
Besides regaining back a well-hydrated skin, I was also given their own in-house brand product, ést.lab SunShield SPF 50 to try. It’s a tinted sunscreen that contains Vitamin C and E to provide moisturizing and anti-ageing benefits. The product formula utilizes SmartVector UV technology that ensures UV blockers are only released to the skin upon UV exposure. In other words, it shields us from the sun by ‘opening up it’s umbrellas’ at the right time. In this way, the product could work more efficiently in shielding your skin from the sun.
It’s a cream-based sunscreen that contain very light non-comedogenic oils that is gentle enough to use on my skin which can get clogged very easily. This sunscreen stands out from the sunscreens with its high moisturizing factor and it’s ability to absorb quickly into the skin,without leaving any sticky or tacky feeling on the skin. It could also be easily cleaned off using gentle makeup removers. (Yes! We do need to remove the sunscreen at the end of the day using a makeup remover or milk cleanser!)
