Halloween-inspired beauty treatments to try this spooky season

Halloween costumes normally require your skin be made up to look like it's drained of blood, complete with bruised, Saturn-sized dark circles and maybe some artfully painted-on cracks. And yet there are a host of beauty treatments that take their inspiration from spooky season but promise the exact opposite: plumper, glowing skin; a boost in circulation and energy, as well as the tools to age gracefully.

Below, some of the best to try when darkness falls – and to recover the day after.

Skincare products by German aesthetic doctor Dr Barbara Sturm are a perennial favourite amongst the Scandi cool set. But, crucially, Dr Sturm was also part of a medical discovery known as the “Kobe Procedure” where a patient’s own blood cells are used to produce proteins that trigger healing. She applied the same principle to her Vampire Facial – a plasma-infused treatment that went viral when Kim Kardashian shared an Instagram photo of the treatment that includes needling your own blood into your skin to brighten and tighten. In 2003, Dr Sturm applied the same principle to develop her famed face cream, Dr. Barbara Sturm MC1, where a patient’s blood is drawn and the plasma is spun into a custom-blended cream aimed at tackling your individual skin issues.

For a less radical and more affordable approach, Dr Sturm now incorporates microneedling as an optional add-on to all her facials in spas around the world.

Halloween simply wouldn't be complete without the ubiquitous pumpkin carving. But don't throw away the meaty inside though, as pumpkin is excellent for topically treating the skin. It's brimming with vitamin A, C, and E, and antioxidants, which help fight sun damage and wrinkles. It also contains fruit enzymes that help to naturally exfoliate dead skin cells.

The Pumpkin Enzyme Mask from Peter Thomas Roth delivers a triple threat to dead skin cells and congested pores with its combination of pumpkin enzymes, AHAs, and aluminium oxide crystals. Likewise, The Body Shop Pumpkin Instant Radiance Shower Mask and Summer Fridays Overtime Mask delivers a similarly powerful exfoliation hit.

Alternatively, you can go down the DIY route. The skin experts at Foreo recommend pureeing 1/2 cup of pumpkin in a food processor until smooth before adding in one raw egg, half a teaspoon of honey and half a teaspoon of apple cider vinegar before applying the mixture to freshly-cleansed skin.

While vampires suck blood from the veins of an unsuspecting victim when they need to feel revived, IV vitamin drips are a less gruesome option for us mere mortals. Administered intravenously through the veins (hence the IV abbreviation) in clinics such as Stockholm's Release Co, the premise is the same as IV drips are normally reserved for hospital patients.

A cocktail of nutrients (think vitamins, minerals) swimming in a saline solution is administered into the bloodstream via a cannula to perk you up when you're hungover or need to boost your defences against flu in winter. It's said to be more effective than oral vitamin supplements because it bypasses absorption through the gastrointestinal tract and goes straight to the source.

If ever a beauty treatment made you look like a dead ringer for Michael Myers in the slasher series Halloween, it's an LED mask. LED (Light Emitting Diode) masks are typically made from a sheet of white silicone, fitted with tiny bulbs that emit varying wavelengths of light to treat multiple skin concerns.

One reason our skin positively drinks up light energy is because it’s photosensitive. Another, says Laura Bonné, founder of Copenhagen’s Amazing Space spa and skincare line, is that LED treats the deeper cell layers. “The light energy is transformed into ATP (adenosine triphosphate), which is the energy needed to create collagen and elastin fibres," she says. "With light treatments, the cells receive extra energy to regenerate and restore skin tissue.”

Prepare to terrify your neighbours with the CurrentBody Skin LED Light Therapy Mask and The Light Salon Boost Advanced LED Light Therapy Face Mask.

While cryotherapy isn't quite cold enough to leave you frozen with terror, it is chilly. Whole-body cryo chambers such as those at Cryo Lab Copenhagen are popping up everywhere in Nordic countries, the air or liquid nitrogen vapor inside them cooled to as low as -140°C, in order to reduce inflammation, encourage wound healing and muscle regeneration.

Sub-zero temperatures via freeze-retaining ice globes (Fraicheur Paris does lust-worthy coloured versions) can also shrink wrap and tighten the skin’s surface, as well as ensure you experience an uptick in radiance. “Cryotherapy gives a cold shock to the skin's surface causing the capillaries to immediately constrict,” says Laura Bonné, founder of Copenhagen’s Amazing Space Spa, which offers a cryotherapy facial, where skin is treated to a deep cleanse, exfoliation, LED therapy and freeze-mask.

Bubble masks originated in Korea and on contact with the skin puff up into an uncanny impression of a Nordic troll. The crackling sounds only add to this mask's spooky appeal as the mask fizzes up. Don't, however, be fooled into thinking that bubble masks are just a gimmick. Versions such as the GlamGlow Bubble Sheet Mask are, in fact, an off-beat way of effectively drawing dirt and pollution out of your pores.

Finally, for a mask that definitely looks like it has come straight out of a horror film try the Dr. Jart+ Cryo Rubber Mask with Moisturizing Hyaluronic Acid. Pop it in a refrigerator for 30 minutes so the cold, freakishly blue rubber can properly set on the face. A clinical study by the brand suggested that skin temperature was temporarily reduced by around 12.42° Fahrenheit, which is enough to jumpstart the circulation.

When it comes to a scarily good spa treatment, look no further than cupping. An ancient therapy used for thousands of years in Chinese medicine, cupping involves, as the name suggests, cups being placed on your back, stomach, arms, legs or other parts of your body. Inside the cup, a vacuum or suction force pulls the skin upward, drawing blood to the area to stimulate the natural healing process.

Fans wax lyrical about cupping easing back pain, headaches and arthritis. The treatment typically leaves behind bruise-like rings due to broken blood vessels just beneath the skin.