Received a free facial trial at Victoria Facelift, which specialises in (as their name suggests) lifting up saggy skin from the jaw line as well as wrinkles around the mouth area so that you look younger. It’s a bit like having a non-surgical facelift as they do all this through massages (both by hand and machine) as well as through their customised masks.
This greets you at their counter and even in their individual consultation rooms. Very targeted, I must say. I have to say that despite it’s branding towards the older demographic, I do think that this is suitable for women in their 30s because 30 is the year that things start to give way to gravity (sometimes even younger).
At the consultation, besides the usual questionnaire that you have to fill in, they also scan your skin to find out what problems you have in order to customise the treatment. From my scan above, the beautician Candy said that I had dehydrated and sensitive skin (bingo!). So the first order of things was to warn me what NOT to use – mainly products containing AHAs and not to go for laser treatments as those would further dehydrate and irritate my skin.
They definitely have their full skincare range and what I liked about the whole consultation process was that the beautician never once tried to promote or sell any of these to me.
Ok the After photo isn’t quite ‘fair’ because I took this while lying down so that is why my cheeks look a little broader but nonetheless, you can take that my jawline in the ‘after’ photo is a little more V-like. You can also see from the ‘after’ photo that my blackheads were not that thoroughly extracted. There was no steaming from the beginning but Candy placed a cold mask onto my face first before she did the extraction. I wonder whether this affected the blackhead removal process.
Thus, to be fair to Victoria Facelift, I decided to come up with the following pros and cons table:
| Pros | Cons |
|---|---|
| Face is lifted without surgery and is pain-free | Blackheads not thoroughly removed |
| Had A LOT of massages (head, shoulder, neck) | Although the massages were quite strong, she didn’t quite hit the right spots. |
| Skin did feel quite moisturised and was not irritated, even after a day | Whole facial took 2 hours and consultation was 30 min… |
| Clear prices stated on printed brochures instead of the consultant writing random numbers on a piece of paper. No hard selling | Still very expensive. Promo price for a small package of 6 facials is still about $688 before GST. |
As part of my trial, I did receive a small sample kit which contained 3 packets of their V-Lift Collagen Drink, a Cleansing Milk, Toner and Moisturiser. I have yet to try their skincare products but I have tried their collagen. It tastes like the berry flavouring and although they used marine collagen, there was no fishy taste or smell. It didn’t dissolve as thoroughly as I’d like and the berry flavour was not as berry-ish as I would’ve preferred it to be but no loss because I mixed my berry-flavoured lutein supplement (from Kinohimitsu) into it and it tasted berry-licious!
While Candy was trying to promote their packages to me, what she said has kinda made me really think about why we go to facials to begin with. Gone are the days where we go to spas for facials just to have cleaner pores and have more targeted skincare products on our face because we now can easily replicate those at home thanks to products such as Clarisonic and other moisture-intense masks. However, you do have to pay a premium for targeted wants such as trying to remove fats from your jawline or getting a non-surgical facelift. I guess that is what makes the beauty industry interesting and how spas now really have to compete more on their unique selling point rather than be a holistic one-stop shop.
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