A Japanese beauty salon is offering a new treatment to help woman get rid of dead skin and clean their pores - live snail facials.
The snails are placed on customers' face and allowed to move at random. The slime they leave behind is the secret behind the treatment.
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Manami Takamura, an employee of the Ci:z.Labo beauty salon in Tokyo, explained: "Slime from snails helps remove old cells, heal the skin after sunburn and moisturise it."
The salon's 'Celebrity Escargot Course' offers customers a 60-minute treatment costing about £160.
It begins with faces being washed before the molluscs are gently placed on the cheeks and forehead then allowed to move around as they please.
Then comes a series of massages, masks and electrical pulse machines using creams infused with snail mucus to ensure the live secretions fully penetrate the skin.
Customer Sayaka Ito said she had found the treatment so relaxing that she had almost fallen asleep.
"You can feel the snails moving on your face. At first, it is surprising, but it's actually rather nice. My skin really does feel smooth and moist,"she said.
