Words by Sarah Tarca and Sherine Youssef
Party prep.
Sarah Tarca and Sherine Youssef are Australian beauty editors and the founders ofGloss Etc, a weekly newsletter dedicated to the best beauty reviews, news and tips.
Welcome to party szn! It’s glitzy, it’s fun and it’s fuelled by bubbles and stress in equal measure. Those last two, especially in combination, can cause your skin to come off the rails, which is why tweaking your routine to include skin treatments before a big event (like a summer wedding) is an excellent idea.
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The common goal? Clear, glowing skin that looks snatched in photos and makes you feel better than any foundation ever could. And while it’s possible to achieve a level of this with at-home DIY methods, unless you have endless time and the dedication of a nun, you’re probably not going to get the same results. Sorry.
We know in-clinic treatments aren’t often friendly with savings accounts but having expensive-looking skin does require, well, some expense. Our job is to ensure your money is well spent. As beauty editors, we’ve tried it all and that’s why we’re sharing exactly what skin treatments to do before a big event to give you the best skin for your buck. Depending how much time you have on your hands, here’s what we recommend.
Six month prep
Dermalogica Melanpro Peel System Treatment
If you have the lead time, try this two-pronged approach to tackle an uneven skin tone. The first step is a 60 minute in-salon Intensive Peeling Masque with professional-strength acids (azelaic, salicylic and tranexamic) plus a brightening peptide, supplemented by a six-week at-home application of their Continuous Resurfacing Cream, which features retinol and another acid cocktail. It’s Dermalogica’s take on Cosmelan and at $750 per treatment, it does a decent job fading dark spots and pigmentation. You’ll also get a nice side benefit of skin smoothing, from all of those exfoliating acids. Would you like a visual ref? Here’s Sherine’s before-and-after:
The week before
Rationale The EpiNova Brilliance Facial
I get asked the same thing about Rationale products at least once a week: Are they worth it? I’m very sorry to tell you that they 100 per cent are worth every cent. If it wasn’t my job to be professionally disloyal to products, I would likely just be on this. Anyway, for anyone Rationale-curious I always tell them to first go get a facial there and you can see the products in action. At $340 it is on the pricier side but it’s also 90 minutes of heaven (exfoliation, facial massage, LED therapy), plus you leave with the kind of skin you can eat off and will still be glowing a week later. – Sarah
The day before
Goop Beauty GoopGlow Microderm Instant Glow Exfoliator
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I’m neutral on Gwynnie but I have strong feelings about this product: it’s excellent. The Goop Glow Microderm Instant Glow Exfoliator is designed to mimic an in-office microdermabrasion, with an air-whipped formula that combines two types of exfoliation; physical (micro-exfoliating minerals) and chemical (glycolic acid) to buff away dead skin cells. A word of warning, this baby is active. My skin is generally resilient and even I felt the tingles. The day before an event — never, ever exfoliate the day of — I smear this on, leave it for slightly longer than the recommended three minutes and when I rinse, my skin feels smooth and soft, and looks brighter. Is it worth two hundred bucks? I think it is. – Sherine
LED Light Therapy
Look, in an ideal world you’d be getting these fortnightly or weekly in the lead up the The Big Event. But we don’t all have a Kardashian budget, so if you’re just going to do the one, do it as close to the event as possible. Bang-for-buck I still think LED is one of the skin treatments I see the biggest and longest-lasting results with.
There are different types of LED therapy that use different wavelengths to target specific skin concerns. Blue light is for acne, which is great if you’re prone to stress-induced breakouts, but if you’re after skin oomph before the day, go for the red or yellow (infrared) light to stimulate collagen production, blood flow and repair — all of which give you brighter, plumper, firmer pre-event skin. Clear Skin Clinics and Laser Clinics Australia often bundle great LED packages together to make them more affordable. And before you ask, yes, at-home LED face masks work (I like Omnilux and Qure) but you have to be consistent (three to four times a week) otherwise you won’t see the results, or your investment. – Sarah
The day of
FaceGym Clean and Lift Face Workout
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This 55 minute service spotlights FaceGym’s signature “muscle manipulation techniques,” which in real-world speak, means facial massage. A lot of facial massage. All that kneading, rolling, pinching and pressing, plus an infusion of concentrated skincare ingredients and a session with an EMS (electrical muscle stimulation) device, gets the blood and oxygen flowing.
At $240 it’s not cheap but as for the results you can expect? Eyes that look brighter and less bleary, maybe a rediscovered cheekbone or jawline, and an overall more ‘lifted’ appearance. There is zero downtime or redness, so you could feasibly do this, slap on some makeup and sashay into your event, no worries. – Sherine
Go-To Transformazing Sheet Mask, $11
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Of the roughly 300 or so sheet masks I have tried in my time, this remains the unrivalled winner of pre-event masking. Right before an event you really want two things for your skin: brightness and hydration. This serves both in spades. For brightness, there’s niaciniamide plus Kakadu plum with insane levels of vitamin C and finger lime for gentle exfoliation, while a host of hydrators make sure you get that plumpy, dewy look. Now, you’d think with all that juicy goodness it’ll be a disaster to put makeup on afterwards, but you’d be wrong. Instead it creates the most delicious, luminous base. Hungover or puffy? Chuck her in the fridge beforehand. – Sarah
DIY prep
Embryolisse Lait-Crème Concentré Moisturiserand Priceline Rose Quartz Gua Sha
Look, we love a spa facial moment (who doesn’t?) but we’re also aware of the rising cost of living. If you’re on a budget, you can easily DIY a facial massage and we recommend making this a regular part of your at-home routine, not just before an event. Whenever we’ve had our makeup done professionally, the artist always starts by applying this cult moisturiser and a quick facial massage to set the skin up for optimal makeup application. So apply Embryolisse all over your (clean) face and down your neck and décolletage, then grab a gua sha tool and follow along to this very easy gua sha tutorialfrom one of my favourite facialists, Diandra Politano. – Sherine
For what to do to your skin after an event, head here.
