The Face Doctors started doing vampire facials just over a year ago and have already noticed a 30 per cent increase in business in the past year.
Before Brigitte gets on the treatment table, beauty and clinical therapist, Hazel Newland, explains the theory behind the process and why calcium chloride is added to your blood before it is applied to your face.
"We trick [your body] using calcium chloride, to make it think there's a wound and it instantly goes into repairing more."
The procedure involves using a small pen-like machine with three needles that pierce the skin approximately 60 times per second, which Purcell describes as "tingly and almost feels like a light scratch with a nail".
Though the process seems simple enough, one hour later, Brigitte finds the tingling has become downright painful.
"I feel like I've been hit by a bus and Hazel has scraped my skin off and all that's left is muscle and nerves."
And the pain continues into the evening and the next morning.
"It was one of the worst sleeps I have ever had. I felt like I had been laying in the sun without sunscreen for days.
Purcell after she returned home from having a Vampire Facial.
"The next day the pain hadn't gone and my face was swollen, so much so I could barely smile, I began to wonder what on earth I had done to my skin and I started to question ever getting the procedure done."
On days two and three Brigitte's skin felt rough and there seemed to be a lot of peeling before her skin started to feel better.
But a month later, she finally saw some results, though minimal on her face: "Apart from a bit of plumpness, there wasn't a lot of difference in my face. My chest, on the other hand, presented the most change.
"The pigmentation from all of my sun damage was virtually gone. Making more of the pain worth it."
Brigitte's verdict: This procedure is certainly not for the faint-hearted.
