Ms. Czech, an esthetician trained in facial massage from Eastern Europe, compares the skin to a dough that can be kneaded, molded and manipulated manually. Her experience proved prophetic; She has worked on the faces of Kim Kardashian, Hailey Bieber and Jennifer Aniston and, in March, she will open a third spa in Los Angeles. (The other two are in New York and Dallas).
Ms. Greene, founder of Crystal Greene Studio in SoHo, practices a similar approach. The Sculpture, a manual facial priced at $525 for 60 minutes, makes up nearly 85 percent of her treatments, she said. In February she will introduce an upgraded version: 90 minutes of manual, microcurrent and oral massage, in which she enters the inside of your mouth to help sculpt your jawline. It will cost $750.
People may be more aware these days, but social media, where Instagram and TikTok are overnight trends, remains the most powerful manipulator of beauty standards. The “new face” could be seen as a backlash to the cyborgian “Instagram face” that has dominated our feeds in recent years.
“Driven and full of energy,” Pol described the aesthetic that he said is old-fashioned.
Pol, a former makeup artist, is the founder of Beauty Sandwich, the name of a radiofrequency-focused facial treatment that costs $1,600 ($1,800 for the first session) with, he said, a year-long waiting list, and a treatment for fur. -care that sells a Secret Sauce, $295, and a Snatching Sauce, $250. The products are not serums, Pol said, but rather a “new category of skin care: a sauce.” (If one had to guess, “whey” would probably still be the correct classification.)
Last summer, Tea Hacic-Vlahovic, a novelist and podcaster, tried a FaceGym “workout,” as she calls her facials. Halfway through, her facialist showed him the half of the face she had treated.
“It was a big difference,” Hacic-Vlahovic said. “Half my face looked like I had a facelift.” The uprising lasted a few days, he said.
