Town and Country

What Does a Pre-Oscars Facial Really Entail?

The Academy Awards marks arguably the biggest night in Hollywood. It's no secret that those who are lucky enough to attend go to great lengths—and spare no expense—to make sure they are looking topnotch. Among the many gifted pairs of hands in the celebrity facialist world, one pair belongs to that of Gavin McLeod Valentine the director of studio services at Intraceuticals. We sat down with him to get the details on how he gets clients such as Olivia Coleman and Michelle Yeoh the silver-screen siren glow of their dreams.

For someone who is prepping for a major even like the Oscars, when is the ideal time to get a facial?
I think it obviously depends on what kind of facial you’re doing and I think one of the big massive beauty trends of the last few years, and I don’t see it going anywhere, is what we call wound-to-heal protocols. So if you’re going to be doing something like PRP or something that causes micro-tears to boost your collagen regeneration and get that glow back, ideally you’re really going to want to do that two weeks out.

Often times you see some stars on the red carpet and you’ve got tiny little bumps, those are from micro-needling because they’re just doing it too close to the occasion and they haven’t quite gone through that healing process to completion. That’s the one thing that I see time and time again.

Sometimes I get into a room with a client and they’ve done something that’s a bit more aggressive whether it’s a peel or a laser a little bit too close to the function. So my advice to them is always do that two weeks out. But I like to recommend a 6 week protocol before these big sort of special occasions.

What does your six-week protocol typically entail?
I like to get you on supplements initially. I recommend to my clients my favorite supplement brand called Lumity. That’s got your biotin, your collagen, your glutamine, your niacinamide. So that’s really good at naturally giving color and flush to the skin, getting up antioxidants, helping with lymphatic drainage, helping to improve your sleep patterns. I think a rested appearance is obviously what we’re looking for and if we can get that acclimated at the beginning that’s great.

I like to put everyone on a weekly Intraceuticals oxygen facial six weeks out if I have that time. And I like to have that final Intraceuticals treatment either the night before the special occasion or right before they go into hair and makeup on the day. What that does is it stacks the skin with micro-weights of hyaluronic acid, almost like opening a hydration bank account within the skin. We’re doing this massive deposit of hydration and we’re going to continue putting checks into that account and keeping you solvent.

During the six week protocol–you’ve got the six Intraceuticals treatments, the supplements—but I also recommend a treatment called Intracel. It's a combination of radio frequency and ultrasound. So unlike traditional Ultherapy, which hurts like a b**ch, this is totally tolerable and it gives you a definite lifting, sculpting affect to the skin with results that last around 18 months. You get an immediate effect, but three months later you’re going to have your own natural collagen production accelerating.

Then if timing permits, I like to put them on a VI peel. It’s a great medium peel, it works for every skin tone, every ethnicity, there’s no chance of pigmentation or any concerns about that happening, which is a great thing when you’re recommending it and it has a combination of retin-A, salicylic acid and glycolic. Couple that with the hydration— it really sort of gives you that barely-lived look that we’re all trying to get.

It's the day of the big event, what's the routine?
The day of I don’t like to do anything that’s going to have any sort of flushing reaction to the skin. My goal is to sculpt the face, remove any sort of toxic build up under the eyes, under the cheeks, to make sure they look lifted and contoured and just glowy and gorgeously dewy.

But that being said, I’ll look at a client and determine what kind of serum I’m going to use. So nine times out of 10 I’m going to be using a collagen serum or I’m going to use an antioxidant serum. Collagen is really good if you’ve got a client who is a little bit depleted in their fat pads and you want to give them some more architecture in their cheek. And if someone who has just flown in the night before, I used antioxidant, because they’ve kind of got a grey ashy touch to their skin. It brings the brightness and luminosity back to the complexion.

Tell us about your most major celebrity facial encounter?
It’s a combination, it’s either going to be Julianne Moore, who I’ve admired for a very very long time. I remember cheering her on when she was nominated for The Hours and Far From Heaven in the same year—and couldn’t understand why she didn’t win both, let alone win any. She was just somebody who was so gracious and so warm and so beautiful and immediately made me feel that I was invited to be in her atmosphere. And I thought it was really special that I had the introduction and I got to prep her skin for a movie called Gloria that will be coming out in the fall.

I recently worked with her and Michelle Williams on the set of the movie After the Wedding, doing the same thing on set. So it was really wonderful to get to meet someone who not only from a creative perspective has been so inspiring, in a real life perspective is so warm and engaging and inviting, but in addition to that to sort of be invited into the professional artistry world in the film set. That was sort of a triple whammy for me. She opened up a lot of opportunity for me in that space. So that was sort of wow, pinch yourself moment.

In terms of my most "pinch me I'm dreaming" moment was when I was invited to assist the makeup artist Amy Oresman with Barbra Streisand. That was just one of those incredible moments when you’re meeting somebody who was a big part of your upbringing and to share that family dialogue with her and for her to be so warm and receptive to it was just a real sort of full circle moment, as Oprah would say.

ROXANNE ADAMIYATT Town and Country