I got my last facial in March 2024. It cost $250, before tip, at a medi-spa in Cobble Hill that my dermatologist had recommended. The aesthetician was, by every professional standard, excellent. The facial was, by any objective measure, well-executed. I have not booked another one. I have, in fact, no plans to book another one.

I had been getting facials every month since 2018. The cost was, on average, $120 per facial. The annual cost was, on average, $1,440. The total spend between 2018 and 2024 was, by my estimate, $8,640. The total benefit to my skin was, by every dermatologist I have asked, "marginally more than what your at-home routine was already doing."

Below is the timeline of my facial history. I have changed my mind about several things I used to believe about facials. I have opinions on what to skip. There is a brief history of how the facial went from a $50 spa ritual to a $300 "treatment." And there is, at the end, an honest summary — because anyone who tells you facials are essential has not, in fact, looked at the science.

The timeline

2018 — Monthly facials at a neighborhood spa in Brooklyn, $120 each. I started getting facials when I turned 30 because a friend had told me, "Every woman needs a facial once a month." The first aesthetician was a woman named Maria who worked out of a brownstone on Carroll Street in Cobble Hill. The facials were, by 2018 standards, modest: a cleanser, an exfoliant, an extraction, a mask, a moisturizer, and a steam towel. The total time was sixty minutes. The total cost was $120, before tip. I tipped $25. The total monthly spend was $145.

The first six months were, by every measure, transformative. My skin felt softer. My pores felt smaller. I got fewer breakouts. I attributed all of this to the facials. The facials were, in hindsight, doing maybe 30% of the work. The other 70% was the at-home routine I had started building at the same time — CeraVe cleanser, The Ordinary glycolic acid, La Roche-Posay moisturizer.

2020 — The COVID break. The spa closed in March 2020. Facials were, for the next six months, impossible. My skin, in those six months, did not get worse, get better, or change in any way I could detect on a Tuesday morning in Brooklyn. The facials I had been paying $145 per month for were, in hindsight, contributing approximately zero to my skin's day-to-day appearance. The reason, my dermatologist explained later, is that facials — like massage, like acupuncture — work primarily through ritual, stress reduction, and placebo effect. The skin benefits are, by every dermatologist I have spoken to, modest. The facial was, in 2020, a $145-per-month meditation class that happened to involve my face.

2022 — The Koreatown facial, $185. I tried getting a facial again in May 2022, this time at a Korean spa in K-Town. The Korean facial was, by every measure, a different product. It included a sheet mask, a vampire facial-style infusion, a "collagen" mask, and a UV light treatment. The total time was ninety minutes. The total cost was $185. The aesthetician was, in the words of my partner, "intimidatingly thorough." The Korean facial was, on the surface, more effective than the 2018 facial. My skin, after the treatment, glowed. The glow lasted, by my estimate, four days. The glow was, by every dermatologist I have spoken to, "the post-procedure inflammation." The $185 was, in the end, $185 for a glow that lasted less than a week.

2024 — The European facial, $250. I got my last facial in March 2024 at a medi-spa in Cobble Hill, at the recommendation of my dermatologist. The medi-spa facial included a cleanser, a chemical peel, an LED light treatment, an extraction, a "lymphatic drainage" massage, a sheet mask, and a final layer of moisturizer. The total time was seventy-five minutes. The total cost was $250.

The aesthetician was, by every measure, excellent. The medi-spa was, by every measure, professional. The facial was, by any honest account, well-executed. The facial was also, by my honest account, the one that made me realize I was done. The reason was not the quality. The reason was the math. I had been paying $1,440 per year, every year since 2018, for a treatment that was, by every dermatologist I have asked, doing maybe 10% of the work. The at-home routine — which cost $240 per year — was doing 90%.

I have not booked another facial since. The medi-spa has emailed me twice to remind me about their "facial of the month" promotions. I have not replied. The reminder emails are, in my inbox, the modern-day equivalent of the Columbia House CD club.

What I have changed my mind about

A few beliefs I held in 2018, that the last six years have quietly killed.

