My spotty phase entered my life when I was all of eleven years old. It lasted until I was way beyond thirty. All the ‘supposed’ theories – mainly based on ‘it’s supposed to be a teen phase’ – did not apply. Having tried every single unguent, treatment and medication under the sun, it was the contraceptive pill that finally stopped the damn things in their tracks. Then the pill gave me pigmentation. Fabulous. When I was around 13 my mother was given one of those vouchers, which I understand were very hot at the time, for a ‘facial’. In those days, facials, like massive chunks of Cadbury’s Fruit and Nut, were a big new thing for Malta.

 

So off we trotted to this salon in Santa Venera. It was an offshoot of a hair salon where people were getting their hair straightened and bleached at the same time. Scary enough until I saw the ‘beauty’ part of things, a little white hole at the back with a couple of machines on a table and a couch. The beautician – we didn’t call them ‘beauty therapists’ then – inhaled deeply, sighed, shook her head and set about blasting my face with her new steaming machine, burst every single white or black dot she could find and eventually exhausted, dispatched me back to my waiting mother. By the time she was ready I looked like I had come back from war and I had lost.

Since then, facials have changed. Nowadays, they are about pampering not changing hormonal imbalances with violence. Whereas before the beautician was a scary, bitter woman in white, the beauty world’s version of Margaret Thatcher waiting to tut-tut at all your habits, in 2010 they really have become therapists, and the facial a salvo for our stressed out minds.

At least, they are if they are anything like Paulianne. I have a few pet hates when I turn up at the salon and in my old age, I have become extremely demanding. I do not want somebody preaching about my lifestyle or trying to teach me stuff, especially if most probably, I am more well-read than them about anything health and beauty related. In general, I do not want anybody asking me too many questions or chatting throughout the treatment. I do not need a new best friend: just to chill out for a couple of hours.

And when it comes to facials, I have particular pet peeves: I still dread the moment when they come at me with fingers covered in tissue, poised to ‘extract blackheads’, possibly the most horrific term ever coined in the beauty industry. Steam is an absolute no-no because it is an extreme temperature and causes broken capillaries. And I do not, for any reason, want interruptions or to be left alone while the masks act and the therapist grabs a quick coffee, or, horror of horrors a cigarette, which has happened.

So I called Sharon at Le Spa in Mellieha and asked her if these criteria could be met. Sharon is a people person. She used to be at the Transforma reception in Attard and I remember her as always very professional, always courteous and always reliable. From a few days ago, literally, she is managing this surprisingly dark and lovely space under the Maritim Antonine Hotel and Spa. I explained the criteria and she did not seem at all fazed by them.

Sharon assigned Paulianne, a young woman with the firmest and softest hands I’ve come across in years. Paulianne is my dream kind of therapist: after establishing that I was to climb on the couch (ok, simple) and preferably put my bra straps to the side (also simple), she did not say a single word. I loved her already.

As facials go, the Deep Cleanse Detox Facial (not that extraordinarily expensive at €60 considering what was to come and the fact that it lasts 90 minutes) was pretty standard: your face gets a good cleanup, expensive products (in this case Anne Semonin) are mixed with essential oils for a targeted application according to skin type, and your face is touched and massaged. A lot.

That is, essentially, the main difference between this and anything else I’ve ever tried. That, and Paulianne. With the first mask, a thick scrub, applied, left and then rubbed off (the best and gentlest way to do it), I was dreading the moment when Paulianne would say ‘and now I will leave you until the mask sets’ whereupon I would get extremely nervous, peel the eye patches away and become superbly alert, awake and almost want to run out of the room.

But she did not. She applied the mask and got to work immediately on my shoulders, massaging away like I was a couple of kilos of wholemeal dough. Later she massaged my face. When the second mask – a thick gloop which was eventually peeled off, thankfully doing away with the whole ‘wash off’ while you’re lying down’ concept – was applied, she massaged my scalp and then my right arm and then my left.

The very personalised facial, in other words, was not a facial at all, but an incredible massage with some great cleansing treatments thrown in. For once I did not sleep, possibly because I was enjoying it so much and did not want to miss what was going on. When I heard, from my temporary darkness, the ‘tissue wrapped around fingers’ shebang, my heart skipped its second beat, but even this woman’s ‘blackhead extraction’ felt like more massaging. I have no idea how she manages to be so gentle and firm at the same time but I was so relieved I wanted to hug her, which, let’s face it, one just does not do when their face is a bright green.

From my previous chat with Sharon, who has embarked on a ‘let’s spruce this place up’ endeavour, I understand that they are doing whatever the client wants during those dreaded in-the-darkness-with-mask-on moments: some ask for a foot massage, others want a manicure or a pedicure. The point is that they are tailor-making their facials according to what we want.

And that, I’m sure, is a whole lot better than waging war on people’s faces.