Japanese facial treatment salon C’BON

Last week at the Premium Beauty & Health Show, I received a coupon for a facial trial at C’BON for 500 yen so I went to give it a try!

About C’BON

C’BON is a chain of beauty treatment salons in Japan. It celebrated its 50th anniversary last year and has more than 100 salons across Japan.

C’BON develops and produces its own skincare products that they sell in their salons. When you purchase products for more than 10,000 yen, you can get a complimentary salon facial treatment.

Their membership beauty system has a double approach: home skincare and professional treatment. They check your skin, advise you on the appropriate products and they complete the skincare for home, with professional treatments. As they keep records of your skin condition with photos, you can see the evolution of your skin while using their skincare and receiving facial treatments.

The trial

They offer the same trial all year long for 1,500 yen. With the PB&HS campaign, the price was reduced to 500 yen.

I picked the Ginza salon, which opened 2 years ago. It’s conveniently placed in the center of Ginza, next to Mitsukoshi department store.

The salon was very clean and bright.

When I arrived, I was taken to the consultation booth where I was shown a video about the company and I completed a questionnaire about my skin and beauty routines, drinking a beauty beverage.

Then I changed into a gown.

Consultation

The beautician’s consultation was thorough.

After the makeup removal, I was guided to the tab where I had to wash my face by myself with C’BON’s face wash that the beautician prepared for me. C’BON considers this step very important as a clean skin without any dead skin cells has a better ability to absorb cosmetic products. The abundant lather was made mixing the face cleanser and some special enzymes powder that removes dead keratins, therefore has an exfoliating property.

The feeling of the foam was a real luxury. It was so airy and light but so abundant that I couldn’t feel my hands rubbing my face, I only felt the lather. After rinsing, my skin felt fresh without any tension.

Then we took a picture of my face lit with a special UV lamp. This camera allows detecting skin troubles that are not visible to the naked eye, such as future brown spots, areas with an excess of sebum production, dead skin cells, etc.

Back to the consultation booth, I was shown on the screen the photos and the beautician analyzed the condition of my skin.

Also my skin texture got checked. One sample was taken inside my arm, where the skin is supposed to be the less damaged by the UVs (on the left below) and one sample was taken on my cheek (on the right).

My poor skin on the cheek had nothing like the healthy skin texture of the inside of my arm!! According to the beautician, the skin turnover was slowed down, therefore the barrier function of my skin was compromised, which meant that the skin let all the external aggressions such as UVs, dust, and pollens enter the skin and damage it.

If the skin barrier function was properly working, the surface of the skin should have been as refined as on the left side picture.

So the beautician chose a series of cosmetic products to help my skin turnover which will improve my overall skin, which she judged sensitive and dry.

Time for treatment!

The beauty treatment used both hands and machines.

The facial started with a massage of the face and décolleté which is based on oriental acupuncture, with quite strong yet nice pressures on points to release toxins.

A cleansing machine was used for a deep cleanse.

Then some micro pulses were used to let the cosmetics penetrate deeper into the skin.

A complimentary mask was given because of the campaign. And during the posing time, I was given a hand and foot massage.
After the treatment, we compared the photos. My fine wrinkles around the eyes had disappeared and the tone was brightened (on the left). I also felt that my faceline got sharpened.

The best news was that the texture of my skin was improved. Even though with one treatment, it was impossible to reach the texture level of the inside of the arm, it clearly looked better (on the right) than before the facial (in the middle).

The beautician suggested me the beauty products that I should use at home to improve my skin condition. The full range made a total of more than 150,000 yen!! 😮

However, it comes with 16 complimentary in-salon facial treatments and the products last for 3 months or so, therefore I did’t think it was excessively expensive. You don’t have to buy anything obviously but you feel like you should… So I bought the enzymes powder that adds to the daily cleansing, the exfoliating function. The product includes enzymes powder for 52 times and costs 10,000 yen. I don’t regret buying it, as I believe in the power of enzymes and it makes my face wash ritual very pleasant.

There was a makeup booth that you can use before leaving, with C’BON’s makeup products available. The makeup finish after the treatment was obviously much better than usual, more glowy and uniform.

The total visit with consultation and treatment lasted 2 hours. I really enjoyed the treatment, and my skin was totally revitalized. Of course, they try to sell you products, it’s how their system works. I guess it depends on which salon you go to and which beautician takes care of you but mine was not so pushy.

It’s also a nice opportunity to check on your skin status with the latest technology. If you have time and you are ready to commit to treating yourself and your skin seriously, as the products are good and treatments effective, I do think C’BON is a fair and good option!

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