Last week I was invited to the opening launch of the Dartford branch of sk:n which happens to be inside the David Lloyd health and fitness club.

Now I don’t know about you but I sometimes feel slightly intimidated by these sorts of places  (anything beauty related really) as I expect everyone in there to be young, beautiful with perfect make up and hair and therefore, I feel uncomfortable walking in with my walking stick for a start, my wild curly hair that has a mind of it’s own and the minimum of make up applied ( sound familiar anyone?) I have come to the conclusion I would make a rubbish footballer’s wife!

This couldn’t have been more different. Yes, I know it was a launch and so people will be welcoming, however there were all sorts of age groups and types of women there to see what was on offer, which instantly made me feel more at ease.

We all had the chance to have a ‘skin scan‘ in a very odd looking contraption that shows up every blemish and trouble area of your facial skin. I can tell you now it’s not for the faint hearted as you think you are looking OK that day, then you pop your head into the scanner for a lovely young assistant to tell you that the scary face looking back at you in the mirror is actually a normal representation of what our skin looks like under the light. For me I had huge dark circles under my eyes ( that to be honest I thought I had done a great job of covering with concealer beforehand) which indicated dehydration- something I suffer badly with due to my ME/CFS however much I try to keep hydrated. This just shows that even when you think you are drinking enough fluids you probably need to drink more. I was glad to be told that I had some bright spots on my cheeks and forehead that were in good condition too so it wasn’t all bad news. Having never done anything like that before I was actually quite surprised at how informative it was.

Next we had the option of watching a lady  have her Botox treatment. I personally have only seen bad press about Botox so I was definitely going in to watch this demonstration. I was pleasantly surprised at firstly, how quick this treatment was ( our volunteer was having it applied to the side of her face around her eyes to combat her so called crows feet) and secondly how small the needle actually was!

Having watched the procedure it was more clear that the tiny needle was going in at such an angle it was literally going just under the skin, our volunteer assured us all that it wasn’t painfull at all although this wasn’t her first experience. The practitioner made 4-5 insertions on each side and told us that you would be able to see a difference within a few days but by 2 weeks it should have fully taken effect and they offer a free filler session if it wasn’t enough, which I though was more reassuring than just having it all put in and maybe go overboard unnecessarily.

Next was a demonstration of the Glycolic Peel treatment that they had offered free to everyone that attended the evening, so not having had many facials I was interested to see what I could expect  when I came back for mine. We were talked through the whole thing showing us what exactly what would be done, the application and how long it would take ( just 20-30 minutes) and seeing that it looked quite a relaxing experienced I booked my free treatment before leaving and I am looking forward to that next week.

This isn’t a ‘fluffy facial’ kind of place but rather somewhere that offers treatments for conditions that include, skin peels, microdermabrasions, acne issues, thread veins, skin tag removal, liver spots and even tattoo removal to name but a few. So as you can imagine these treatments do not come cheaply however, on looking through the products on sale  on site and the treatment prices they seem competitive with this market. Most of these have a single treatment or a test treatment price starting at £50 with savings of up to 20% on a 3 treatment course for some things. The products themselves are very competitively priced which I was quite surprised at with vitamin rich cleansers priced at under £17 and Aloe Vera gels at £12 and cold cream lip balms at just £5, although obviously there are more products in the higher price range depending on your needs.

All in all I was so pleased I attended as I think it did help to change my overall perception of how I expected these sort of clinics to be like. The staff were friendly but also very informative and I learned quite a lot about how things can affect your skin but also that there are treatments that can help, I was especially interested in the acne treatment for my teenage sun who seems to suffer quite badly now he has started shaving too. I was also treated to a goody bag with some products to try at home so I will let you know how I get on with them too.

So I will keep you updated with how my glycolic peel goes next week- watch this space……….