In my nearly 50 years of working hands-on with skin, I’ve seen extraordinary changes in the beauty and skincare industry. We have more sophisticated equipment, more procedures, more products and more information available to us than ever before.
So much of that progress is exciting and valuable. But with it comes what may be one of our greatest challenges: in our excitement about what is new, we risk losing sight of the fundamentals.
Technological advances in skincare can help us achieve results that weren’t possible when I began my career. Machines and modalities can be incredible tools for helping us enhance a treatment. But the ability to truly understand the skin you’re working with can only come from you.
Before you decide what you’re going to do to someone’s skin, you first need to know why. And for that, you have to understand what you’re looking at and what the skin is telling you.
Learn to Read the Skin
The most useful skills I’ve developed in my career came from thousands upon thousands of hours of looking at the skin – touching it, treating it and observing how it responds.
We all want our client’s skin to improve quickly, so it’s tempting to jump straight in with machines, procedures or aggressive active ingredients. However, you’ll always get better, faster and more long-term results when you take the time to analyze each and every skin you work on and ask yourself the key questions:
Is their skin oily because it is truly producing excessive oil, or is it dehydrated and struggling to protect itself? Is that redness visible inflammation, or is the skin telling you that its barrier has been repeatedly compromised? When you see congestion, pustules or irritation, do you immediately reach for something stronger – or do you pause to ask why the skin is behaving that way?
Above all, do you know what healthy skin feels like? What compromised skin feels like? And how to tell the difference?
These questions matter because they determine the success of your entire treatment plan.
The Skin Barrier Changes Everything
If I could only share one thing with you, it would be the importance of maintaining the integrity of the skin barrier.
When the barrier is healthy and supported, the skin heals more quickly. It’s better able to absorb products, retain moisture and maintain a more balanced environment. It is also set up to respond effectively to your treatment plan.
This is especially true when you’re working with acne.
Our instinct with acne can be to attack it – to dry it out, aggressively exfoliate it or continually add stronger and stronger treatments. But acneic skin can also be inflamed, dehydrated, sensitized and vulnerable. If we keep compromising that skin in an effort to clear it, we create a whole new set of problems to address.
Sometimes the most important thing an esthetician can do is recognize when the skin needs less, not more.
That requires judgment.
Your Hands Are Part of Your Education
I believe strongly in the value of hands-on experience. When you cleanse someone’s skin, massage it, examine it closely and feel its texture beneath your fingertips, you’re gathering information.
Over time, your hands become educated.
You begin to recognize subtle differences in texture, hydration, congestion, elasticity and sensitivity. You learn how skin responds from one appointment to the next. And you gain the practical knowledge that no two skins are exactly alike.
That understanding affects everything, from the treatments you perform on each different client to the home-care regimen you recommend.
And home care matters enormously.
A client may see you once every few weeks, but they take care of their own skin every day. When you recommend a thoughtful, consistent home-care regimen that supports their barrier and addresses their individual needs, it’s going to be far more effective than continually chasing the latest must-have trend. Your clients come to see you because they trust you to know what’s right for them.
There Is No Substitute For Your Professional Expertise
There are so many wonderful modalities that can be tremendously beneficial when they’re used appropriately. But I encourage every student entering this profession to learn the skin before becoming dependent on them.
A device should be something you choose because you understand why the skin needs it, not something you reach for because it’s available, impressive or popular.
Ask yourself: What am I trying to accomplish? Is this skin healthy enough for this treatment? How healthy is the barrier? What does this client need now, today?
You can bet that is going to be different to what you did at their first appointment, or what your treatment menu tells you they should receive.
Those decisions are where your value as a professional lies. No device can make those judgments for you.
The Fundamentals Will Never Become Outdated
Trends change. Ingredients come in and out of fashion. New machines keep hitting the market and social media constantly touts the latest innovative treatment everyone supposedly needs.
But skin will always need to be understood.
My advice to students and young professionals is to become fascinated by the fundamentals. Learn anatomy and physiology. Understand the skin barrier. Study ingredients. Develop your sense of touch. Look closely at every skin you have the privilege of treating. Ask questions. Observe what happens between appointments. Learn from your successes and, perhaps even more importantly, learn from the times when the skin didn’t respond the way you expected.
Then use the wonderful tools our industry has developed. You’ll have a solid foundation of knowledge to guide you to the right ones.
After nearly 50 years of working with skin, I still believe the most powerful tools an esthetician has are your eyes, your hands, your knowledge and your ability to listen to what the skin is telling you.
Protect the barrier. Respect the skin. Master the fundamentals.
Helping you build a foundation for a lifetime of healthy, beautiful skin.
