April: Month of the Facial

Universal Appeel

Quarter Torture
Three months into this experiment, how much of the girlish mud repeatedly flung at me has stuck? Here's a quick rundown.

-Since my birthday, I haven't been back to the salon. I continue to blow-dry my hair on a routine basis, and to use special “color-safe” shampoo. The Supreme Bangs of Klumishness grow out quickly and require at least monthly maintenance. I trim them on my own, thereby lending my face a jagged and off-kilter appearance I like to call “edgy.”

-I kept the evil perfume wand in my purse for a while, to remind myself how very fortunate we are to live in a free society with no forced-odor camps.

-My mother gave me two boxes of unscented dryer sheets as a gift. I may have cried.

-Two days after posting the purse chronicles of last month, I received a package containing belated Christmas presents from my extended family. I don't have a lot of day-to-day interaction with these relatives and they have no idea I am working on this project. The gift from my uncle and aunt was a very girlish purse fashioned from an antique cigar box. It has a polka-dot interior with little pouches labeled with pictures of lipstick, sunglasses and a cell phone. The back of the purse displays a somewhat incongruous but very glittery painted montage of New York City. The purse has entered a semi-regular rotation with the “n” duffel.

-I recently went on a small shopping bender, devoting an entire half hour of a Saturday to this activity. I acquired several trendy articles of clothing, some of which are pink, along with an impressive two pairs of shoes.

-My girlishness has a knock-on effect for those around me. Lorie has had her hair highlighted. Lolita has purchased a pink and orange “l” wallet. Ruth has had a facial, manicure and pedicure. And Casey has had a blemish professionally excised.

-Overall, in a few short months I feel I have raised my overall girlie-meter rating to a whopping 2.5, still significantly lower than my cat.

“You need peeling.”

These words greeted my dear friend Lolita two days before her wedding in Greece. She had gone for a bride's traditional day of pampering when this recommendation was flatly put to her. This war far from her first facial, but it was her first chemical peel.

As the instruction for and descriptions of the peel came in Greek, Lolita would ask that you forgive her possible misintepretation of some technical terms. The peel is a three step process. First, a traditional cleansing. Then a combination of salicilic acid and hydroquinine is applied to the skin and left for two or three minutes. The acid works to combat acne and scarring, while the hydroquinine suppresses discoloration. Finally, after the peel, a soothing masque is applied.

The effects are immediate. “My skin had a rosy glow. It was softer, smoother texture. It just felt less congested and the dullness was gone.”

Sadly, the effects last only a short while. This is probably why the practitioners of peeling recommend once-monthly treatment.

Lolita also has experimented with microdermabrasion, which she describes as feeling like “a really intense cat-licking.” This procedure uses a machine “bigger than a toaster” with a tube attached that is, according to my source, “shaped like a dildo.” This tube is held against the skin as it sprays microparticles and simultaneously sucks them off. Oh go ahead and giggle. You know you want to.

Per Lo, the sensation of microdermabrasion is different from the mild burning of a chemical peel. The results are also more intense. After treatment, which lasts about 10-15 minutes, the skin is tender and looks “flushed and wind-burned.” This fades after an hour or two, leaving a visible improvement in skin quality. Although her microdermabrasion practitioner (microdermabrader?) recommended a series of six treatments, Lolita says she noticed a dramatic change after just one visit.

Of course, none of this is cheap. Microdermabrasion will run around $150 a shot with chemical peels lagging about $20-$30 behind. Despite the discomfort and expense, Lolita is a strong supporter of these treatments. “If I could afford it, I would be the youngest, most beautiful-looking person,” she says.

“This is why people in Hollywood are beautiful.”