Is the pain worth the beauty?

My face was on fire and I was being poked and pinched with hundreds of needles on the hundreds of pores on my red, burning face. I wanted to scream like a mother giving birth, cry like a baby deprived of his bottle, escape like a convict. As I lay upon the soft, comfy spa bed, I’m filled with enduring thoughts of nothing put the bee-sting pain on my face.
When I decided to get an acne facial treatment, I expected a relaxing facial massage with a nice, refreshing cucumber cooling mask, to cleanse my face, along with the soothing classics of Beethoven and Bach in the background. Little did I know, I would be poked and pinched at several hundred times on my face, enduring the pain of a thousand daggers, while listening to the rough, pop soundings of Britney Spears and being blinded by the bright lights that hovered over me–not the ideal spa treatment.
Pinch by pinch, poke by poke, the pain got more and more intense and I tightened my grip on my robe more and more until blood could no longer circulate to my hands. Needle by needle, a tear fell down my face. One hundred bee stings were nothing, compared to this. Listening to “Hit me Baby One More Time” didn’t exactly help ease the pain either; listening to Britney’s music was pain enough, but listening while receiving an acne facial is like being tortured for your whole life’s worth of sins.
As I questioned whether my $55 was worth the pain, the esthetician squirted some cooling oil on her hands and began to massage my tender face. It was as if her hands were meant to do so. Every circular motion from her finger tips fit the shape of my face. “Ahhh,” I thought, while a relaxed detensifying sensation ran through my body. The feeling of relaxation came to life in these five minutes of heaven. I began to doze off and drifted soothingly into a deep sleep.
What felt like three seconds later, I awoke to find my stiff face covered with a facial mask. Although Britney’s music continuously played, I felt like every burden and problem had escaped me, like life was perfect. Fifteen minutes later, the esthetician peeled off the mask and showed me all the dirt and oils that hid within the pores of my epidermis. As she wiped my face with a cooling wipe, I felt cleansed and refreshed, like I would walk out of the room, a new person.
I stood up and stared back at my reflection in the mirror to find my pores opened and my face cherry-red. Acne free as my face is now, I know one thing is true: Beauty is pain. Is it worth it? It’s up to you to decide.