The eyes have it – the top head treatments in London
Caroline Phillips discovers the latest luxury beauty treatments to add some serious sparkle to your face, your peepers and your tresses….
Dr Haus Dermatology
When you meet with Dr Haus, a highly experienced dermatologist — whose looks are a great advert for his own treatments — in his airport-hangar sized Harley Street consulting room in a state-of-the art clinic, you’ll be getting a skin wizard. This charming Brazilian talks you through your teenage or adult acne — as you sip tea from a porcelain teacup — while showing you a plastic model of sebaceous glands. One of the clinic’s tip-top team then uses a combo of novel and advanced laser technologies — the clinic boasts more laser machines than you can shake a stick at — to shrink those pesky glands and address different aspects of acne formation and skin regeneration. There’s one laser to target the deeper skin layers (reducing inflammation and sebaceous glands) and another that enhances overall skin texture. Yet another — the shortest wavelength laser — targets superficial skin layers to address active acne. You’ll finish this excellent treatment course with SRA+, a combo of Intense Pulsed Light and Radio Frequency energy, boosting the top layer of your skin. No one laser wavelength works for everything. But this clinic boasts nearly every laser platform known to mankind. You’ll banish those nasty spots, minimise scarring and promote long-term skin health to boot. If you’ve got acne, look no further.
Joanne Evans
You’ll see the “it” crowd, other fashionistas and people “in the beauty know” in this fashionable-but-homely Holland Park clinic, Skin Matters Studio. And now, hurrah, its founder and doyenne of the facialist world, Joanne Evans, has finally produced a product: Calming Gel, the ultimate skin saviour. It’s a simple combo of highly effective and PH-balanced ingredients — including glycerine from rapeseed oil to panthenol for hydration and Aplaflor anti-inflammatory mallow plant extract. This potion calms redness, blotchiness, and inflamed skin and is oh-so-soothing — like applying honey from the gods. It’s Joanne’s first offering and you can bag a jar from Royal Warrant holders, John Bell & Croyden, the late Queen’s pharmacy of choice. The only thing that’s missing from their shelves is a product range from Joanne. Everyone’s waiting with baited breath.
Skin Matters Calming Gel by Joanne Evans, £65 for 50 ml from www.johnbellcroyden.co.uk
Uspaah
When you’ve worked in a lash bar for seven years and then you become a Sparista (as they call beauty therapists at USPAAH) and you specialise solely in eyelashes, you’re going to be good. Bobbie is that, and more. This mobile lash lady comes to your home or office (without a therapy couch, preferring to work with clients on their sofas) bearing eyelashes in enough variations and thicknesses to open a shop. If you want a subtle addition to your natural look, go for Classic or Natural; or for the full-on dramatic effect, you’ll need a Russian (two lash extensions for each of your own lashes). She’s a whizz hand at applying them, spending just an hour and 15 minutes (plus an extra 15 if you need your previous lashes removed). During her career, she tried a gazillion types of lashes, found the best — Lash Code Pro ones, made of faux mink —and uses them. Opt for the Classic ones and when she leaves, you’ll have unbeatable, natural-looking eyelash extensions.
£111 for a Classic set and £15 for removal of the old lashes, from www.uspaah.com
Karen Betts
Inside her third floor Harley Street consulting rooms, a cushion on a chaise longue reads: “always believe something wonderful is about to happen.” And it is. Karen, a global leader in semi-permanent make-up, does the best eyeliner. After a patch test to check for sensitivity, you’ll answer questionnaires ranging from allergic reactions to “I can confirm that I do not suffer from any physical, mental or medical impairment or disability that may affect my ability to decide whether or not to have a permanent cosmetics procedure” and “I understand that the application of permanent cosmetics pigment may be painful.” After local anaesthetic around your lids (don’t close your eyes, as the fumes will go into them otherwise) Karen,, in petrol-coloured uniform, does her business. Whether you want a classic pencil style, a liquid eyeliner with a dramatic flick, or a sexy and sultry smoky eye — or even a two-toned eyeliner — she’s your woman. As you lie on the therapy couch, Karen expertly sprinkles microscopic dots of pigment through your lower lashes to make them look thicker, then draws lines along the eyelids. The finished result is Greek-goddess-meets-Audrey-Hepburn with lines and colour that are sophisticated and subtle. And she’s great for guyliner, too.
