Is the Acufacial the Ultimate Pre-Party Beauty Trick?

This past Tuesday, I found myself lying on my back in a Union Square healing center with nearly two dozen needles in my face. It was a remarkable experience for a number of reasons. Mostly because I am terrified of needles. To get my blood drawn, or even my ears pierced, I require the kind of coddling and hand-holding usually reserved for toddlers. So how exactly did I end up volunteering to become a human pincushion? With the Met Gala just weeks away, I’ve narrowed my focus to getting my complexion in prime glowing order, and research has told me that, in addition to giving me the kind of temporary facelift usually provided by lymphatic drainage facials and microcurrent machines, an acupuncture facial (otherwise known as an acufacial) would also fine-tune my emotional and physical state. In other words, in a mere eighty minutes, I would be getting an appointment with a therapist, doctor, and aesthetician all in one. And for that kind of time-saving, I would endure almost any form of torture.

So, at the recommendation of an editor friend, I booked an evening acufacial with NYC-based acupuncturist Soo-Mi Hwang. Borrowing from the traditional Chinese medicine technique that’s used for treating everything from osteoarthritis to back pain and stress, the skin treatment targets acupoints to stimulate the body’s regenerative process. I arrived early in hopes of calming my nerves before going under the needles. Instead, after being asked to remove my shoes, I was just as swiftly handed an informational packet that was more thorough than my 2014 taxes. Inquiring about everything from my family’s medical history, to my mental health and my dietary inclinations, the form was meant to create a 360-degree view of my hopes, fears, pores, organs, and 4:00 p.m. sugar cravings.

 

 

Why? Hwang explained that my face and skin are essentially mirrors of everything happening inside my body and mind. After setting to work painlessly placing hair-thin pins along my frown lines, my temples, jaw, and on my head, Hwang addressed the blockages in my body, referring to a kind of damming of my energy meridians. “Your stomach is very tight—that’s not a good thing,” she informed me, before putting a pin into each of my purlicues (the skin between the thumb and the index finger), which caused a brief charley horse in my hands, then released tension in my whole body and made me feel a little light-headed. “See?” said Hwang, “That’s your stomach. You hold too much stress there.”

She also placed needles in my shins (“For your chi,” she said), and one on the top of my head. Almost instantly, I felt energized. Before I knew it, the needles were removed, and Hwang was painting a skin-tightening herbal mask onto my face (“secret family recipe,” she told me when I inquired about its contents). After what felt like seconds but was actually twenty minutes, she washed it off and performed a circulation-stimulating massage, including a vigorous rubdown of the knots in my jaw and along the base of my skull.

As promised, I emerged from her studio with a radiant complexion—as well as feeling more relaxed, and with much more energy than when I arrived. In the days that followed, my sleep was sounder, and I was surprised by how loose and lucid my body felt. If that’s not the ultimate pre-party appointment, I don’t know what is. And one thing is for certain: I’ll be booking another for the morning of the Met Gala.

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