Sometimes, out of the mouths of celebs come incredible stories that you can’t even imagine to be true and when you hear them they sound like a dream you might have during a full moon or the punchline of an award show joke. This is very much the case with Cate Blanchett’s retelling of her most memorable facial treatment. You see, it involves her good friend Sandy and a treatment she refers to as a “penis facial.”
In an interview with Vogue Australia, Blanchett reveals that the most outlandish beauty treatment she’s ever tried is one at the urging of her friend Sandy. Sandy is of course Sandra Bullock, her costar in Oceans 8, which is slated to debut this summer. As costars and lady friends often do, the two Oscar-winning actresses spent time together treating their skin to a luxe treatment, but this one doesn’t sound like your run of the mill, pampering face massage.
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“Sandy [Sandra] Bullock and I saw this facialist in New York, Georgia Louise,” said Blanchett, “and she gives what we call the penis facial and it’s something— I don’t know what it is, or whether it’s just cause it smells a bit like sperm—there’s some enzyme in it so Sandy refers to it as the penis facial.”
Although it’s a funny name for a facial, we spoke with celebrity facialist Georgia Louise who says it isn’t far off the mark. She and her team playfully refer to it as a “penis facial” because the stem cell microneedling treatment uses growth factors derived from the foreskin of Korean baby boys. While it may sound next-level crazy, Louise assures us that this treatment has been around for a while and is FDA-approved: “The foreskin is collected during circumcision and the stem cells are then harvested and extracted through a centrifuge. During the facial treatment, a special electric microneedling wand is used to help the stem cells and peptides absorb deeper into the skin, where the active ingredients help stimulate the production of collagen.”
As for why stem cells from a baby’s foreskin can give your skin a bigger boost, according to New York dermatologist Marina Peredo, MD, its down to the newness of the cells and their ability to “wake up” other cells who then act like chameleons. “Stem cells can signal other cells to make more fibroblasts, collagen and elastin,” said Dr. Peredo. “As we get older our stem cells are not as good, they get a little damaged by genetics and aging. When you use stem cells that are derived from a baby, it’s a higher potency because they are so young. It’s not surprising that a lot of them come from Korea, as of just a few years ago I learned that they have the largest umbilical cord stem cell bank in the world.”
Thankfully no babies were harmed for this celebrity facial treatment, but its fun to get an inside look at how A-list celebrities like Cate and Sandy maintain their youthful glow.
