Treatments We Love: Su-Man Advanced Awakening Oxygen Facial
Sarah reports the results of a new offering from legendary therapist Su-Man, based at the W Hotel London Away Spa
If you want to know what truly luminous skin looks like, start saving your pennies (well, pounds…) for this face transforming treatment with the quite extraordinarily talented therapist Su-Man Hsu - known worldwide as Su-Man.
In all my decades as a beauty editor, I have never seen my skin glow like this, as if it’s lit from within by a 1000 watt bulb. And it’s not a one-day wonder; the switch is still on seven days later and shows little sign of dimming.
It’s not just the radiance but oh Hallelujah! the visible lift – as Su-Man pronounced delightedly, I looked at least two decades younger as I left – plus the even balanced tone and smooth, soft, supple tissue. Like the glow, this has all stayed with me.
For five years, this Taiwan-born legend was the personal facialist of Juliette Binoche, which is a testament in its own right if you’re a fan of the French star, as I have been for years. Su-Man’s treatments draw on Asian practise and techniques including shiatsu. Her first move is to press her thumb very firmly into the centre of my chest and then work up décolleté and neck to my face, explaining that it’s no good working on that until she has opened up the area below.
This is definitely not the sort of facial where you waft off to sleep… There’s a lot of blissfully vigorous deep massage on bosom, shoulders, upper back, neck, scalp as well as ears (felt rather like rub-a-dub-dubbing laundry) and, of course, face. Plus, perhaps surprisingly, all across your tummy with sweeping curved movements that take in the sides of your body too.
The Advanced Awakening Oxygen Facial is a new addition to Su-Man’s range of super-effective offerings. The description on the Away Spa site explains, ‘This advanced facial includes deep-cleansing, extraction, sculpting massage, followed-by infused oxygen to awaken your skin with visible results’. The oxygen machine whooshes it on and into your skin like a healing and rejuvenating zephyr – the effect is powerful but the sensation is more like a caress.
Exfoliation is a staple of Su-Man’s treatment using her own oil-based (Exfoliating Facial Polish), which sounds rather like a fruit salad as she reels off the ingredients. Do I exfoliate regularly, she asks as she inspects my complexion. (‘Because you should’ is implicit…) When I mention that I sometimes use peeling pads, there’s a sort of elegant harumph. (Su-Man is exquisitely elegant in person, as you can see above.) She avoids any peel that might distress the skin and impair the all-important barrier, she explains. Her gentle physical peel, which has won multiple awards, can be used two or three times a week even on skin like mine ie dry, sensitive, older…. The excellent products she uses are all her own formulations, by the way.
After the 75-minute treatment, I sit up and Su-Man gives me a hand mirror. This is sometimes - actually quite often - a moment when my hopes for the results of a facial are, at best, partially fulfilled. But not this time.
As Su-Man counts down the decades that have melted away under her hands, I am truly astonished that my face can look so – the only word is - rejuvenated. Much younger, healthier, brighter and prettier by far. I was bustled off to a Dressing Room to change and put on a smidgeon of make-up before going out to lunch. I emerged feeling that, like Juliette Binoche in an episode of the must-watch French series, I too might be calling my agent…
Su-Man Advanced Awakening Oxygen Facial, 75-minute treatment /£300 - find out more here
AWAY Spa, W Hotel, Covent Garden, London, awayspalondon.com
