Boston’s LexRx owners share the secrets of at-home facials.
Alexandra Rogers and Alexa Nicholls Costa
Descriptors “lips + lines + lashes” accompany LexRx’s (lexrx.co) signage at the Beacon Hill and South Boston injectables boutique. But now, it can add at-home facials to the list, thanks to an abundance of specialized skincare products lining its clients’ shelves. Here, owners Alexa Nicholls Costa, NP, and Alexandra Rogers, NP, tell us what to expect.
Tell me more about LexRx’s at-home facial.
ANC: The LexRx Refine + Peel is a really nice product that’s both a professional medical-grade physical and chemical exfoliator. It’s a treatment that’s medical grade and safe for consumers to do in the privacy of their own homes, and it has a pretty mild physical exfoliator component to it. It’s more of a cornmeal consistency, so it’s not super harsh from the physical standpoint, but the chemical side goes deeper. We recommend discussing [it] with one of our nurse practitioners so you don’t leave it on for too long. It’s best used about once a week, and then depending on how you tolerate that first round, you can increase about a minute each week until you reach 10 minutes total. At that point, the self-neutralizing aspect takes over, so there’s no added perk to leaving on after that.
Nicholls Costa with a client
What’s the difference between a chemical and physical exfoliator?
ANC: When we think about the top-notch way to exfoliate the skin, we think about physical exfoliation and chemical exfoliation. The physical exfoliator tends to be a product that has little scrubbers in them or a little bit of grit, so when you’re putting them on, you feel a little bit of texture. And that range of physical exfoliation can go from something mild to something more intense. It helps to break up any debris and skin cells that are sitting there. When you think about chemical exfoliators, you might think of components like glycolic acid, lactic and salicylic acid. Those can also help to resurface the skin and take away debris in a different way. The combination of them is the gold standard, because you are getting the max effect of exfoliation and brightening, which, [for clients] at home during quarantine, has been pretty essential.
The LexRx Refine + Peel
What makes the Refine + Peel different from an in-house treatment?
AR: I think one thing that’s important to point out is that with any chemical or physical exfoliator, you should know whether it’s a self-neutralizing treatment or not. This [product] is a self-neutralizing chemical peel, as opposed to one that you might get in-house where the clinician would have to neutralize the acid afterward.
So it’s self-neutralizing, but it’s still a medical-grade formula that you can’t leave on indefinitely. What are some of the other popular at-home products?
AR: We really used quarantine to pivot and find out how to take care of our clients’ skin without the injectables. So when we were in quarantine, we launched these needle-free products. There’s a needle-free face gloss, needle-free serum and a needle-free face cream. The needle-free serum is clinically proven to deliver the equivalent of one syringe of dermal filler, which reduces the appearance of fine lines. It pairs really well with the needlefree face cream and gloss. All three of them together work to diminish fine lines and wrinkles without the need for injectables. So whether we were closed and couldn’t come in, or you were nervous because of COVID—or you just don’t like needles—these are some other options for our clients.
Photography by: LexRx
