What’s the best present a person can get? The gift of eternal youthfulness, I’m saying. And for my birthday recently I received just that. OK, not the eternal bit, but something that seemed like a miracle just the same: something that made me look and feel brilliant, like I was years younger and full of potential with everything to look forward to. My perfect gift was in the form of a deluxe facial by the brilliant Finnish beauty therapist Tanya Christianssen at the aptly named Revival Clinic in Chiswick.

I arrived looking twice my age, rackety and run-down like a clapped out old car and left looking human and radiant with a spring in my step. Bumping into a friend outside Sainsbury’s she was suspicious. How come I looked younger than when we last met?

“Facial with Tanya”, I said, nodding to the clinic across the road. My friend didn’t believe the absence of surgical intervention or a needle, so I talked her through the order of events:

Arriving at the Revival Clinic at 2a Acton Lane at the appointed time I was whisked downstairs without waiting by Tanya. Once in her calming softly lit treatment room she explained that my treatment was going to combine two of the world’s most effective approaches to skin care a CACI facial with Environ products.  This I discovered is highly unusual. CACI therapists stick to CACI products, but Environ created by a South African plastic surgeon and skin cancer specialist Des Fernandes twenty years ago, features serums that rejuvenate and condition the deeper layers of the skin.

CACI uses a tiny electrical current to lift and tone the muscles so tightening the facial contours (in a good way!). This has the added benefit of pushing the products deeper into the epidermis and so enhancing their effectiveness.

The facials are specially tailored for each individual and mine began with a deep cleanse using steam, AVST (advanced vitamin skin therapy) pre-cleansing oil, followed by a clay mask which gently exfoliates the skin without scratching it. This was softly removed with AVST cleansing milk.  Then came the Environ Active Vitamin A, E and C serum to rejuvenate and deeply hydrate the skin, used with the CACI Ultra ‘super lift’. I thought this might be painful and not at all relaxing, but as Tanya expertly moved the wand like probes over my face, I could quite easily have fallen asleep.  I was then treated to an Environ collagen serum that was massaged into my face using an Ionzyme machine. This uses ultrasound technology to again push the product deep into the skin, where it would help to fill fine lines, tighten the skin and even out my skin tone.

‘That must be it’, I thought drowsily, but then Tanya applied an award winning Swiss Apple stem cell Collagen and Hyaluronic Acid Mask to plump and further moisturise my skin and give it a lovely glow and whilst this took twenty minutes to do just that, she gave me a wonderfully stress-releasing head and shoulder massage. I could have had a foot reflexology massage at this point that I’d have loved, but given the state my feet were in, was far too embarrassed to take my socks off.

Well, that really must be it, I thought, finally drifting off, but no. There then followed a CACI LED red light therapy to stimulate my own collagen production and promote healing and cell renewal. This is the gift that keeps on giving. A couple of weeks later at a parents evening a fellow mum whom I hadn’t seen since the last school event before Christmas said: “You look really well! How is it we’re all looking older and you’re looking younger?” “2 hour facial with Tanya.” I said. She was sceptical. So I explained. Though there wasn’t time to mention that aside from the wonderful deluxe therapy and a range of facials, Tanya also provides anti-cellulite treatments (with a CeulluM6 machine) and Lipofirm wraps, deep tissue massage and reflexology.

2 hours with Tanya and years fall away. As Arnie so succinctly put it in his own journey through the time-space continuum, “I’ll be back.”

More information here.

Written by Thoroughly Modern Mrs, Elizabeth Kinder.