You're so vain...

You're so vain...

I had my first ever facial yesterday.

Let no one ever tell you that facials are an indulgence, or that those who get facials are pampered. Make no mistake: during the hour-long treatment, the client is steamed, pricked, bled, pinched, and pumped. Age-old toxins embedded in the deep layers of your skin are induced to the surface; it's as though some ancient curse of the kind Borges might depict in one his short stories, has risen to take its toll on the present. Like the meat rack Rocky Balboa famously pummelled in preparation for his fight against Apollo Creed, I was submitted to an endless battering. Lying on the table with damp tissues covering my face, I began to compare myself to the Joker, whose face required reparative surgery after being scarred by acid. My face swelled into a red, bloodied, pulped mass -- more like the awkward result of a senior citizens papier mache class than of an hour of luxury. In addition to having your skin excoriated, the protective layers surrounding your self-esteem are successively stripped away by the little gamine whose job it is to criticize every aspect of your face. "I love popping blackheads," she told me, as she gleefully pounced with a pin on my raw epithelium.

I loved every minute of it, and plan to go back for the second phase of my treatment in two weeks.