Booked your summer holiday and feeling panicked about the state of your derrière? You need a booty facial, says Fiona Adams
I’m going to have to beg your forgiveness. For I am basking in a smug glow, the reason for which I feel compelled to share. I am not one to boast (usually), but I have such a feeling of self-satisfaction that I simply cannot keep it to myself. Last month, having agreed to experience a ‘booty facial’ (yes, basically a beauty boosting treatment for your bum), I discovered that the months – nay years – of squats, lunges and other exercises with which I have tortured my gluteous maximus muscles have finally paid off. For when I dropped my jeans for therapist Sue Kauldhar at Ace Aesthetics in Richmond, enabling her to inspect my posterior, she uttered a magic phrase that has been buzzing happily around my head ever since. “Well, you haven’t given me much to work with,” she sighed. “You’ve good muscle tone, no cellulite and no dimples.” If I hadn’t had to write my review, I could have died and gone to heaven – or at least done a little jig around the room (easier said than done with your trousers round your ankles). For a few blissful moments it was all peachy perfection, until Sue snapped me back to reality. “Actually,” she reflected, “your buttocks could do with a bit of a lift.” Sagging buttocks? Reader, I was on that bed faster than Usain Bolt out of the blocks, all doubts about the treatment gone. If Sue could offer me a perkier and smoother derriere, I wasn’t going to stand there and argue.
The booty facial is best experienced over six sessions, at intervals of two weeks. In addition to administering microdermabrasion or a chemical peel to improve tone, texture and help reduce spots, Sue also includes sessions of Accent Your Body, a process that uses targeted heat therapy to help shape and contouring, as well as reduce cellulite.. Top that off with skin lightening and Soprano laser hair removal, if required, and you should have a beach bum to be proud of. Sue suggested that I try the mircrodermabrasion to exfoliate dead skin, and then a session of Accent to begin the process of lifting my gravity-loving butt cheeks. The exfoliation was quite intense – it felt like being scratched repeatedly – while the Accent was rhythmic, relaxing and warm. Afterwards the improved smoothness was very apparent. As for the shape, it certainly felt all right, but with Accent a cumulative effect over three to six sessions is more noticeable and lasting. Hair removal must also be completed over several appointments.
With more than 12 years’ experience in the industry, Sue has recently relocated her Kensington business to Richmond and is fully equipped to advise honestly on what her clients require. “No one treatment is going to transform you,” she says. “Diet and exercise are also key.” To all you wannabe Kim Kardashians, I should point out that the booty facial doesn’t promise an increase in size. If you’re looking for a bum that would put Brazil in the shade, this is not for you. Think of it instead as a sort of service for your behind; an MOT of bootiliciousness for a part of the body that rarely sees the light of day – yet occupies our subconscious for large chunks of time. You can certainly buff up your bum for summer, but -smug face – nothing beats regular lunges and squats.
1 session: £300; 3 sessions: £750; 6 sessions: £1200. aceaesthetics.co.uk