Brand new face for Christmas
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At this time of year, let's face it, most of us are not looking our best. How we are supposed to sparkle after endless rounds of parties, sustained on a diet of canapès, cocktails and four hours' sleep a night, is beyond me. I'm too squeamish to put myself in for surgery - in my opinion you can go that bit too far in the interests of personal vanity. But what do you do if you need a face makeover, but fight shy of surgery, or even anything heavy in the way of chemicals, lasers and acid peels?
The new approach, according to my friends in the know, is to sprinkle acid on my face. Well, it's not quite as brutal as all that, but for novices like me the words "acid", "face" and "peel" are not exactly music to the ears. Which is why I wanted to hunt down something a little kinder and, I imagined, less painful.
The creators of the Green Peel boast that it gives you the same benefits as a really deep acid face peel, except, instead of using chemicals, it involves the application of 38 different herbs. It promises to stimulate the growth of new skin cells and to boost facial circulation. A radiant new face, just by applying a few plant extracts: doesn't sound likely, does it?
But I decided to give it a try because, unlike an acid peel, it is botanical-sounding. I mean, given a toss-up between applying chemicals to your skin to take off the upper epidermis and something lovely and herbal, of course you're going to go for the natural stuff. The treatment was formulated by a German dermatologist, Christine Schrammek, and it has been around in Germany for years, but it has only just come to Britain. At £350, it's expensive, but you need only really do it once a year.
It must be said, though, that when it comes to any sort of radical therapy, vanity does battle with cowardice. The whole notion of stripping off the surface layer of your face is offputting, no matter how radiant the result. I mean, it could make you look as if you had a horrible skin disease.
And when I got my briefing from therapist Sarah Chapman beforehand, it turned out that I'd be in purdah for a weekend, because you can't really go to parties when your skin is flaking off your face. And afterwards you have to lather sun protection on it for a month or so, lest the newly exposed cells get sun damage. Though frankly, just now, the chance of sun damage would be a fine thing.
The whole process takes five days. Day one, after the treatment, your skin looks a bit red. Day two, you just look quite healthy-coloured. Day three, you start to flake. Day four, you flake even more. Day five, you get the flaky skin taken off. I was having a dinner party on day two and I did rather worry that the process might start too soon. I mean, you don't want to frighten people by looking like a snake that is shedding its coat.
That was the theory. What the blurb from the manufacturers doesn't tell you, though Sarah Chapman did, is that the whole thing hurts like billyo.
Think of having road grit rubbed really hard into your face for seven minutes and you'll get the idea. Dr Schrammek describes the process in the promotional literature as follows: "During the massage, the micro-particles of the herbs gently smooth away the superficial layers of the skin."
What it actually feels like is being scrubbed with a Brillo pad, except what the stuff looks like is green slime. Then, when you feel that you can't put up with much more of this without starting to cry, it's over. Sarah put a gauze
and a face mask on, to help the stuff soak in. Then she removed it with nice, cooling toner.
That was bad enough. But the discomfort wasn't over. Not by half. What happens when the treatment is over, and you go home with a couple of special creams to apply every few hours, is that your face is hot and stinging. It's uncomfortable to touch. It throbs, and you get a pins-and-needles sensation when you feel it.
The colour is alarmingly red. Next day, it's less uncomfortable, but still tight, and stings to the touch. And you start to feel, oddly, that your face is too big for its skin. The other downside is you're not allowed to use make-up, although one of the creams is tinted, which just gives you a hideous colour. By day three, you don't hurt a bit, but your skin is starting to peel.
When the peeling starts, it's much the same as the effect after you've been sunburned and your skin starts to come off. In theory, you're meant not to pick at your flaking epidermis, but honestly, the urge to tug at the thin bits of skin that were starting to curl was irresistible - a facial version of pulling wallpaper off the walls. The extent to which you peel varies, but as you do, you can see pink, healthy-looking skin underneath. In theory, the good effects go on for another 28 days.
Getting the peel removed is a doddle by comparison with starting it off: just a bit of cleanser and a face mask. And then your new skin emerges: rather pink, bright and clean-looking, and lovely and soft to the touch. Some small-scale peeling went on for a day afterwards - my nose took longer than the rest - but by the second day, it's all gone. Ever since I've had the Green Peel, people have been telling me how well I look. And that's despite the fact that on the night after it was done I had a mere three hours' sleep and the evening after that I drank my body weight in Jameson's whiskey at the Irish Embassy Christmas party.
It's not a new face, but a healthier, fresher version of the old one. You look as you ought to look if you've been drinking two litres of water a day and living in the country, and not smoking or drinking and getting eight hours' sleep a night. It doesn't at one go remove pigmentation, but it does give you a nice overall colour.
So I'll continue to pass on the plastic surgery, thanks, and ditto the chemical peels. Thirtyeight herbs are as much as I can handle. It's an extreme makeover, all right, but at least the face you're left with is recognisably the one you started with.
The Green Peel, including products to apply at home, costs £350. Sarah Chapman can be contacted on 07900 692137.