Going for gold — the latest must-do
[attach]4298[/attach]Diamonds may be a gal’s best friend, but an emerging trend in the spa business puts a new spin on the shiny stuff: 24K gold facials — the ultimate in facial bling.
And with gold prices soaring, the best investment to make these days could very well be in your face.
Gold on the face? It sounds a bit gimmicky, and believe me, this reporter was skeptical when Mary Orlando, owner of Featuring … You Spa & Salon in the Upper Village, invited me in to try the new 24K gold facial she introduced to the spa in May.
Owner of her the spa for 26 years, Orlando admits she wasn’t sold on the gold at first.
“I’m pretty skeptical,” she says. “I’ve tried so many products over the years.”
But after working with Christian Dior in New York, helping to launch the brand’s gold skincare line, Orlando says she tried the entire collection. And she saw results.
“The product was phenomenal.”
[attach]4299[/attach]Though she doesn’t carry the Dior line, Orlando has devised a one-and-a-half hour treatment using 24K gold leaves and gel.
The facial includes a triple exfoliation process and moisture mask, followed by a mask of 24K gold leaf sheets that are pressed onto the face and left there for a few minutes.
Hold up a mirror and your face literally looks like the head of a golden statue — or maybe the death mask of some ancient Egyptian’s wife. Don’t be freaked out of you feel a heating sensation when the gold leaves are on your face. Orlando says this happens if you’re really dehydrated.
After a few minutes, the gold squares are massaged into the face with a 24K gold leaf mask.
Putting gold on the face isn’t exactly a new idea. Cleopatra apparently covered her face in it every night, and gold has been touted as having numerous health benefits. To cash in on the craze, restaurants are even putting gold flecks in their food.
The gold facial phenomenon has been around for a decade or so, Orlando says, and has been quite popular in places like Japan, although it’s an emerging trend in the spa industry here.
Silver soaps and mineral products are all over the market, she says, and the gold trend is part of that.
But Orlando doesn’t see the gold rush as a trend. For her, gold is here to stay — a sign of a shifting ethic in the spa world where a more holistic model with less-invasive treatments are becoming more valued.
“We’re all going back to basic esthetics as it’s worked in the past,” she says. “You get the same sort of results but it’s an extremely relaxing holistic approach to skincare.”
Though there’s a very technical way to explain how gold interacts with the skin and what it does — Orlando can and does explain it, but it’s pretty jargony — the general idea, she says, is that gold produces heat energy and releases negative ions, which fights free radical damage to the skin.
The ultimate effects are that the skin looks more radiant, less wrinkled and more firm, with the completion looking brighter and lighter.
“I compare it to Botox,” she says.
This reporter wasn’t certain the treatment would make a difference, and honestly, it was difficult to see any major difference immediately following the facial, in spite of it being very relaxing.
But after taking home the tub of the Radiant Mask gel (made in Japan with mallow and containing 24K gold flecks) that Orlando sells in the spa — something I’m hitherto calling the Pot of Gold — and assiduously applying said gel to her face every night and leaving it there to penetrate overnight, this reporter is slowly doing an about-face.
Only a week into using it and the anecdotal evidence is looking promising: two people have already said my skin is, and I quote: “glowing.”
Not a bad return on the investment, I’d say.