Code8
Don’t bother dragging yourself around shops looking for the perfecto shade of lippie. Because colour genius, Juan López, of new cosmetics brand Code8, can make a bespoke one for you with his colour palette, mixing tray and spatula — in front of your very eyes. (“I use six different pigments in my lipstick — shop-bought ones often have just three or four,” he enthuses.) The hue’s so you, how can you not love it? And you can double it with lipliner for a seasonal change. Before you leave, you’ll give your new-born lippie a name and Juan even hands you a birth certificate for your “baby.” You’ll leave Burlington Arcade as a new you. One with your very own shade of lippie.
Bespoke lipstick £80 including the consultation, with refills £45, from www.codeeight.com.
Dr Haus Facial
If you haven’t been getting enough zzzz or are dehydrated, your skin may be dull and tired. Book Anika — with her ready smile and blue clinician’s overalls — for this award-wining facial that uniquely mixes strong botanical ingredients with the latest technology. All done in a 2001 Space Odyssey-style white space pod of a consulting room in the Dr Haus Dermatology clinic, in Harley Street. You’ll lie on a top-of-the-range therapy couch under a skylight watching the clouds pass overhead as she deep cleanses your skin and does lymphatic drainage (detoxing and boosting collagen). Next up is gentle exfoliation —removing dead cells, clearing clogged pores and moisturising — plus delivering glucosamine and botanical-extracts. A steam, a (slightly stingy) natural salicylic acid peel that smoothens and brightens the skin, then LED light therapy under a space-age hood — anti-inflammatory red and antibacterial blue — give a radiant, rejuvenating glow. Finally, she’ll apply Vitamin C with bells on, an intensely hydrating serum. You’re almost guaranteed to fall asleep during this six-step facial but when you awaken, your fine lines will be softened and your face luminescent. Next day, you’ll look positively youthful.
A 1-hour HydraFacial costs £230, from www.drhausdermatology.com
Halo Hybrid Fractional Laser
If you want to wipe a few years off your face, bag this treatment with the unbeatable Dr. Jenny Doyle at The Clinic Holland Park. It targets damaged skin, visibly improving age spots and smoothing out the finer lines and wrinkles. Plus it reduces enlarged pores, acne scars and cheers up your dull facial tone. All making you a front runner to become Dorian (or Doris?) Gray. If you’re wondering what a hybrid fractional laser is, it’s the first machine to offer two wavelengths — one permeating the layers to stimulate new collagen elastin and replace it with new skin; the second wavelength delivering energy just below the surface: a double whammy that gets good results and with much less downtime. It’s also a fractionated erbium treatment, meaning that it targets just a percentage of the skin cells rather than all the skin. (Better than the heavy-duty methods that go for full resurfacing to give you an entirely new skin, but mean you’ll endure two weeks of looking like a burns victim and wearing a balaclava). And, delightfully, it’s almost painless, after numbing. You’ll leave in a taxi wearing a cooling face mask and looking like a ghost. Afterwards, your face might be a teeny bit red or puffy, as if sunburnt, for a week. But there’s no real downside. Although it’s new-ish to the UK, they have been doing it across the pond since 2014. Little wonder. It puts back that glow on your face that sun, age and stress nabbed.
Treatments start from £,1950 and take about 60-90 minutes, including numbing time, with further information available from www.theclinichollandpark.com.
