I Got a $650 'Penis Facial,' and My Skin Has Never Looked Better

“I can only talk for a few minutes. I’m on my way to a penis facial.”

I was on the phone with my mother, who had called me during her usual time in the morning—right around 10:00 A.M. Since I work freelance, I’m usually just settling into my emails or leaving my yoga class at this time. I’m not usually headed to a beauty treatment that sounds like something you’d search for on a porn website.

But there I was, marching down Lexington Avenue on a Wednesday morning toward Georgia Louise Atelier in New York City for the celebrity facialist's coveted Hollywood EGF facial. This treatment—unofficially called the "penis facial" and praised by the likes of Sandra Bullock and Cate Blanchett—promises a "red-carpet-level glow" after just one session. It’s got the celebrity price tag to match at $650, but that’s a small price to pay for skin that’s paparazzi-ready. Seeing as I had a trip to Paris coming up that I was hoping to look impossibly fresh for, I jumped at the opportunity to give it a whirl.

Mom, however, was not that convinced. “Do they, like, hit you in the face with it?” she asked. “Do they use the sperm as a mask?”

None of the above, it turns out. The Hollywood EGF facial actually utilizes one of Georgia Louise’s signature serums, which contains EGF, or Epidermal Growth Factor. EGF is derived from the progenitor cells of fibroblast (i.e., the cells that produce collagen and elastin) that are taken from newborn baby foreskin.

Now, before you clutch your pearls, thinking that I had baby foreskin rubbed into my face, rest easy. The foreskin is collected during circumcision, at which point the stem cells are extracted through a centrifuge. They are then propagated to create more cells, and those stem cells and peptides are what are rubbed into your skin during the facial. The atelier claims they help "plump your skin and make you glow."

“Growth factors are like messengers that tell your skin cells to work the best they can. Our body uses them to help repair itself from wounds, and most recently they have been used to reverse skin aging,” says Joshua Zeichner, M.D., director of cosmetic and clinical research in the Department of Dermatology Mount Sinai Hospital. “While growth factors hold promise, we don't yet have enough data to say they definitively work better than traditional treatments, like retinol or lasers. However, they are extremely safe, and the only risk is to your pocketbook because they can be pricey.”

Watch what it's like to get the facial: