Trendy beauty treatments

After last week’s look at the style goddesses who primped and pampered us over the last ten years and continue to influence…We look today at two of the offspring….

The Face Place Institute of Aesthetics and the Face to Face Unisex Skin Care Salon and Spa are two top destinations for the beautiful about town looking for discreet innovative treatments that firm, tighten, brighten and purify in a serene environment.

Daughter of veteran clinical aesthetician Elima Hall, Marie Simone Hall has taken the helm at the newly refurbished Face Place. Tucked away off Constant Spring Road, the new feng shui lover’s dream features open wood panelling and the soft trickling of a newly minted waterfall.

The all woman style team is no stranger to Hall’s doors, and this time we’ve come to take a peek at the treatment currently de rigeur for those whose luminous faces seem to indicate only their age at heart.

“The Micro Current facelift is a non-invasive alternative to a traditional face-lift procedure, and it gives immediate results,” says Hall, who mentions that this already popular treatment has become even more so with a less mature set getting a head-start on prevention of wrinkles, crows feet and other typical signs of ageing. Hall recommends that women follow a series of the treatments for continued results, noting that the immediate differences seen after the first treatment can improve even more with regular therapy.

At one hour and 45 minutes for the first treatment, and 45 minutes for follow-up sessions, it’s easy to set time aside for a noticeable lift that lasts. In the spa’s signature sleek black and white uniforms designed by Hall, Aesthetician Andrea Brown first cleanses, tones and exfoliates the skin to have as clean a surface as possible for the probes that emit a tingling low-level electrical current.

“The current relaxes and improves muscle tone and charges ions, leaving the skin instantly visibly firmer and brighter,” says Hall, who also notes that the treatment has become a standard pre-red carpet fix in Hollywood. If it looks that good under unforgiving flashbulbs then our sunshine should be no match.

. at Face to Face

Across town on Ardenne Road, another aesthetic legacy has quietly been in business for over twenty years, providing vitamin infused treatments and peels from a loyal, largely word-of-mouth clientele. Following the tradition of her mother top 1980s hair stylist Marva Bloomfield, as well as the beauty trade leanings of her grandmother and aunt, Andrea McKenzie-Ricketts has seen Face to Face blossom from an addition to her mother’s salon in the 1980s to a sought after spa in its own right.

“My daughter Chanel Ricketts is also interested in studying beauty, so it really is a family tradition,” smiles Ricketts. One of her regular customers has agreed to let all woman in on what has been a lifesaver from that bane of the adult woman’s facial troubles, adult acne.

The Oxygen Therapy treatment is Rickett’s most sought after procedure these days, as it leaves the skin not only taut and rejuvenated, but also thankfully blemish free. Based on products formulated by a Swedish scientist after years of research, the treatment involves the application of a series of lotions and a heavily oxygenated vitamin enhanced cream that flushes the pores with a combination of pure oxygen and minerals, repairing the skin from damage done by the sun, smoke and general pollution.

“The oxygen flushes the pores rejuvenating the skin, and hydrogen peroxide in the cream kills acne causing bacteria,” says Ricketts seated beside our model, the nodding wife and mother whose skin seems picture perfect as she even enters the spa “The cream contains the co-enzyme Q10, which is important for youthfulness, and even increases brain function,” says Ricketts, who adds that while the first treatments do provide good results, to maintain that youthful, blemish free glow continuous therapy is a must.

“I come regularly because I just don’t want to go back to those days!” agrees our model as she heads into the treatment room. The process is quick and simple: Ricketts first massages an antioxidant botanical cleansing lotion into the face, neck and shoulders, then massages in a thin layer of the cream before steaming the skin to let the first set of treatment seep in.

Once five minutes of steaming is complete, Ricketts checks the skin to see if any blemish extraction has to be performed, then mists with an oxygen, aloe, vitamin C formula before applying the thicker layer of cream and leaving that to be absorbed. A lighter finishing cream is applied at the end of the treatment to add another dose of oxygen that you can wear out the door.