The Sunday Facial

I haven't had a facial in probably two years.

Yesterday, I bought half a papaya at the farmers market. I didn't have some elaborate plan for it, but this morning was Sunday, Jake and I had nowhere we needed to be, and giving myself a facial suddenly sounded really fucking good.

I'd just spent a week in a B&B with three other couples for my birthday. It was so much fun, but after that much social time, I always need some slow, mostly solo time to recharge. I'm also a few days away from starting my period, so staying home in comfy clothes sounded significantly better than doing basically anything else.

The plan for the day was editing content, watching football and maybe going to the pool later.

Perfect facial weather.

Not put-on-a-mask-and-call-it-a-facial.

An actual facial.

I started with what I already had.

I'd been looking at all the tiny dark plugs across my face and really wanted to get into my pores.

I already had almost everything I needed in the house, so I started pulling things out of the kitchen.

Rice. Oats. Honey. Papaya. Banana. Green tea. Cucumber.

I blended the rice and oats into a fine powder and made a facial polish. I was shocked by how finely the rice blended and how good it felt on my skin.

My face was so fucking soft afterward.

Then came the warm compress and extractions.

This is where I should clarify that there's a difference between what I actually did today and what I would recommend doing.

My hot washcloth wasn't staying hot long enough, and Jake happened to be boiling potatoes for meal prep.

So yes, at one point during my luxurious Sunday spa experience, I was standing over a pot of potatoes steaming my face.

Whatever works.

I also couldn't find my extraction tool, and because I really wanted to get into my pores, I improvised with a bobby pin.

It worked for me. I'm not telling you to do it.

Next time I'll have the actual tool ready.

That's kind of the point of doing something like this for the first time anyway. I don't need the first attempt to be the perfect ritual.

I can fuck around a little, figure out what works and make the next one better.

Then I made the $60 papaya mask.

While I was making it, I remembered paying $60 for a facial upgrade a few years ago so they would put a papaya mask on my face.

Sixty fucking dollars.

For papaya.

The one I was standing in my kitchen making took about as much time as making a cup of coffee.

And that got me thinking about what we actually pay for when we pay someone else to take care of us.

You could absolutely argue that leveraging money to save time is worth it. Some spas create a top-tier experience and I completely understand paying for that.

But I've started thinking about the cost of a service differently.

It's not just what I pay for the facial.

I have to make room for it on my calendar. Drive there. Sit in traffic. Stress about being on time. Then potentially sit in the waiting room for fifteen minutes because somehow they're allowed to be late even though I just stressed myself out making sure I wasn't.

And when I've spent $500 at a spa, there's usually at least one moment afterward when I think, Fuck, I could have put that toward a trip. Or an investment. Or debt. Or literally anything else.

My time costs something too.

That hour could have been spent working on a new offer, taking a sales call, hanging out with Jake or doing absolutely nothing.

And I honestly don't think I've ever had a spa service where I didn't think about work or my to-do list at least once.

So yes, sometimes paying someone else saves me time.

But sometimes I pay for the service and give it my time and give it my mental bandwidth.

Today I didn't have to give it any of that.

My house became the spa.

It was overcast outside, so we turned on the A/C and made the house cozy.

I made coffee and put on a sweater with loose shorts.

Jake sat on the couch watching football on mute. I sat on the floor with Chewy beside me and put on an old playlist I hadn't listened to in a while.

It's the playlist I listened to when I was preparing to move from Sacramento to Maui.

That was such a specific time in my life.

I was sober. I was competing. I quit my corporate job. I became a personal trainer. Jake and I started our relationship. Then I moved to Maui.

So much of my life was changing at once.

When I hear those songs now, I can almost feel that version of myself again. The excitement of everything changing. The passion from the beginning of my relationship with Jake. The feeling that my life was opening up into something completely different.

Mostly, it just makes me really fucking happy.

This is the playlist I had on

So that's what was playing while I mashed bananas and blended papaya.

I danced around the house while my masks sat.

I cleaned the kitchen while the papaya puréed.

I cleaned the bathroom counter while I waited for the shower to heat up.

Jake made me a beautiful plate of chilaquiles and we ate breakfast together.

Honestly, I enjoyed it so much more than lying in a chair making small talk with a stranger while an uncomfortable amount of steam blasts me in the face and I'm mentally trying to remember who I need to email back before the end of the day.

Nothing else had to stop so I could take care of myself.

I think that was my favorite part.

Three hours later, I had somehow done everything and nothing.

