IGX

At Shizuka New York skin care salon off Fifth Avenue, roughly 100 clients a month are shelling out $180 each for a traditional Japanese facial “using imported Asian nightingale excrement mixed with rice bran,” reports Verna Dobnik for the Associated Press. The treatment is touted as “a way to keep the face soft and smooth using an enzyme in the poop to gently exfoliate the skin.”

While the spa’s eponymous owner Shizuka Bernstein has been offering the Geisha Facial for only five years, the beauty secret is thought to date back to the 1600s, when it was stumbled upon (but how?) by Japanese geishas and actors.