Clients pay $180 for bird-feces facials at New York spa

About 100 women and men go into the Shizuka New York skin care salon, just off Manhattan's Fifth Avenue, each month to get the treatment, which is promoted as a way to keep the face soft and smooth using an enzyme in the poop to gently exfoliate the skin.

Spa owner Shizuka Bernstein, a Tokyo native married to an American, has been offering what she calls the Geisha Facial for about five years.

"I try to bring Japanese beauty secrets to the United States," said Bernstein, who learned the treatment from her mother.

The Geisha Facial feces treatment, while relatively rare in the United States, is no secret in Japan, where it was first used in the 17th century by actors and geisha.

"That's why Japanese grandmothers have beautiful complexions," said Duke Klauck, owner of the Ten Thousand Waves health spa in Santa Fe, New Mexico, which offers a Nightingale Facial for $129.

On a recent afternoon in Manhattan, Mari Miyoshi arrived at the sixth-floor Shizuka New York spa to try the treatment for the first time.

"I'm a stressed-out New Yorker," the 35-year-old occupational therapist announced as she reclined on a table, relaxing amid aromas of camellia, lavender and rose.

The treatment began with steam to open the pores and soften the skin. Cream was applied. And then came what Bernstein calls "the nightingale part."

She poured the cream-colored feces, dried and finely ground, into a bowl, mixing it with the rice bran using a small spatula. She applied the potion to Miyoshi's face with a brush, rubbing it in with her hands.

Does it smell?

"Yes, but like toasted rice," Miyoshi said.

After about five minutes, the mixture came off with a foaming cleanser, and Miyoshi's face was draped in a warm, wet towel bathed in lavender and geranium essences.

Finally, the grand finale - a green-tea collagen mask.

"Sooooo nice," Bernstein said softly, looking at Miyoshi's radiant face.

Dr. Michele Green, a Manhattan cosmetic dermatologist, says that while the fecal facial "definitely has some rejuvenating effect, I don't think it's any different than, say, an apricot scrub or a mask that you could buy in a local pharmacy."

A common misconception is that any old bird feces, even from pigeons, is used.

Bernstein says only droppings from birds of the bush-warbler species are used because their food produces the natural enzyme that is the active ingredient.

"We don't do Central Park facials," she said, "because those birds eat garbage."

Source: JapanTimes