Sliding towards thirty, with a face for radio after a night out, I have started to become interested in skincare. Routine is the key according to Grandmamma. So I threw away all my free samples and age old pots of mam’s half used Clarins. But I settled on and started using Protect & Perfect from Boots No. 7 religiously. Affordable and brilliant.

I’m a big fan but…

What happens when your everyday face care routine just isn’t enough? You’re not feeling the sparkle. Dull, lacklustre, grey, sallow. You get the picture. I’ve heard of the fine spas and salons London has to offer but in today’s climate of crunching and recession, is there a cheaper alternative? Yes. The London College of Beauty.

I visited their website, chose my treatments and called up, full of verve and anticipation to book book book. I got an answer machine which blunted me somewhat but I still managed to leave a frothy message and the dates I wanted to attend. Not sure if that’s what the protocol was (maybe they told you when they were free?) I hung up and waited.

No-one got back to me.

Not to be deterred and sure that they were all just hard at training or in the silent treatment rooms, treating…I rang again the next day. Yes, they were just about to call me back and sorry they hadn’t done sooner.

The lady on the phone was very helpful but she also had to break the sad news to me that the non-surgical facelift was ‘off the menu’ at present because all the trainees on that course had just graduated. It would be available again soon. So I switched to a Galvanic Facial and a Galvanic Body treatment. To be honest it was only because I loved the word Galvanic, but it also promised ‘radiant results’. Good enough for me.

The next day I arrived outside the enormous LCBT building. At the reception the lady took my name but couldn’t find it. But the fault was quickly solved, supposedly on the answer machine message it sounded like I had introduced myself as Lexus Ealy, and that’s what all my treatments were booked under. No sweat, I like an alias.

Ushered into a waiting room, with a security guard on the door no less, I took a seat on one of the two sofas with the other waiting folk. A proper waiting room. Good start. Clean looking with a slight 1950′s New York dentist vibe.
“Miss Lexus Ealy?” a girl came through the big wooden doors to my right and called out my new name.

“Yep.” I bounced up and followed her. She was all in white, hair tied back incredibly tightly. Professional. This is going to be brilliant. As I followed her through another door, up some stairs and on I noticed she was wearing one of those upside down nurses watches, hanging from her uniform. Actually she looked an awful lot like a nurse.

We went past boards covered in flyers promoting student discounts detailing plans and lesson times. The first real sign that we were in a place of learning. I’m sure further up the stairs into the heart of massive building there was a canteen and a common room? I imagined lots of nurse type white clad students kicking off their clogs and having cups of tea, running their tired massage fingers under cold taps.

Daydreaming was cut short as we got to the final wooden door. There was a sign on it reminding us that we were in a quiet zone, a treatment room. I reached in my bag and put my phone on silent.

I don’t know what I expected to be honest. I think I imagined that the treatment rooms would all be separate. That there would be one student and one teacher in with me throughout the whole thing. On reflection I can see how that would be costly and difficult.

The reality was that I walked into a ward. There is no other way to describe it. The whole thing was partitioned with weak green coloured curtains. The walls were a very fresh new white, so fresh you could still smell the paint and there were various huge and small machines in different parts of the room. Behind each curtain, in every cloth cubicle, there was a bed. With no room for anything else.

I followed the therapist to my allocated partition, past a big table at the centre of the room where the teachers and trainers filled in sheets and ticked things and planned timesheets. It reminded me of a scene you would find in A&E, where nurses all gather around the reception desk. A lady with glasses smiled at me.
“Good afternoon”
I smiled back. Lexus Ealy was polite but silent it seemed.

“Could you read over this document and sign at the bottom?” I scanned it, saw the ‘in the event of death’ waver, gulped and joked “I’m sure you don’t get many of those.” No response but a smile. I went back and underlined the SHELLFISH I had written in the allergy section. Not that imagined there would be any fish use in the treatments but I wanted to be sure. I was asked lots of questions about my skin type and health and although it felt strange to be asked so many things, it also made me feel assured and looked after in the hands of a trainee.

Safe in my fabric cocoon my therapist asked me to remove my jeans, socks, boots and hop on the bed. She went out of the room to give me some privacy and I did as bid and lay there. And lay there. For quite a long time. I got a bit cold so i got up and grabbed a towel and laid it over me. My therapist came back in apologising; her tutor had arrived late because of a mix up with another client. Not to worry, Lexus said. Off we go.

My therapist wasn’t much of a talker. I asked her about the treatment and she gave me the barest of details, even saying at one point that she didn’t know what the gel she was using had as ingredients, but she was very professional with the actual process and the Galvanic machine.

A Galvanic Body treatment targets your wobbly bits, a small area at a time. I chose to have my outer thighs, almost buttocks, galvanized (?). The procedure, sorry treatment, starts with an exfoliation. Yummy. Only they don’t exfoliate your whole body, only the area being treated and you don’t get to shower it off but instead the therapist has a plastic bowl of water and some cotton wool which attempt but fail to get all the grains off your skin. That bit was disappointing. The treatment then involves having large pads stuck on you, covered in a lot of green cold wet gel. These are strapped to your legs, with actual straps that are fastened and then the wires from the pads are plugged into a machine and the dials are turned up. It feels a bit like a prelude to an old style execution. The machine makes your legs pulse and itch a little but this is normal. 45 minutes later I was ready for the treatment to be over. I was cold and bored to be honest and felt I had chosen the wrong treatment for me. I got up and put my clothes back on at the end of the treatment. I still had the remnants of green gel on the backs of my thighs that soaked into my jeans. Urk. Not enough post treatment wiping.

A bit disappointed I headed for the curtain and pulled it back to step out. However, I was stopped by one of the tutors, the lady from before with the glasses.

“Before you move on to your facial would you mind just coming back inside?”

Of course not.

“Could you please face away from me and pull your trousers down?”

Eh?

I obliged, timidly.

“That’s great thanks; you can pop them back up now. I just had to check that there was no oversensitivity or rash. And there isn’t.”

Well I never. That was a first. But good to feel I was being attended to. I think.

I was taken straight into another cubicle where my next therapist was preparing the bed and tools for my Galvanic facial. I wasn’t too over-excited by this point. I was getting hungry and was a little thirsty. I would have loved an offer of a cup of tea or some water. But, I told myself, I was getting this for hardly any money and they were students.

The lady giving me this treatment was a lot older than the last girl, who can’t have been older than twenty. She spoke not very much English but she was kind and calm and you could tell straight away that she was very experienced.
I lay on the bed and she covered me up to my chest with warm towels. She warmed her hands. It was another world from across the hall. And the treatment was delicious. It started with an amazing face massage, and then the rollers from the Galvanic machine were used to massage your face some more and then came a 40 minute facial with creams especially chosen for my skin type. My therapist included my neck and chest area in the massage and I could have fallen asleep afterwards. It was heaven. All I had hoped for, but for only £20! Would I recommend it? Hell yes. Sadly you can’t name the therapist you want when you book so you have to take your chances but let’s hope you stumble upon my lady.

At the end of the sessions you have to give feedback and ratings. I think I probably went overboard with praise for lady number two but hey, she was great.

I want to take another visit to the LCBT salon soon and try their waxing service, especially with prices starting from as little as £6. And the second they have their non-surgical facelifts on offer, I’ll be straight back to the ward.

To book, view all prices and treatment offered go to: http://www.lcbt.co.uk/aboutlcbt/salon/

Call 020 7208 1302 or email: salon@lcbt.co.uk

Opening Times:
Monday to Friday: 09.00 – 18.00
Saturday: 9.00 – 17.00

They also stay open later on certain evenings, please enquire for details.