Sophie Thorpe
When it comes to semi-permanent eyebrows…. who could fail to love Sophie Thorpe, known to her celeb clientele as The Eyebrow Master? She’s the tops when it comes to eyebrows. She looks after you in her outpost behind Sloane Square in London (in Sarah Chapman’s clinic), where there’s a blazing fire and air-conditioning — normally both at the same time. If you’ve ever over or under-plucked your eyebrows, have badly shaped ones, or brows with no natural arch, Sophie’s your lady. Her brow grooming is second to none. After numbing the area, she uses a fine needle to tattoo the semi-permanent mineral pigment hair by hair onto your skin using feathery strokes. Around a month after the initial treatment, you’ll have a top-up appointment to ensure that the results are excellent. Your new eyebrows usually last between one and two years, depending on skin type and age and whether you’re stupid enough (that’s me) to get into a sauna immediately after the treatment, or have hot showers every day and sweat the new pigmentation of your eyebrows out. (You mustn’t expose your skin to extreme heat or cold or moisture for two weeks after a treatment). Get your brows done by Sophie and you’ll get arches as perfect as those on the Ponte Vecchio. And you’ll never want the pigment to fade.
Philip Kingsley
Philip Kingsley’s recently-launched Density hair care range is the sort of thing that makes you swoon in delight. It’s not just clinically proven — developed with the latest innovations and pioneering ingredients to help slow hair loss and create your healthiest, personal-best hair at home. It’s also like having a collection of nine hair care wizards — which come in smart white, green and gold packaging — at your fingertips, to thicken and preserve your locks and stimulate your scalp by exfoliating, nourishing and plumping strands, and strengthening your tresses. You’ll find that friends — and possibly even strangers — start remarking on how thick, full and lustrous your hair is — even when it’s fine and previously looked like dead rats’ tails. If there’s a top wizard among the nine, a cult beauty item in the making, it’s probably the Density Scalp Drops — great for stopping hair shedding, and creating the best environment for healthy hair growth, and brilliant too as a preventative treatment for hair loss. Think of these wizards as your magic circle.
Cosmetics à la Carte
Recently launched by Cosmetics à la Carte is an exclusive and limited edition Timeless Lip Colour Collection (including their new anniversary shade, Fifty, to take this family-owned, luxury biz into their sixth decade, as they celebrate half a century of being a great British brand). The velvet pouch contains timeless, customer-favourite shades that evoke eras‚ from 70s baby pink to 80s power reds; and 90s supermodel nudes to Y2K pinks from the early 2000s. Each exclusive edition is assembled by hand using components that are available individually as part of their range — meaning no unsold collections and less waste. Think the ultimate lip wardrobe that boasts history and heritage. Ones that travel across time and your lips.
Six limited edition Timeless Lip Colour Collection lipsticks from Cosmetics à la Carte are £99 at www.cosmeticsalacarte.com.
Grace de Monaco
Want something to spray around your head? This is it. Talk to the nose behind Ombre Sereine, the Mediterranean-inspired fragrance from Grace de Monaco, and you’ll find a man who sniffs 500 aromas a day and uses coffee to clear his nasal passages. He’s Xavier Blaizo, a seventh generation parfumer who can trace his family history back to the French Revolution. One of this creator’s USPs is his passion for natural perfumes. He might pursue the notes and accords of cotton candy, pear and cooked rice to make a scent. Or he might combine, as he does in Ombre Sereine, the opulent floral bouquet of mimosa, jasmine and tuberose, which turns deliciously mineral and dusty when it mingles with your skin. It smells like a heavenly visitation of the wrists of Grace Kelly turned Princess of Monaco. It’s premium, chic, and speaks of a woman of stature and modernity. Plus it’s produced sustainably and all the profits go back to the Foundation, to support performing artists. So back to the French Revolution. Forget let them eat cake. Instead, let them spray Ombre Sereine. Princess Grace de Monaco would approve.
Grace de Monaco Ombre Sereine Eau de Parfum is £220 for 100ml at www.gdmonaco.com.
Caroline Phillips is an award-winning freelance journalist who contributes to publications from Sunday and daily newspapers to glossy magazines and various luxury websites. To see more of her work, go to www.carolinephillips.net.
