Do you wash your face after going for a facial?
I was asked this very interesting question once, and I’d kept it at the back of my head ever since; curious about what the majority of people think.
I go for facials as often as I can but while I was more adventurous before in my relative youth, I am now much more cautious about choosing a facial salon, which will be a story for another day 😉 For now, I’m curious to know if you do or do not wash your face after going for a facial. And I’m sure you’re wondering what I think about this too 🙂
The general opinion is that you shouldn’t, since you have just had your face pampered and massaged and cleaned and moisturised for over an hour with products that are usually a little more concentrated in active ingredients than the ones you use at home. If you wash your face after your facial, you’d have to re-apply your skincare and it just isn’t as effective, or so they say.
So, being a detractor, I have to say that I do wash my face after going for a facial.
Yes, it does seem like I’m undoing all the hard work put in by the facial therapist and wasting the products slathered on my skin, but it is for this latter reason that I wash my face.
Quite often, I find that during a facial, they apply product more generously than I would at home. I’m no stranger to layering multiple products, but I apply them in thin layers, using little product. During a facial, I find that products are applied generously on skin and often, after I’m done, although I feel relaxed and my skin looks lovely and fresh and glowing, it feels heavy. It’s not surprising, since there is so much product applied on it, before you leave the salon.
Another reason is because I may not go straight home and straight to bed after going for a facial. Sometimes, my facial is in the middle of the day and then I go out, or do stuff or exercise, that may involve me sweating, and it would be quite awful not to wash your face then right?
What I do is wash my face while I’m having my evening shower, washing away the grime of the day. I don’t do a deep cleanse face wash of course, since I never reapply makeup after a facial, but I do use a regular face wash as a one time cleanse.
After that, I do apply my regular skincare but using less products so I usually do a simple wash-tone-moisturise routine as my evening skincare routine on facial days. I figure that my skin has already absorbed the products from the facial, and I just need to keep the basics to keep my skin feeling comfortable. So far, so good 🙂
Do you wash your face after going for a facial? If you do, why do you do it and if you don’t, why not?
I tried not washing my face before, but it was just too uncomfortable for me as I like a nice fresh feeling to my skin before bed, so that’s the other reason I wash my face despite already having a facial. I figure that if I put back some of the hydration and moisture, I’m not over doing it. There’s no right or wrong way to do it, but I am curious what you do 😀
Paris B
Tine says
I have to mainly because facials usually means that I have heaps of layers of product on my face. Even though it’s good skincare products, after a while, my skin gets very greasy. No choice, have to wash ’em all off even though I paid to have them there. 😛
Paris B says
I know! I thought I was being silly the first time, but then I figured, my personal comfort was paramount and there’s no way I could have gone to bed with all those layers of products on my skin. Yeech!
Philippe says
ALWAYS!
No matter how deep the cleansed my pores and scrubbed the living hell out of it.. I need to know my skin won’t go crazy and it needs products it knows.
Not to mention that all that squeezing and exfoliating is bad.. 🙂
Paris B says
Ah that’s what I had in mind too. After all the pampering, my skin wants to go to bed with something familiar and that’s where that face wash comes in 😀
Arra J. says
I was also curious if other people wash their faces after getting a facial. The derma clinic that I frequent always advise me to wash my face the next morning. But I still wash my face at the end of the day because I have a combination skin type. I wait for at least 8 hours, and makes sure that I have oil control sheet/blotting paper with me. In my case, not washing would lead to new pimples popping out because of the grime and dirt I accumulated throughout the day. 🙂
Sarah says
Glad I found your site, despite the fact that the last post appears to be sometime in 2014, it was really helpful reading this.
I found myself here after searching whether sticky skin was normal after a facial treatment. Luckily I have had fairly okay skin as an adult but in November 2019 I found myself booking in for a treatment, more for a bit of a pamper and because I thought it’s what we should be doing in our 30’s.
At the time of the treatment I felt the clinician was using way more product than any normal person would, and I thought to myself – “if they are concentrated products, as they should be at a clinic, why is she using so much?” The result was a face and neck that was dramatically different in colour, with a unbelievable, uncomfortable, residual tackiness and stickiness that has lasted (to date) for two months and two weeks post treatment.
Yes. She told me to not cleanse again until my evening shower so that the product has a chance to really absorb. So it was about 7 hours between my mid morning tx and my evening shower. Since then, I have been washing up to five times a day, applying baby powder for 5 minutes then rinsing it off , using at home clay masks, lemon juice, you name it. All with hopes of absorbing this excess and unnatural amount of moisture and removing this horrible fake tan look. The result is crappier skin than when I first went in.
I also discovered that the colour change (darker, redder colour than my yellow brown Indian complexion) may have been due to an expired Vitamin C product. Apparently, when Vitamin C oxidises it turns into the same chemical ingredient used in self-tanning products. On white skin this may add a nice “glow”, which is what the clinician sold to me, but on brown skin, well it ain’t pretty. So, agree with some of your posts about being aware of expired products.
After reading all these posts it seems that maybe a thorough cleanse post treatment would have helped reduce what I experienced. Thanks for creating this space where we can learn and share from one another and not feel alone in these nightmares!
Paris B says
Hi Sarah, thank you for sharing your experience and gosh! It wasn’t a very pleasant one was it? The blog is still very much alive now in 2020 although this post was written in 2014 and I still welcome sharing on all posts!