To most of us, the news that one can live without regular facials is hardly earth-shattering. Says one dermatologist, "'Getting a facial is a great cost to cut,' because, unlike sunscreen, 'it's not doing anything preventative or anything long term for your skin.'" Well, no: you don't need to be a Lamarck expert to figure out that an extraction and mask isn't going to have permanent effects.

But then, apparently that's exactly what some folks to believe — or, rather, what ever-more-elaborate, pricey, and scientific-sounding facial treatments have sold folks on.

Aestheticians say that so-called oxygen facials can plump skin, produce collagen and regenerate new cells. A company called Intraceuticals has its technology in 300 spas, resorts and doctors' offices nationwide. It uses pressurized oxygen to deliver modified hyaluronic acid to the face, but doesn't have any research to back its machine, said Deirdre Burke, the director of sales and education. Still, the company believes in its efficacy, she said, adding, "If you have had a treatment, you're a believer."

The whole lucrative miracle facial phenomenon has caused some friction with dermatologists, who call the treatments so much hokum, and no substitute for the arts of medicine. "They're bad-mouthing us because they want our business to go to them," says one aesthetician.

The real issue, I suppose, is whether the regular facial will be a recession casualty. For most of us, it already is — if we ever got them at all. In my experience, treatments like this are more a sop to one's sense of self than anything else. While a facial can certainly make skin glow (and the pain and breakout make you know it's working!) that glow is more than matched by the good feeling of knowing you are "taking care of yourself." The truth is, unless the extraction is treating chronic acne, most of us can probably do okay with a tube of apricot scrub and some Cetaphil. And this is one of those "Styles" pieces that feels like it has so little relationship to real life that you're left wondering about a world in which an oxygen facial is in the rotation in the first place, let alone a year into a recession. What's curious about pieces like this is that they acknowledge the economy — but in such a peculiarly let-them-eat-cake fashion that it's almost more insulting.

I'm not going to lie to you: last night, I made myself a facial mask out of an egg yolk. It was tight and gross and my face looked none the firmer after its application. But the (big) part of me that relished making my own perfumes and potpourris from kits as a kid enjoyed the ancient do-it-yourself aspect of it. I don't know what will happen to the facial industry, and I hope small businesses don't suffer too terribly as a result of some folks' recognition that facials aren't a life necessity. But anything that leads to an increase in hands-on dorkery, potion-making and general Jennifer Hecate Macbeth-style shenanigans is surely a silver lining.

An Expression of Doubt About Facials [New York Times]

Friends of Jesus are also talking about sex these days, and not just the missionary position. In his new book Rapture Ready!: Adventures in the Parallel Universe of Christian Pop Culture , Daniel Radosh explores a Christian website called The Marriage Bed, which offers sex advice toChristians. "This is the site to check if you're looking for the Christian case for women using strap-on dildos on their husbands ('If the only access to the prostrate is through the rectum, and I know for a fact that my pressing on the prostrate increases his pleasure, then perhaps it is ok in God's eyes for me to do that for the man He's given me') or men ejaculating on their wives faces ('It's part of our nature to want to be creative with where we 'release' our most basic creative force, and I can't help but want to be creative, I was created in my Creators image')," Radosh writes. Facials, pegging, abortion: it can be a regular old liberal party when you're down with J.C.!

How Would Jesus Choose? [Newsweek]
Rapture Ready! Excerpt [Salon]

Facialists used to clean pores, apply masks and rub cream on your face — now they "berate clients who eat poorly" and decide what kinds of peels, light therapy and high-tech skin treatments a client needs. Customers "used to treat us like maids," says Aida Bicaj, an aesthetician on the Upper East Side. "Now they are treating us like medical professionals." Except, of course, they're not. Aestheticians do have to undergo 600 hours of training to be licensed, and surely years of examining hundreds of faces add to their expertise. But their training does not even come close to matching a dermatologist's years of medical school. Still, women flock to them and obey. Rebecca Johnson first visited Ms. Bicaj's salon five years ago. She said that she didn't want electrical stimulation or any acid-based products on her sensitive skin. Ms. Bicaj, who charges $475 for a facial, overruled her: "Do you tell the doctor what you need? A client cannot tell me what she needs." A dozen facials and microcurrent procedures later, Ms. Johnson, 57, just loves her! "With Aida, my skin is better than when I was 35," she says. But what's with the attitude?

Sonya Dakar, an aesthetician who counts Gwyneth Paltrow as a client, tells the Times: "You can't be a diva unless you really know what you are doing. If you are spineless and vulnerable, you shouldn't come to me. I will tell them they have skin like a Shar-Pei." Christine Chin, an especially-strict aesthetician who ditched client Naomi Campbell for her chronic lateness, says, "I tell them, 'Your face doesn't match your neck.' Sometimes they start crying. If you don't like our rules, then we say, 'Goodbye, you can go somewhere else and you can keep your zits.'" The crazy thing is that an appointment with these women does not come cheap. Why are their clients willing to shell out cash to be berated? It's obviously possible to get good results without a caustic lecture. Are women with money so used to getting what they want that they feel a thrill in being told what to do, like powerful businessmen who are into S&M? Or are the aestheticians power-tripping, since they have women lying there, at their mercy? And would you continue to see someone who told you your skin was "saggy" — and give that person money? Because we'd be out of there before you could say "mircodermabrasion."

Aestheticians Who Get in Your Face [NY Times]