I started around 8:30.

By 11:30, I had shaped my brows, washed and exfoliated my face, done my papaya, banana and green tea cucumber masks, showered, cleaned the kitchen and bathroom, done a load of laundry, eaten breakfast with Jake, made the bed and prepped everything for next time.

And I felt so fucking good.

Not look how productive I was before noon good.

Just good.

I didn't feel like I had spent three hours doing chores.

I didn't feel like I had spent three hours doing a facial either.

I was just having a really nice Sunday morning.

The chores weren't interrupting the facial.

The facial wasn't interrupting my day.

It was all happening together.

Then I accidentally prepared my next twelve facials.

When I finished, I looked at the papaya I had left.

Here's the problem.

I don't actually like eating papaya.

So now I had half a fruit that I had specifically purchased to put on my face.

Naturally, I decided I needed to figure out how to preserve it.

I portioned the purée into my six-cup muffin tin and put it in the freezer. Once those are frozen, I'll pop them out, put them in a freezer bag and freeze the rest.

Based on what I portioned today, half a papaya gave me roughly 12 to 15 masks.

I have no idea exactly what I paid for the papaya.

But I can confidently report that it was less than $900.

So we're already ahead.

I also blended enough dry rice and oats to have the base of my facial polish ready for next time.

Then I briefly became convinced I should turn the leftover rice and oat powder into soap.

In my head, this was an excellent idea.

Reality disagreed.

The ingredients I had weren't actually going to turn into the adorable little soap bar I had already envisioned, so I abandoned that project before I created another project.

The powder can just be powder.

Growth.

Next time, almost everything will already be waiting for me.

And honestly, that's the only thing I want to change about today.

Not the ritual.

Just the amount of prep required to start it.

I don't think the ritual was actually the facial.

I started this morning because I wanted to clean out my pores.

That was it.

But somewhere between the papaya, the potato steam, the music, Chewy sitting next to me, dancing around my kitchen and eating chilaquiles with my husband, it became something else.

I've always thought about self-care as something you make time for.

You book it.

Put it on the calendar.

Drive somewhere.

Pay for it.

Sit down.

And now you're supposed to relax because this is the time you specifically designated for relaxing.

Today, taking care of myself just happened inside my actual life.

There were dishes.

There was laundry.

There was football.

There was my dog.

There was my husband.

There was work I could have been doing.

None of it had to disappear for me to take care of myself.

And weirdly, that made the whole thing feel more indulgent, not less.

The Soundtrack

Songs from the life I was building.

These are the songs I listened to when Jake and I were newly in love, I was inspired by my life, and I was genuinely excited about the future I was building.

The rest of my Sunday

I'm finishing these notes now.

Then I'm going to spend 15 or 20 minutes stretching on the floor in front of the TV.

Nothing complicated. Just my usual intuitive stretch where I move around based on whatever feels like it needs attention.

Chewy will almost certainly lie directly in the middle of my mat.

I'll probably stop and snuggle him.

Obviously that counts.

Later, Jake is going to watch the Cowboys game and I'm going to make myself a protein carajillo with cinnamon and a wafer cookie.

Then I'm going to sit next to him and scroll TikTok guilt-free.

My skin feels ridiculously soft.

My freezer has enough papaya for months of facials.

My rice and oats are already blended.

My house is clean.

My husband made me breakfast.

And an old playlist reminded me of a version of myself who was changing almost everything about her life.

I started this morning staring too closely at my pores.

I'm ending it feeling really fucking good in my body and really happy to be exactly where I am.

I think that's the part I want to remember.

Care doesn't always need another appointment on the calendar. Sometimes it can just become part of the life you're already living.

Taking care of yourself isn't only about choosing the ‘right’ response. Pay attention to what the response actually creates. Something can be labeled self-care and still leave you rushed, distracted or depleted. The question is simpler: Did the way I cared for myself actually leave me feeling cared for?

Make your own Sunday ritual

I added everything I used today to The Apothecary for members, including the rice + oat facial polish, papaya + honey mask, banana hydration mask, green tea + cucumber mask, green tea berry spritzer and my protein carajillo.

I'm also adding my usual intuitive stretch so you don't have to figure out what to do when you get to the floor and suddenly forget every stretch you've ever learned.

Photography

Jake Berthelot

Stayed

Airbnb

Worn

Prozis Athleisure Sports Bra, Off White

Prozis IronMode Shorts, Asphalt Gray

10% off with code SAVTASTIC10

Partner notes

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