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You know what they say – beauty is pain.
All Credits: PA
The pressure on women – particularly those in the public eye – to defy the ageing process is intense, so it’s perhaps no surprise people have come up with some pretty wild ways to maintain a bright and youthful complexion.
If a charcoal face mask is the oddest treatment you have tried so far in a bid to turn back time, read on – there are some who go much further in search of wrinkle-free skin.
SEE ALSO: Natural Remedies for a Beautiful Face
We asked advanced aesthetic doctor Preema Vig for her thoughts on some of the strangest-sounding treatments we have come across. Here is what we discovered.
You can easily buy moisturisers and serums containing mucin. They’re available at different price points – there’s the COSRX Advanced Snail 92 All in One Cream £17/AED79.15, from Look Fantastic, or you can have a dedicated facial incorporating the substance (the Escarglow treatment from plastic surgeon Matthew Schulman in New York costs from £230/AED1,070.85).
As the leader of wellness site Goop, the world often looks to Gwyneth Paltrow for the latest health or beauty craze. Back in 2016, she told the New York Times: “I’ve been stung by bees. It’s a thousands of years old treatment called apitherapy. People use it to get rid of inflammation and scarring. It’s actually pretty incredible if you research it. But, man, it’s painful.”
Vig says: “Melittin, the active compound in apitoxin (bee venom), has anti-inflammatory properties and is thought to be able to treat a range of ailments.”
However, apitherapy is not recommended – last year it was reported that a Spanish woman had developed a severe reaction to the treatment, dying a few weeks later of organ failure. Vig adds: “Apitherapy should not be used by those who are highly allergic, as it can cause anaphylactic shock and even stroke.”
The principle is similar to the creepy vampire facial (favoured by Kim Kardashian) where plasma is extracted from your blood and injected back into your face. The result is meant to make you look younger, but it sure is a gory way to get there.
“There are many benefits of utilising platelet-rich plasma (PRP),” explains Vig. “These range from skin improvements to stimulating tissue and or hair growth. This is based on the principle that injecting PRP into damaged tissues will stimulate your body to grow new, healthy cells and promote healing.”
The serum is applied using the microneedling technique which Vig says is “to stimulate regeneration and collagen production”.
More collagen equals plumper skin, so we can’t argue with that.
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