Kim Kardashian may be a lot of things (Entrepreneur! Mom! Short!), but she is not a wimp. If you’ve ever watched an episode of Keeping Up With the Kardashians, you know that Kim consistently subjects herself to painful cosmetic treatments in the name of beauty—like getting the stretch marks lasered off her boobs—but apparently, even the “beauty is pain” master draws a line somewhere.
In a post titled “The Skincare Treatment I’ll Never Do Again—So Not Worth It!” on Kim’s website, she talks about her infamous “vampire facial,” the one that left her face covered in a fine layer of her own blood, which promptly went viral on the interwebs.
The vampire facial involves getting your blood drawn, separating the platelets in a centrifuge, and then injecting that growth factor-rich plasma into your face with a microneedling tool to ideally help generate collagen. In reality? The science is limited, and the process hurts, according to Kim.
“Before I got the procedure, I just found out that I was pregnant, so I couldn't use numbing cream or a pain killer and both are suggested,” writes Kim. “It was really rough and painful for me…My show was also filming the treatment, so I felt I couldn't chicken out. It was honestly the most painful thing ever!” And seeing as how media-trained and polite Kim is, we’re going to go ahead and assume “most painful thing ever” is only a fraction of how unpleasant the treatment really was.
Of course, Kim had the vampire treatment in 2013, and technology has come a long way since, so by all means, try it for yourself if you want. Just know that needles will still be involved, and, well, needles kinda hurt, no matter how advanced you make them.
