Japan beauty treatment offers slime power with snails

Having live snails crawling on your face sounds like a thing of nightmares, but in Japan one company is hoping people will be prepared to pay for it.

Women who want to slough off dead skin, clear their pores or roll back the years can submit themselves to five minutes of molluscs.

"Slime from snails helps remove old cells, heal the skin after sun burn and moisturise it,” said Manami Takamura, a spokeswoman for Tokyo-based beauty salon Ci:z.Labo, as she placed three gastropods on a woman’s face.

"In this way, you can have 100 per cent pure snail essence directly on the skin.”

Snail slime is believed to have an anti-ageing effect on human skin, and some cosmetics are already sold with essence of escargot.