Watch the latest beauty craze: Live snail facials


For just $30 (plus airfare to Thailand) you can partake in the future of beauty regimens, now. The treatment features live snails making slime trails across your face — and according to The Associated Press' Denis D. Gray, it's actually pretty relaxing. The live-snail facial started in Tokyo in 2013, and has spread to London and spas in China, but helix aspera muller glycoconjugates — snail mucus — has been used for skin treatments since ancient Greece, Gray says.
The duo who run the spa in Chiang Mai, Thailand, that Gray visited are from France. "We take care of the snails as if they were our family, our babies," says one partner, Luc Champeyroux. "You can see they look very good." And if the thought of having snails crawl on your face, spreading their mucus and grazing with their 14,000 microscopic teeth sounds unpleasant, Gray offers this verdict: "If truth be told, I sort of missed my harmless, sensuous sextet when they were dislodged." To see the snails in action, watch the AP video below. —Peter Weber
A free daily email with the biggest news stories of the day – and the best features from TheWeek.com
Subscribe to The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
Peter has worked as a news and culture writer and editor at The Week since the site's launch in 2008. He covers politics, world affairs, religion and cultural currents. His journalism career began as a copy editor at a financial newswire and has included editorial positions at The New York Times Magazine, Facts on File, and Oregon State University.
-
August 23 editorial cartoons
Cartoons Saturday's political cartoons include deficit dimness, steamroller-in-chief, and more
-
5 museum-grade cartoons about Trump's Smithsonian purge
Cartoons Artists take on institutional rebranding, exhibit interpretation, and more
-
Settling the West Bank: a death knell for a Palestine state?
In the Spotlight The reality on the ground is that the annexation of the West Bank is all but a done deal
-
Florida erases rainbow crosswalk at Pulse nightclub
Speed Read The colorful crosswalk was outside the former LGBTQ nightclub where 49 people were killed in a 2016 shooting
-
Trump says Smithsonian too focused on slavery's ills
Speed Read The president would prefer the museum to highlight 'success,' 'brightness' and 'the future'
-
Trump to host Kennedy Honors for Kiss, Stallone
Speed Read Actor Sylvester Stallone and the glam-rock band Kiss were among those named as this year's inductees
-
White House seeks to bend Smithsonian to Trump's view
Speed Read The Smithsonian Institution's 21 museums are under review to ensure their content aligns with the president's interpretation of American history
-
Charlamagne Tha God irks Trump with Epstein talk
Speed Read The radio host said the Jeffrey Epstein scandal could help 'traditional conservatives' take back the Republican Party
-
CBS cancels Colbert's 'Late Show'
Speed Read 'The Late Show with Stephen Colbert' is ending next year
-
Shakespeare not an absent spouse, study proposes
speed read A letter fragment suggests that the Shakespeares lived together all along, says scholar Matthew Steggle
-
New Mexico to investigate death of Gene Hackman, wife
speed read The Oscar-winning actor and his wife Betsy Arakawa were found dead in their home with no signs of foul play