After I settled onto a treatment table, the acupuncturist Samantha Story took a look at my skin and said I was dehydrated and needed to “till the soil.” She inserted at least two dozen needles in my face, another 10 or so in my scalp and a few on my décolleté and legs and hands, which were pain free to the point of being imperceptible.
The needles target tension and strain — physical and mental — and promote good circulation to result in, one hopes, a lifting and smoothing and sculpting effect. Ms. Story removed the needles after half an hour and performed gua sha, which is a facial massage using a jade tool that looked vaguely like a comb.
I couldn’t afford the eight to 10 regular treatments recommended for best results, so I’ll never know if facial acupuncture really can have lasting effects. But for a few hours I did think I had firmer looking skin and more defined cheekbones.
I did know that I could have sat for several hours of someone massaging my face, so I decided to double-down on my next treatment, with Thuyen Nguyen of FaceXercise, a facialist who has a cultish, word-of-mouth following (Michelle Williams, Uma Thurman, Cindy Crawford, who usually come to him through makeup artists or hairstylists or friends) for his Instant-Lift Facial Ultimate Workout.
Adding to the under-the-radar vibe is that Mr. Nguyen works out of a small, dark treatment room in Aqua, an underwater cycling studio in TriBeCa. My mind was luxuriously blank for 50 minutes as he washed my face using his own charcoal-based face cleanser; he then rubbed with a facial oil and did lymphatic drainage massage to get rid of water retention and puffiness. He has soft, strong fingers that move quickly and precisely around the eyes and jawline. When he wasn’t massaging me, he was kneading me or doing rolling motions or using tiny facial cups.
Every once in a while he would impart some wisdom, like “every pore is a sphincter,” or note that he was applying a face mask made with Manuka honey, and I would make some kind of affirmative noise and then go back to a place of wordless ecstasy as he worked on my skin. At the end he applied his own multivitamin serum and a cream, before massaging my neck and scalp and feet.
My fine lines were no longer visible, and my skin looked so good that a friend later asked me what highlighter I was using when I wasn’t wearing any makeup. But these were mere bonuses after the pleasure of the treatment.
As I was leaving, I told Mr. Nguyen I was about to fly to Asia and asked what I could do to preserve my skin during long-haul flights. “When you remember, just squeeze your skin to get the circulation going,” he said. “Massage is the youth serum in a bottle we’re all looking for.” I might believe him.
The post How to Lift Your Face With 2 Hands, 30 Needles and No Knives appeared first on Article Pub.
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