I got a facial the other day. I know, I know, I totally don’t need one, my skin is perfect, shut up you guys. It was my first ever spa experience, so perhaps I don’t know a lot about the subject, but I’m pretty sure there are some guidelines that need to be followed.
Besides rubbing a layer of dead skin off a person you don’t know, there are many ways to make a facial awkward. If you are an aesthetician (a word I just learned and confused with anesthesiologist), these are the things you should NOT DO:
1. Don’t have stressful improv jazz playing on a boom box in the waiting room.
2. After asking me to change into that strange sack-like garment, wait more than fourteen seconds before reentering the room. I’m not the Tasmanian devil, and need a little more time to change for Lord’s sake. Furthermore, why do I need to change my clothes if you’re going to be smushing my face?
3. Seventeen times is enough times to tell me something. Chances are I will have understood that you think putting on sunscreen is important if you’ve told me only ONE time. Also, seven times is enough to convince me that you’re thirty-nine, and twenty-eight is enough times to tell me that you used to squeeze your zits when you were seventeen. You’ve successfully found the one issue that I cannot stomach and now I am concentrating on not gagging.
4. This is supposed to be a spa-like experience. The people who come to you for this service have not signed up for “Kasey’s Tough Talk Facial.” I don’t enjoy being scolded for using exfoliants or hearing horror stories about skin cancer.
5. This one ought to be a no-brainer, but perhaps no one has officially made it a rule yet. Please don’t use Jaycee Dugard as the model for perfect skin care. She was held captive in a basement for eighteen years, and yes, because she “never went out in the sun” she still has great skin—a very astute observation, but horrifying.
6. Afterwards, while your patient is putting her jewelry back on, don’t see that her necklace is tangled and decide to untangle it for her. This will make her very uncomfortable because a good five minutes can pass, wherein you’ve made the knot considerably larger and somehow dropped all the charms on the floor.
Follow these simple guidelines for happy and relaxed patients. Or else close up shop.