I used to think facials were essential. The aesthetician who did my first facial told me, "You need this every month." The dermatologist I saw in 2019 told me, "You don't need this, but it won't hurt." The dermatologist I saw in 2024 told me, "You can stop any time you want." The skincare industry has, by my standard, sold a generation on the idea that facials are a baseline requirement. They are not. The at-home routine I built for $240 is, by every measurement that matters, as effective as the $1,440 annual facial spend.

I used to think the aesthetician knew more than I did. Maria, my first aesthetician, knew more than I did. The aesthetician at the Korean spa knew more than I did. The aesthetician at the 2024 medi-spa knew more than I did. The aesthetician's expertise was real. The expertise was also, however, applicable only to the room she was working in. The expertise did not transfer to my bathroom. The at-home routine I built was, in fact, more customized to my skin than any facial could be.

I used to think extraction was necessary. Extraction — the manual squeezing of blackheads and whiteheads — is, by every dermatologist I have asked, "mostly fine, mostly useless, occasionally harmful." The blackheads I had extracted in 2018-2024 came back within two weeks. The blackheads I have now are, by every measurement, less visible. The at-home use of salicylic acid has, in the last two years, kept the blackheads at bay better than any facial ever did.

I used to think the post-facial glow was real. The post-facial glow is, by every dermatologist I have asked, "the skin recovering from the procedure." The procedure — exfoliation, extraction, massage, mask — traumatizes the skin. The skin responds with temporary plumping and evenness. The glow is, in the words of one dermatologist, "your skin saying 'what just happened to me.'" The glow is not, by any scientific measure, evidence of long-term benefit.

I used to think facialists were skincare experts. The aesthetician at the 2024 medi-spa asked me what skincare I was using. I told her: CeraVe cleanser, The Ordinary glycolic, La Roche-Posay fluide, Differin, Beauty of Joseon sunscreen. She said, "That's a good routine." She then recommended, during the facial, that I add a $90 Drunk Elephant serum and a $65 Tatcha moisturizer. The $155 worth of products she recommended was, by every dermatologist I have asked, redundant with what I was already using. The facialist was not, in other words, a skincare expert. The facialist was, like most facialists, a salesperson with a treatment room.

I used to think facials were self-care. Self-care, by every measure, is the thing that makes you feel better. Facials made me feel better for about a week after each one. The skin benefits are, by every dermatologist I have asked, modest. The $1,440-per-year spend was, in my honest accounting, paying for a feeling that lasted seven days a month. The at-home routine that replaces it costs $240 per year and produces a feeling that lasts every day.

What to skip when "investing in facial care"

If I were advising a friend who was considering starting facials in 2026, I would tell them to skip these categories entirely at the start.

The monthly membership. Most medi-spas, in 2026, sell facial memberships: $100 to $200 per month for one facial per month. The membership is, by every aesthetician I have asked, the most profitable product they sell. The membership locks you in and makes you feel like you're getting a deal. It is, in most cases, a commitment to spend money on a treatment you can do for yourself at home.

The "lymphatic drainage" add-on. Lymphatic drainage massage is, by every dermatologist I have asked, "a thing that exists, but not in the way it's marketed." The face does not have a meaningful lymphatic system that benefits from manual massage. The "de-puffing" effect is, in most cases, the pressure of the massage temporarily moving fluid. The fluid comes back the next morning. The $30 add-on is, by my standard, the most overpriced line item on most facial menus.

The LED light treatment. LED light therapy is, by every dermatologist I have asked, "a legitimate treatment for certain skin conditions, and a $50 add-on for everything else." The LED device used in most facials is, by my standard, the same wavelength sold as a $400 at-home device (CurrentBody, Dr. Dennis Gross). The at-home device, used four nights a week, does, by every clinical study, as much for collagen production as the in-spa version does once a month. Skip the in-spa version. Buy the at-home device if you want real benefit.

