Facial Massage Info
This is a service that I designed, and as far as I can tell, no one else really offers something like this, so here is some more explanation.
I like to tell people that this is similar in format, but different in approach to a traditional spa facial. If you’ve had a spa facial in the past, you may recognize the steps of cleanse, tone, moisturize, massage, but the similarities likely end there.
I spent a lot of time working in the beauty industry, and one of the biggest reasons I left was that I grew increasingly frustrated with products
More specifically, that there are things we need to buy, consume, and use in certain ways to “care” for ourselves. And that “care” is visually represented by effort put into looking a certain way. There is perhaps no area where care is tangled up in consumption and aesthetic labor more than skin care. As someone who is interested in bodies and the people they hold, I am personally really interested in trying to untangle that as much as possible. I think we do our skin—our largest organ and our first line of immune defense—a great injustice when we limit its care to control over our appearance.
Not only that, but often the ways we attempt to “care” for skin actively harm it. And the cycle of consumption continues as we buy a new product to undo the damage of the last (would we need probiotic serums if we didn’t murder all of the beneficial microbes on our face with a chemical peel?).
I truly believe in a less is more approach. I don’t want you to buy anything. I will not shame you for not spending money on night creams. If anything, I will tell you to stop buying night cream. The products I will use on your skin are single or limited ingredients which are affordable and widely available: jojoba oil, honey, coconut oil, rosewater, aloe, and apple cider vinegar. Perhaps most importantly, I will only put something on your skin if it supports a necessary function of your skin; such as holding in moisture and maintaining an environment conducive to the beneficial microbes we need to fend off non-beneficial bacteria, viruses, and fungi. Because I believe that treating our skin like the important bodily organ that it is is the best way to care for it.
This service might be for you if
You’ve never had a spa facial because spas can seem scary and expensive but it sounds like it might be nice
You’ve had and enjoyed spa facials but were put off by the product pitches and pressure to invest in and perform a certain level of maintenance
You’ve ever had a demoralizing experience with a dermatologist who tried to sell you botox or retinols when you just wanted your moles checked
You’ve historically performed a lot of skin “care” but your skin is stressed by too many or certain products and you’d like to change course and simplify
Maybe you learned that hyaluronic acid is something your skin makes in its deepest layers and buying a bottle of it to put on top of your skin actually does nothing
(true!) and now everything feels like a scam and you want someone to validate that
You’re queer/non-binary/gender non-conforming and you want someone safe to get care and non-gendered advice from
You have headaches, sinus pain from allergies, jaw pain from clenching or grinding, or any other troubles that may benefit from extensive and detailed work on the face, head, and neck
You want a truly relaxing experience from someone who has spent time nerding out on skin, muscles, and the nervous system (did you know that the face is the only part of the body where muscles are attached to the skin? There is so much interplay between physiology and emotion on our faces!)