Skin Station, Manhattan — Local services in New York

I came to this place from Groupon, the 75 min customized facial, in need of an affordable facial. This place is located in Chinatown that goes down a flight of stairs into the establishment. That alone should already tell you what to expect. The front desk area was very clean and nice. However the room the facial was being done wasn’t reflecting the modern cleanliness of the front. The rooms are not completely enclosed all the way and it’s a bit on the older side. There is no ambiance or tranquility of a spa. The lighting is the harsh light when it’s on and it’s like they have two rickety spa beds in the same room. You can hear EVERYONE talking in the front and all over the place. My facial lady didn’t really greet me or give me a run down of what she’s doing or what to expect. She would speak softly in a mandarin accent VERY unclearly. This isn’t my first rodeo getting a facial, I have had better and I know what to expect from a decent place. What I detest the most was that she didn’t use any facial steam, or a warm face cloth to open my pores at the start of the facial. She would use tissue napkins instead of luke warm water to cleanse my face which felt icky. I checked the trash after the facial was finished and there were tons of napkin tissues in there. She used them to cleanse my face from a mask as well, YUCK! It was hard to relax with everyone talking and hearing the footsteps of them pacing around with their slippers. They played the soft spa music but it couldn’t drown out them yelling & talking at each other in Mandarin. There would be some aspects of the facial that would feel nice like the neck massage and light therapy. Other than that I felt like she really tried to let me know how bad my skin is. I was breaking out and probably in need of extractions, but I did not trust the place at all for her to do that on me. Last thing I want is further damage on my skin. My skin isn’t horrible but they way she kept commenting on it & pushing their spa packages and skincare was discerning. !!NEWSFLASH!! people who don’t have perfect skin are the ones getting a facial, so yea it’s not going to be glass skin your working with. I really recommend going anywhere else for a facial. I wasn’t about to let them have more of my money so I didn’t do any of the packages she was offering, which was apparently available on that day only. Don’t come here. Spend your time and money...

I had a very positive micro-blading experience at skin station! As you can see in the before photo (same eyebrow as shown in the collage but I took the before photo with my front facing camera so it's flipped) I had very skinny eyebrows before the process & she did a great job giving me a natural, enhanced appearance. When she began, the pain was virtually non existent. It increased as the numbing wore off, but nothing intolerable. The best part - I got a Groupon and saved a ton! It also includes a touch-up after 4 weeks. So once I have that appointment I will update my review with more photos of the second time results. My only suggestion would be for the staff to give more instruction for post care. I was simply told to apply vaseline to the area and not to scratch for 10 days, but since I did such extensive research prior to having my eyebrows done I knew that there were a lot of other things to know.

As far as the general micro-blading process goes, not as it relates to Skin Station, my biggest piece of advice is to consider the muscles in your face when you are deciding on a shape, not just the way your face looks when you are completely relaxed. If you look at the photo of both of my brows you can see that one is slightly higher arched than the other. When I was laying down on the table deciding on a shape they looked perfectly even, but when I am upright the muscle above my brow give me a higher arch.

I would say that after 8 days I was pretty much done healing. I know everyone says 10, but it just depends on each person. I still avoided makeup for the full 10 days, but I started getting more careless with water and sweat once I saw that all of the scabs had fallen off. They can get very itchy!! I had a couple of days (days 5-6) where the itching was really irritating and sort of prickly pain in my face. They will start peeling around day 5 - to be honest, I totally peeled some of the skin off myself. There were big pieces hanging off and I couldn't help but pull it off. The peeled skin will appear to be pulling out the pigment, but unless you are pulling at scabs that aren't at all ready it won't actually have an effect on your results. After about 8 days most of the scabbing will be gone, but I continued to flake (Like a sun burn) until about...

This place is a hit or miss. My first appointment with Maggie was great so I got their package for 5 Deep Pore Facial + 5 RF Firming (addtl $280). Now on to my 4th and 5th (last) appointment.. this is where service kinda went downhill. During my 4th facial, it was obvious that I have eyelash extensions, she was not careful and getting oils/serums on my eyelashes. When it was time to put the mask (the gooey drying type), she just poured it all over my face getting it on my eyes and in my nostril. I waited a min to see if she was gonna do something about it, but she didn't so I had to tell her. She did try to clean my eyelashes tho, but I was already annoyed with what just happened (I still gave her tip). My 5th appointment, this is when I decided it would be my last with them. It felt rushed and when she was doing my RF, I noticed she was just focusing on my eye area, I asked her why she didnt do my entire face like usual but she was insisting that it's only for the eye area which left me so confused. She ended up doing the other half of my face but sounded annoyed and said "i'll do it for 5mins" After the facial, she showed me their brochure trying to justify that the additional RF is THERMAL LIFTING EYE TREATMENT. Again, I was so confused bec the past 4 appointments I've had, was RF FIRMING FACIAL (what I paid $280 extra for on top of Deep Pore). It's unfortunate that the last 2 services I got was disappointing bec I was really looking forward to buying more of...