Skin laundry3/24/2023 ![]() It was like someone had taken an airbrush to my face. More importantly, my skin was so, so smooth. Now, they weren’t gone, but they were seriously diminished. I came to Skin Laundry with some redness after popping a zit or two. Taking off the goggles, I felt a bit stunned (that's what being blasted by lasers and flashing bright lights can do to you, I guess) but managed to stumble over to a mirror and check out my reflection. After they wipe the gel off, check to make sure your skin looks OK, and you’re ready to go. The purpose of the light is to work on the top layer of skin, reducing inflammation and redness, smoothing out broken capillaries, and generally polishing the surface. Then, they flash the (shockingly bright) IPL light at your face over and over (my eyes were protected by goggles). Yum.Īfter they’ve run the laser over your face twice, a cool gel is applied, which feels amazing. It also creates a kind of gross burning smell-that's the scent of your skin’s dirt and impurities getting scorched. It feels slightly hot and gives you a sensation of being shocked that I would call mildly uncomfortable but not at all painful. It penetrates about 2.5 millimeters below the surface of your skin, to the dermis, breaking up pigment, reducing oil gland size, vaporizing dirt, and stimulating collagen production. Turns out, it’s a traditional laser that has been turned way down, so that the effect is more mild. If you pass that test, they verbally go over everything with you again and finally have a doctor come in to check out your skin and make sure you’re good-to-go before a trained nurse starts the procedure.įirst comes that mysterious YAG laser. For an anxious customer like me, I appreciated that Skin Laundry’s initial sign-up process involves an entire host of forms about your skin type, medical history, medications, and other questions to alert them to any contraindications. Next thing I knew, I was filling out my medical history and hopping up onto a treatment table. After a few years, she wasn't using any expensive products anymore. It was a treatment she could do more regularly, and it was the only thing that consistently kept her face in good shape. Then, she discovered a gentler treatment, which is what Skin Laundry is now based on. She would know-Reis lived in Asia for 10 years, and after giving birth to her third child, she developed some less-than-pleasant hormonal acne problems, so she started experimenting with lasers, acid peels, and every other cosmetic treatment that Asia had to offer (the options are endless). “Traditional laser procedures are painful, they’re expensive, they’re super invasive, and they usually involve at least several days of recovery time,” she said. She's the most effective marketing strategy the brand has, in my opinion.Īs it turns out, Reis actually agrees with me when it comes to a fear of laser treatments. She wears no makeup and doesn’t look a day over 25 (I later learned that she is nearly 40 and has three kids). Though nonexistent pores and perfectly smooth skin sound like a dream come true, I was still pretty wary of having a Star Wars-style laser anywhere near my skin, so I sat down with Skin Laundry founder Yen Reis to talk it all through. A bad face moisturizer can be washed off, a messed-up manicure can be removed, but a botched Botox job? That’s the stuff of beauty nightmares. It’s not that I’m questioning the efficacy of these hardcore treatments-it’s just that I’m terrified of them. The signature service combines a YAG laser (that's yttrium-aluminum-garnet) followed by an IPL light (no, I didn’t know what these were when I walked in either), which basically work together to get deep into your skin, vaporizing dirt and bacteria, and smoothing pores to give you a fresh-as-a-baby’s-bottom face.Īt this point, I feel compelled to say that while I’ll try a lot of treatments and procedures at least one in the name of reporting, if you take out a needle or point a laser at me, I’m running straight for the hills. Referred to as the Drybar of facials (ironically, its Manhattan location is actually directly across the street from a Drybar), the center offers one treatment and one treatment only: a two-part laser face “cleaning” that takes a total of 10 minutes. Skin Laundry isn't a run-of-the-mill spa, though. ![]() Buzzy new spa + the sheer factor of proximity = Victoria trying it at least once. ![]() It doesn't help that the formerly LA-only treatment center opened one block away form my apartment. Given that I spend my days writing about beauty, I've been hearing about the recently opened Skin Laundry on a continuous loop for months now.
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