She gestured to the questionnaire. “You say here you have sometimes dry skin?”

Yeah, sometimes it feels a little tight.

“You sure it's not oily?”

No, Well, um, I don't really know.

“You have breakouts?”

No, not really.

Pause, during which she fixed me with a wilting stare of skepticism.

Really, uh, my skin's pretty good.

“OK, we will have a look and I will see what I see.”

With this, she removed my feet from their soak and firmly patted them dry. She requested that I lie down and submit to being wrapped up like a human soft taco. She massaged a creamy substance into my hands, covered each one with a plastic bag and slid them into two heated sleeves.

The facialist covered my eyes at this point and flipped on the intense light. She spent a few minutes gently palpating my skin and making sounds that were alternately approving and terrifying. At last, she switched the light off and said, “OK. I think you have a combination skin.”

OK, stepping outside the story for a moment, combination skin to me is a useless expression. It describes a condition in which some parts of the face are oilier or drier than others. And honestly, duh. Who doesn't suffer from combination skin? Is she trying to tell me there are people out there with a perfectly even slick of oil across the surface of their face? Didn't think so.

Anyway, back to the narrative. “Here is what we will do today,” said the facialist. “First, we cleanse the skin, then exfoliation. I give you two massage, one is for relaxation and one to remove the toxins. Then we do some extraction, I take out the oils and dirt from your pores. Then toner. So, we do this. Just for treat, OK?”

O. K.

The cleansing and exfoliation were no big deal, although the hot towel was sorely missed. I suppose the heated hand socks were roughly analogous.

The first massage concentrated on the neck and shoulders. Next, the facialist moved to the face itself, working the same areas repeatedly until the skin felt as though it were rippling. It felt like I've always imagined chocolate must feel when it's being tempered. The chef works it back and forth, folding it in on itself until it's smooth and relaxed. Combined with the moist heat of the hand holsters, I was beginning to feel like a torte.

But all good things must come to an end. After a cool masque, the facialist announced it was time for the extractions. Again, my eyes were covered, but it felt as though the primary tools used for extracting were the facialist's index fingers. I think she also used a strip of tissue or gauze wrapped around the fingers to wipe up the extracted materials.

Extracting is not the sort of thing you would do on a Saturday night for kicks. There is a certain amount of discomfort, even pain,involved. Midway through the process, the facialist asked, “are you surviving this?” The question made me wonder how many clients answered, “no.” The extracting took about 10-15 minutes in all.

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