Blog · skin · 7 min

Monthly is the honest answer.

It is also the least profitable one, which is why you rarely hear it from the person booking your next appointment. Here is the arithmetic behind it and the two places most people waste money on their face.

Solstice / Blog / How often a facial pays off

Turnover, roughly Twenties · ~28 days
Thirties · ~30–35 days
Forties · ~35–45 days
Fifties+ · ~45–60 days

So
One resurfacing
treatment per cycle.
Not two.

The cycle sets the ceiling

Skin renews on a cycle. Cells form at the base of the epidermis, travel up, flatten, die, and shed. In your twenties that round trip takes roughly four weeks. It lengthens as you get older, which is most of why skin looks duller at forty-five than at twenty-five on the same routine.

Every resurfacing treatment (the HydraFacial's peel pass, an enzyme, dermaplaning) removes cells from the top of that stack. Do it once a cycle and you are taking off cells that had finished their job. Do it twice a cycle and you are taking off cells that had not, and the barrier underneath is thinner for it.

That is the single most common way people waste money on their face, and it is usually a spa that talked them into it.

What twice a month actually buys

A brighter face for about seventy-two hours after each appointment, a compromised barrier by month three, and often a rebound in oil production because the skin reads the constant stripping as damage. Then a course of repair treatments to fix it.

The honest version is one substantive treatment a month, with LED in between if collagen is the goal, because light does not remove anything.

A cadence that actually holds.

Twelve weeks, written out. This is close to what most of our members settle into once nobody is selling them anything.

Weeks 1–4

Find the floor

One HydraFacial. Then leave it alone for four weeks and pay attention. Most people have never seen their skin on a clean cycle and mistake week-two dullness for a problem.

$185 · LED layers in free

Weeks 5–8

One enzyme

Gentler than the first, because you are maintaining rather than clearing. If your skin is reactive this is where it stays permanently, and that is a perfectly good outcome.

$165 · no downtime

Weeks 9–12

Repeat the first

Same treatment as week one. This is the comparison that matters: the same thing, three months apart, on skin that has been left alone in between.

$185

Ongoing

Hold at monthly

Alternate the two. Add LED weekly for six weeks if collagen is the goal and you want something that compounds rather than resets.

~$175/month

The two places the money goes

Over-treating. Covered above, and it is the expensive one because it costs you the treatments and then costs you again repairing the barrier.

Buying the wrong mechanism. Most facials are sold on what they will do to the cell underneath and deliver a very good exfoliation. Both are worth paying for; they are not the same purchase. If your goal is collagen, the thing that does that is light and time, and it is the slowest and least dramatic item on any menu. If your goal is "I have a wedding on Saturday", that is extraction and hydration, and it works within a day.

Ask which one you are buying. A practitioner who cannot answer that plainly is selling you a mood.

If the budget only stretches to one thing

Make it the monthly enzyme and spend the difference on sunscreen. We say that at the table often enough that it belongs in writing. Nothing on a spa menu competes with daily SPF for what it costs, and no amount of monthly resurfacing outruns the damage it prevents.

What we will not do

No medium or deep chemical peels, no microneedling, nothing that breaks the barrier. Those belong in a medical practice with a physician on site. Old Town has several good ones and the desk will tell you which, including when the honest answer is that you do not need one.

Solstice Spa & Wellness·Maya Castellanos, Lead Aesthetician·Updated August 2026

Asked often.

How often should I get a facial?

About once a month for most people. Skin renews on a roughly four-week cycle in your twenties and slower after that, and resurfacing more often than that cycle removes cells that have not finished their job.

What happens if I get facials twice a month?

A brighter face for about seventy-two hours after each one, a compromised barrier by month three, and often a rebound in oil production because the skin reads constant stripping as damage.

Which facial should I book for collagen?

LED light therapy, weekly for six weeks then monthly. It is the only treatment aimed at what the cell underneath is doing, and it is the slowest to show and the longest to last.

If I can only afford one thing, what should it be?

A monthly enzyme treatment, and spend the difference on daily sunscreen. Nothing on a spa menu competes with SPF for what it costs.

Once a month, properly.

Facials book two to three weeks out. Tell us roughly when and we will find the nearest hour.

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