Page 10 - Anna Doxie first new format

Facials, Not Just for Women Anymore

By Louis Becerra

“What the heck is that smell?”

“What smell?”

“That rancid stench – you can’t possibly tell
me that you don’t know what I’m talking about?”
I asked my wife holding my nostrils closed with a
look of disgust.
The smell turned out to be a new formula
prescribed by her esthetician, called P-50, which

is used to exfoliate facial skin. At the time I had
no idea what ‘exfoliating’ meant and certainly
didn’t have the patience to tolerate the odor re-

10 quired to accomplish it.
The routine carried on for several months.
My wife would get ready for bed, undergoing the
half-hour routine preparing for the night and per-
forming various other tasks necessary to help
preserve her youth. And, without fail she would

come out of the bathroom reeking of P-50.

After several months of constantly trying to explain to me what it was she
was using, I finally started listening. She explained to me that ‘exfoliating’
meant removing the dead skin cells from our faces, allowing newer skin
cells to form underneath. Removing the dead cells allows the facial skin to
appear more vibrant and healthy-looking. While washing the face removes
a lot of the dead cells, many stay behind clogging pores with debris and
bacteria. This effect, coupled with sun damage over the years, results in
the formation of noticeable fine lines and wrinkles on the skin which only
get worse over time. That’s when the cosmetic surgeons earn much of their
business. Working in an environment where I was exposed to the sun for
lengthy intervals each day, this information really caught my attention.
My wife urged me to explore the benefits of getting a facial and exfoliating
on a regular basis. But, being a military officer at the time, there was noth-
ing further from what I considered to be “masculine” than getting a facial. I
imagined myself covered in a pink bathrobe with my hair tied up in a towel,
my face covered in a bright green cream mask with cuts of cucumber cover-
ing my eyes, all the while hearing Enya playing in the background.
March/April 2008