When to Go Pro

Fed up of forking out on professional beauty treatments that cost you an arm and a leg but don’t deliver on results? Here’s our guide to what actually works.

- Ingeborg Van Lotringen and Laura Capon

When it comes to professional treatments, we have tried them all in the line of duty. We’ve been stripped to our (paper) pants, forced to listen to ukulele lullabies and been massaged head-to-toe with chocolate (they promised baby-soft skin, we got an allergic reaction). We’ve had our eyelashes painstakingly ‘pinned’ one by one to a curling rod for two hours straight—they said we wouldn’t need to wear mascara again, we got nausea from lying down too long, not to mention eyelashes that never grew back the same. Not forgetting the time we laid on a fake beach (read: sandpit) in the middle of England, in the middle of winter, while inhaling essential oils in a bid to help seasonal affective disorder. It’s fair to say that not all beauty treatments are created equal, so before you pay a bomb to listen to a YouTube compilation of Tibetan panpipes, here’s our round-up of the professional treatments that really work, and will transform your skin, hair, nails, body and mind.

YOU WANT: Clear Skin

YOU NEED: HydraFacial

When it comes to spots and blackheads, a lot of salons still recommend microdermabrasion facials—an abrasive peeling treatment that works for very congested, oily or scarred skin. But here’s the thing: the technology is dated (it’s been around since the ’90s), and not only can it lead to inflammation and broken veins on dry skin, but like any gritty scrub, it should never be used on active acne, as it will only exacerbate matters. This is why we recommend booking a HydraFacial instead: it hoovers out pores with a suction tool (grim, but