Sometimes it is easy for a woman to mistake her face for a war zone in which the forces of good - expensive creams, clever make-up, facials, copious water-drinking, a healthy diet and, wherever possible, generous lighting - do battle against the evils of ageing, pollution, late nights and a predilection for chocolate and red wine. The very language of good skin is surprisingly martial: we fight the ravages of time as if they were an enemy army. And the technology used by many women - from full-on face-lifts to flirtations with Botox - is as invasive as sending in ground troops.
Beauty acupuncture, which adapts the ancient Chinese treatment to target the face, sounds similarly extreme. Covering your face with needles - surely you can't get more macho than that? Certainly the results of the treatment, as practised by John Tsagaris, a 42-year-old Greek, are hard-core, and currently the talk of London beauty circles. Here is someone who, if his advocates are to be believed, can erase lines, evaporate spots and solve problems such as dryness, oiliness and pigmentation.
In fact, Tsagaris's approach is anything but invasive. Yes, when you arrive at his simple treatment room in central London he immediately starts firing questions at you - about the way you live your life, from diet to sleeping habits, about all aspects of your health, from your menstrual cycle to whether or not you feel the cold. And, yes, his eyes spotlight your face with such intensity that you almost feel you have stepped back into the shadows when he looks away. But his warm and gentle manner gives a clue to the way he works, and to the nature of the treatment. What's more, the fact that he himself has the skin of a man in his twenties makes you more than happy to subject yourself to his needles.
As Tsagaris is at pains to explain, beauty acupuncture 'triggers the body's own mechanisms to repair and reconstruct the collagen fibres, and strengthen and rehydrate the subcutaneous muscles'. All he is doing, he insists, is providing a catalyst for the body to heal itself. This is a man for whom Botox is most definitely a dirty word.
What we would vaguely refer to as 'the ageing process' Tsagaris inventories as an exact set of symptoms, each of which responds to needles placed at key points around the face. A wrinkle, for example, is caused by 'tension being held in the skin and in the muscle. The muscle never relaxes, so rigidity sets in and lines develop. I strengthen and relax those muscles by giving them a workout with my needles.'