The "hydrating" sheet mask. The sheet mask in most facials is, by every dermatologist I have asked, "a piece of cotton with $0.20 of serum on it." The serum absorbs in fifteen minutes. The hydration is temporary. The sheet mask is, in most cases, the same $3 mask you can buy at Sephora. Skip the in-spa version. Use the $3 version at home.

The post-facial skincare "recommendations." Every facial I have ever gotten ended with a 30-second pitch for products. The products were, in every case, the products the spa was contracted to sell. The products were, in most cases, not the products my skin actually needed. The dermatologist I saw in 2024 told me, when I asked about the recommendations, "Ignore all of them. The aesthetician is paid on commission." Skip the recommendations.

The "vampire facial" or PRP. Platelet-rich plasma facials are, by every dermatologist I have asked, "a real medical procedure with real benefits, but not from a medi-spa." The PRP facials offered at medi-spas are, in most cases, performed by aestheticians with no medical training. The centrifuge used is, in most cases, a $400 Amazon piece of equipment. The benefits are placebo. The risk of infection is real. Skip the PRP. If you want PRP, see a board-certified dermatologist.

The extraction-heavy facial. Extractions that take more than ten minutes of a facial are, by every dermatologist I have asked, "overkill that damages the skin barrier." The blackheads come back. The pores do not actually shrink. The inflammation caused by extraction is, by my standard, the opposite of what the skin needs. Skip the extraction-heavy facial. Book the hydrating facial if you must book one.

A brief history

The facial is, by every measure, an ancient ritual. The first recorded facial treatments were, by most accounts, performed in ancient Egypt around 3000 BCE, where Cleopatra was, by historical record, a fan of milk baths. The Roman Empire had its own version of the facial — the balnea were public bath houses where Romans paid for full-body treatments including skin care.

The modern facial, however, is a 20th-century invention. The first American "facials" as we know them were, by most accounts, offered in New York City department stores in the 1920s, when Estée Lauder (then a saleswoman at the S. Klein department store) began offering in-store beauty treatments to her customers. The treatments were, in 1920s dollars, $5 to $10. The treatments included cleansing, massaging, and moisturizing.

The mid-century facial was modest. Most were, by my mother's recollection (she was a 13-year-old in suburban Pittsburgh in 1965), "something you got on vacation, not something you did every month." The facials were $50 to $75. The treatments lasted 30 minutes.

The modern facial industry — the one that sells $300 medi-spa treatments and $90 sheet masks — was, in large part, built by three things: the rise of the Korean skincare wave (2010s), the Instagram-fication of the spa industry (2014-onward), and the post-pandemic "self-care" movement (2020-2023). Each of these added, by every measure, real access to facials. Each of them also added real cost.

The 2020s facial is, by some measures, in retreat. The "facial fatigue" backlash of 2023-2024, the rise of at-home alternatives (CurrentBody LED, Dr. Dennis Gross peel pads, The Ordinary glycolic acid), and the migration of aesthetician culture to TikTok have, by every measure, given consumers more information about what facials actually do. The at-home alternatives cost, on average, 90% less per use. The information is, by my standard, the reason I stopped.

The honest summary

A facial is, in the end, three things: a cleanser, an exfoliant, and a moisturizer. Everything else is, by my dermatologist's standard, "an excuse." The $240 at-home routine does, by every measurement that matters, as much for my skin as the $1,440 annual facial spend.

What works for me: a cleanser that does not strip, a chemical exfoliant used once a week, a retinoid used once a week, and a moisturizer used every other night. The routine takes, by my standard, four minutes a night. The facial I replaced it with was $1,440 per year. The replacement is $240 per year.

What does not work for me, and may not work for you: the idea that facials are essential skincare. The industry has sold a generation of women on the idea that facials are a baseline requirement. They are not. The at-home routine you can build yourself does, by every clinical study, 90% of what the facial does. The facial is, in most cases, not worth the $1,200 difference.

Six years in, my skin is better than it was when I started. I have spent, in those six years, approximately $8,640 on facials. I have also spent approximately $1,440 on at-home skincare. The at-home skincare did more than the facials. The math is, by any honest accounting, embarrassing. The math is also, in the end, the only thing that matters.