Tips For Making The Most Out Of Your Facial

When it comes to facial care, there are right and wrong ways to incorporate facial care into your skin care regimen. If you want to avoid unwanted side effects or unpleasant surprises, follow these tips to get the most out of your spa stay:

1. Identify Your Main Skin Problems

With so many different types of facials available, it can be easy to get overwhelmed or unsure of what’s right for you. Start by identifying the main issues you want to address with your skin and work through them to determine the best treatment options.

To treat fine lines and wrinkles, your best option is to stimulate collagen production, especially microdermabrasion and LED red light therapy. Skin laxity can benefit most from microcurrent and laser treatments. For acne-related problems, blue light therapy, high-frequency facials, or hydrafacials are the best options to help remove harmful blemishes and kill bacteria.

If you have a dry skin type and suffer from pimples, choose a light chemical peel or a hydrating moisturizer with rich hydrating serums with hyaluronic acid. To treat pigmentation, scars or age spots, your best option is a medium or deep chemical peel or laser resurfacing.

2. Understand Your Ingredients

When it comes to choosing the right facial for you, it helps to know what skin care ingredients to look for. Here’s a quick guide to some of the most important ingredients you need to know: Vitamin C – this vitamin is a powerful antioxidant as well as a collagen cofactor.

Your body needs this vitamin to make collagen. Vitamin C is also an important brightening ingredient as it helps even out skin tone, fights age spots and reduces redness. It also improves the skin’s natural defense against external toxins.

3. Prepare For The Facial

Preparation is key to getting the most out of your facial. There is no point in spending time and money on a trip to the spa only to spoil it with poor preparation. The night before your facial, make sure you’ve cut out any potentially harmful ingredients from your skincare routine.

This means you should skip retinol or any exfoliating acids (AHA or BHA). That’s because these ingredients can make your face more prone to sensitivity, irritation, and redness, which is exactly what you want to avoid when you’re getting a facial! Make sure you show up bare-faced for the day, which means no makeup and no skin care products like serums or moisturizers.

Basically, you want to avoid anything that can form a barrier layer that can prevent your facial from working as effectively as it should. Finally, make sure your face is treatment-ready and free of rashes, severe sun damage, or allergies.

4. Choose The Right Professional

When it comes to choosing a practitioner, choose a board-certified dermatologist or seek out an esthetician who is an expert in what they do. This is especially important if you are going for more invasive types of facial treatments, such as chemical peels or laser resurfacing, as the potential for skin damage is higher.

Book a quick spa consultation before your treatment to discuss your specific needs and concerns. The right dermatologist will be happy to walk you through your options and make sure the treatment is right for you.

5. Think About Downtime

Don’t forget that most facials won’t make you glow and attractive right away, and you may experience some breakouts or redness at first. That means you don’t want to book spa treatments or facials on the day of the big event!

This applies to invasive facial treatments and non-invasive facial treatments. Although invasive facials require a longer healing period after your skin has healed, even non-invasive facials can leave your face a little swollen, irritated, or sore at first.

Of course, this will go away with time, but if redness persists after one treatment, talk to your dermatologist who can evaluate your reaction.

6. Skin Care Between Individual Facial Treatments

While face masks are a great way to revitalize your skin, they can’t do all the work for you. To get the most out of your facial, it’s important to take care of your skin between spa treatments. Treat your skin to plenty of antioxidant-rich fruits and vegetables, stay hydrated by drinking plenty of water every day, and exercise to keep your blood flowing to your skin.

You don’t need an elaborate 10-step beauty routine (although you can if that’s your thing), but make sure you’re cleansing, toning and hydrating your skin daily. With daily use of a gentle cleanser, antioxidant-rich serums, and broad-spectrum SPF, you’ll be well on your way to healthy, glowing skin!

If you take good care of your skin, you will have naturally healthy skin that you can build and enhance with skin creams. Supplementing your skincare routine with a variety of face masks once or twice a month is a must for more skin renewal, not a quick fix!