There is an element of the mad scientist about Dr. Philippe Allouche. Standing facing a whole wall of his Biologique Recherche products, he likes to deviate from the standard formulas and whip up something on the spot. “Look, feel!” he exclaims, rousing me from the light slumber I had drifted into as a result of his hands gently sculpting and massaging my face. “This is the emulsion I created just now, for you. Feel the texture!”

Rather than just an errant moment of whimsy however, this spontaneity is central to Dr. Allouche’s work at Biologique Recherche. A proponent of customisation and personalisation, after just an hour spent in his company, and you wonder how you could have ever gone for facials that are geared towards the mass market. All the Biologique Recherche facials offered at The Four Seasons spa in Hong Kong are customised to a degree, but the Haute Couture facial that we’re here to try today takes it to a whole new level. As it should, considering it costs over HK$275,000.

Don’t worry, that’s not for just one facial, we haven’t quite lost our minds yet. Rather, the Haute Couture facial is a six-month programme, beginning with an analysis performed by Dr. Allouche himself, followed by facials every three weeks for six months. Not only are you not supposed to get any other facials outside of the ones approved by Dr. Allouche, but you must also get rid of all your other beauty products.

That’s right: all the beauty arsenal and must-haves you’ve accumulated over a lifetime of trial and error must be swept away and put into storage for half a year, as the only products you can use are the ones suggested by Dr. Allouche. A doctor of internal medicine and skin biology as well as heir to Biologique Recherche, a cult beauty brand started by his parents thirty years ago, Dr. Allouche has a clinical approach to the world of beauty. Even the products that I was given for the first month (monthly shipments will arrive, created and blended especially for me by his lab in Paris) are filled out according to his “prescription”.

This was following a 90-minute treatment in which the doctor analysed various different components of my skin, from the amount of lipids on the epidermis, the sebum secretion, and the elasticity present in the skin. All this is entered into a programme (pictured above), so that as I return every three weeks, he (or his team) can analyse which of his potions are working. He also demonstrates a few of his techniques, such as sculpting and moulding the water and muscles on one side of my face, while leaving the other side intact.

“I respect the physiology of the skin,” says Dr. Allouche, “A fully functional epidermis renews itself 9,000 times in your life. It’s the only organ that will do that. So we just work on its capability to heal, to restore and regenerate itself, and that’s it, no crazy miracles.” That's what he says, but in under 10 minutes, he had managed to give one side of my face a mini-face lift, and amply demonstrates his theory that a combination of “great products with serious methodology” can, in fact, work miracles on the skin.

As I leave the spa, his assistant helps me fill out my first “prescription”, a hefty bag filled with one cleanser (the Lait VIP pictured below); the cult product Lotion P50 (used for exfoliating and balancing the epidermis); one face masque; four serums; and two creams.

Although it may seem intimidating at first, we like that the doctor encourages his patients to exercise the same amount of freedom he uses when whipping up potions on the spot. Accompanying our products was a page-long e-mail describing not only how to use the products and also more importantly, which ones to alternate. A lot of the instructions says “based on your current skin condition”, and the serums and lotions can be used interchangeably in the morning or evenings, depending on how your skin feels, as the doctor understands that it can not only change from day to day, but hour to hour.

As my skin verges on the sensitive, the doctor prescribes the gentler potions in his cabinet, but even so, he warns that my skin may react adversely at first. Apparently this is natural, as your skin has to rid itself of the toxins before it can reach an equilibrium. We found this to be true: for the first three days after the facial and swapping entirely to Biologique Recherche’s products, I noted a few dry spots on my skin. I also noticed that one of the moisturisers was much less rich than the other, and made me sorely miss my old eye cream that I used to apply in the evenings.

However, after about a week, I notice that my skin appeared smooth again, and a major problem that Dr. Allouche had identified – that the skin on my forehead was a shade darker than the rest of my face, prescribing the Crème PIGM 400 (for brightening, unifying and spot correcting) – seems to have evened out.

For those interested in booking the Haute Couture treatment, please contact Shoshana Weinberg, spa director of The Four Seasons at shoshana.weinberg@fourseasons.com.

As we continue along our six-month journey with Dr. Allouche, we will be giving progress reports here on HongKongTatler.com, so make sure to keep an eye out and see if you’d like to get on the waiting list for the Haute Couture facial yourself.