Give your face a winter’s break with a super-facial
BATTLING the cold requires all sorts of snuggly warm vestments. The only bit of skin left literally in the cold is your face. The effect is dryness, redness and lost luminosity. Panic not, though, if a week at a Maldives spa is not on the cards this Februrary. There are two new facials in London that are absolutely perfect for rejuvenating not just your face but your whole body in the depths of winter. Both practitioners use their own massage routines, both of which pay tribute to Chinese energy channels and both use all-natural creams.
SU-MAN AT AWAY SPA, W HOTEL
Su-Man’s debut at the W hotel spa is very exciting. The former dancer – who normally practices in her light-flooded Crouch End garden studio – gives an amazingly vigorous, assured treatment of your face, working you from head to toe. It’s no wonder that the porcelain-faced Juliette Binoche swears by her facials – during filming in London she has them every day.
Su-Man kicks off with a head massage – but a proper one, none of your namby-pamby stroking. She delves into the pressure channels all over your cranium, and reaches deep down your neck and back, kneading and kneading. This, she says, is to “open up the [energy] channels in your face”. But before the pleasure comes the pain, with an agonising battle with blackheads next. Don’t have this treatment before a date: the extraction left my nose red for a good few hours afterwards.
Following this, though, comes a beautiful-smelling exfoliator, made by Su-Man herself. She won’t reveal the recipe, but oats and orange are clearly involved and she jokes it’s her breakfast leftovers. Now comes the crux of the treatment: the facial massage that beats all bloat, infelicities, and stagnation out of your face. This is Su-Man’s signature pummeling, the “face muscle workout” that she claims keeps you looking young: she presses, chops, kneads and smoothes rapidly, paying attention to everything from your eye sockets to your temples. Then it’s either an in-depth foot or arm massage (depending on what she thinks you need), a facial coating in home-made moisturizer and off you go, enviably smooth-skinned, if a bit red in the face. £200 for 60 mins. To book: 020 7758 1071 or go to www.wlondon.co.uk/away-spa.
SKIN GYM AT TRIYOGA
Available at the new Chelsea centre and in Primrose Hill, this facial is pure bliss. Uninterrupted by the pain of extraction, this is a combination of strong facial and back massage and rich, fruity and spicy all-natural creams from Hungarian skincare brand Eminence. Like Su-Man’s facial, Charlotte Colwell’s is all about giving the face a workout: pumping blood to the face and working the muscles, along with opening up energy channels. Hot stones clinch the pleasure of this soothing but active facial, and a paprika mask, which burns rather intensely, really wakes skin up. Nettle, cinnamon and Hungarian berry creams also give the senses a delicious jolt. I left feeling deeply relaxed and energized – warm and strong rather than freezing. Oh, and my skin glowed happily.
£70 for 60 minutes, triyoga.co.uk or call 020 7483 3344