I won the work random email raffle much to my delight. So did colleague Belén. Besides basking in the glory that the Herald was good at something (winning random email raffles), we were the proud and happy recipients of a facial each courtesy of cosmetics guru Magda Pisani.

What with a trip to Bariloche, another trip to Cairo via Egypt then a trip to London then a wedding in La Pampa, it was hard to find the time to get together for this female bonding session.

But we finally managed the combo today, the day before Good Thursday (the day before Good Friday, right?). Belu rocked up at 11am and I was to follow at midday.

Preparing to leave the flat, a text message arrived. “The place is kind of 80s,” said Belu. I replied but there was no further response.

I was terrified. I’d seen the photos of magenta eye-shadow combined with a burgundy she-mullet and some kind of vampy suit. I can only imagine she had those jingling peace balls squished into her rock-solid lady parts, in fact I am certain that’s what I heard as she strode across to open the vast wooden door to me in her Santa Fe-Avenue clinic.

The best I can do is send you to www.magdapisani.com.ar here for the full Madga effect. And then you’ll see why I was petrified about how I would look after an hour with Madame Magda.

Oddly, Juan Carlos was the one slapping on then removing gloopy creams, prising away at my nose for all he’s worth – and he knows what he’s doing, he’s been a TV makeup artist since 1977, and used to use sandpaper (fact!) for exfoliation purposes. Blurgh, he filled up a whole bin with discarded tissues covered in my gunk, something he should apparently be doing every 40 days for me.

“I did Ricky Martin’s makeup once, you know. It was even obvious then, you know. That boy wanted me to put extra liner on his lower eye…” said Juan Carlos, who gives himself a facial every fortnight.

Now I’m not knocking his skills, this was probably the best facial treatment I’ve had, and when you came out of the clinic into 32-degree sun at 2pm feeling like a merengue and don’t break into a sweat, well, you know it was worth it.

But I just didn’t want to leave after 60 minutes on the table looking like Magda, who has a facial almost every day and may have been helped out by more than just sandpaper over the years. And the butterfly-shaped rugs and the papyrus obsession were wrong.

But thank you, work raffle. I feel shiner and softer than I have in a while.