This year, we’ve seen plenty of weird and wonderful beauty trends come and go. Glow in the dark hair, glitter tears, fur nails, rainbow eyebrows… just to name a few! No doubt 2017 will have it’s fair share of passing beauty fads, too. But if there’s one thing that never goes out of style, it’s bright, glowing skin. From lead facials in the Victorian era to the recent vampire facials trend, people have tried some pretty crazy things in pursuit of radiant skin over the years. Ask any celebrity and they’ll tell you their megawatt complexion is merely the result of chugging h20 and eating vegetables. And to an extent, that’s probably true. But many of them also have a secret weapon — microdermabrasion.
Yep, everyone from Gwyneth Paltrow to pretty much all of the Victoria’s Secret models swear by this exfoliating treatment. It works by polishing the face with tiny crystals, which stimulates blood flow and removes dead skin cells. The result? Smooth, glowing and flawless skin! Or so everyone says.
To see whether the treatment lives up to the hype, our founder and managing director Bianca Cheah decided to try the treatment for herself. She visited an AVEDA salon called Mineral Lifestyle in Sydney’s Paddington and tried the Dual Exfoliation treatment. Here’s what happened:
The treatment
Like all AVEDA stores, the salon had a welcoming, chilled out vibe. There are a few different types of facials on the menu, but the Dual Exfoliation is the newest and most innovative. It combines techniques from Microdermabrasion and a plant-based alternative to Glycolic peels. While regular peels can have excellent results, they’re often very harsh and can lead to redness and irritation. Not only is AVEDA’s combined method a lot gentler, a clinical study also showed it achieves better results than a combined Microdermabrasion and 30% Glycolic peel treatment.
Bianca had the 90-minute treatment, but you can also opt for one hour. Here’s what she thought of the treatment.
The treatment itself was beautiful and extremely relaxing. At some stages I did experience some slight discomfort, but nothing unbearable. I experienced no redness post-treatment and the next day, my skin looked like a million dollars!
– Bianca Cheah
Our verdict? If luminous skin (with zero downtime) is at the top of your Christmas wish list, it’s definitely worth booking in for a Dual Exfoliation treatment. Not only does it give you instantly glowing, even skin, it’s also great for minimising the appearance of wrinkles and fine lines. A series of four treatments is recommended for the ultimate skin transformation, but Bianca saw amazing results after just one.
The details
Price: $155 for 60 minutes, $200 for 90 minutes
Website: www.minerallifestyle.com.au
Address: 184 Oxford Street, Paddington NSW, 2021. Australia.
Facebook: www.facebook.com/MineralLifestyle/
Instagram: @mineralifestyle
