Psyched Out

I had my very first ever salon facial today.

Oh.

My.

Word.

I had a stressful day at work. I'd heard that facials are pretty relaxing and I was going for a haircut anyway, so I decided to get one on the spur of the moment. So I left work early with the help of coworkers and checked myself in at Panopoulos Salon. I knew nothing about facials and figured you sat in the chair and had some nice cream put on your face.

I am now regretting my tomboyish ways and bitterly resentful that nobody told me what a facial is REALLY like. Pure bliss, that is. So I'm going to share what actually happens.

I was led to a small dim room with a luxuriously made up bed that was really a cushy massage table. The blanket was velvety and textured over crisp sheets. I changed into a wrap for my top half to allow for shoulder massage. I climbed under the covers and relaxed until the gentle young woman doing the facial knocked and entered. A warm steam blower wafted moist air toward my face as my hands were massaged and placed in warming mitts. Relaxingly schlocky Victorian music played on Celtic instruments quietly set the tone. Fragrant cleansers, toners, deep scrubs with apricot pit or similar emollient (amid other lotions I can't identify) pampered my face in turn, separated by removals done with a steaming washcloth after it had rested on my face soothingly. With every application my tight, tense muscles loosened and softened. Then followed a facial and shoulder massage that must have lasted 20 or 30 minutes. I was a puddle of grateful ectoplasm by the time the final moisturizer went on.

After everything that has been going on, discovering a wholly unimagined pleasure in life came as a joyful surprise. It astonished and deeply affected me. This has cheered me and chased off some of my mounting depression. Ahhh, I needed that!