An unusual facial gives a warm, healthy glow to winter-worn skin

When Kei Ngu told me he'd invented a new kind of facial - dubbed the 15-minute Non-surgical Cupping Facelift - I was incredulous. I'd seen the pictures of Gwyneth Paltrow's back, and have had cupping myself. It leaves marks. Usually.

But nothing ventured nothing gained, and I trust Ngu implictly, so I found myself one Saturday afternoon, after a stimulating Tui Na massage at the hands (and elbows) of his wife and business partner, Hoeyyn, having my face wiped clean with rosewater.

Next, Kei applied a specially blended cream to my face - the recipe is secret squirrel stuff, but he assured me that it's expensive - using his healer's fingers to vigorously massage my visage, concentrating on areas of difficulty. In my case that's the rippling bit between my eyebrows caused by years of frowning and squinting, my jawline, and around my nose.

Then out came the cups - small, baby cups - which he swirled, mainly in an upward direction, toward my hairline. When the cup hits your skin for the first time, it feels like a gentle sucking tug, but in the main, the cups glide easily and swiftly, borne along on the cream. They don't linger long enough, or pull hard enough to leave any marks.

Cupping moves your blood (and "chi" according to practitioners), and that promotes good circulation. "Cups are the fastest way to move stagnation and allow fresh blood into the area," says Ngu. "Then you drain it through the lymphatic area. This eliminates facial tension and stress from the elements. It leaves new, fresh blood cells, making the skin more elastic and softer."

Afterwards, while I can't attest to looking like a girl of 25 again - it was just one treatment, and I'm an old bag, after all - I can vouchsafe that for the next two days my skin felt as smooth as glass and as soft as velvet while my complexion was a healthy, even colour. I couldn't stop marvelling at it.

Ngu has fine-tuned his new treatment on hundreds of people of all ages and nationalities.

It's quick enough to have done on your lunch break, and inexpensive enough to make a regular part of your beauty regimen.

If you ask me, it's arrived just in time - ahead of the holiday season when alcohol and other excesses abound, and at the start of winter, when the wind and weather conspire to make everyone look ten years older.

I know I wouldn't be averse to finding a gift certificate for a month's worth of treatments in my Christmas stocking.

Shivago Thai Clinic, 25 Blackfriars Street, Edinburgh (078782 56174, [email protected])

The Non- Surgical Cupping Facelift costs 15

This article was first published in The Scotsman, 18 December, 2010