WHY WE NEED TO BE STRICTER with clients

Andrew Hansford shares his thoughts on respecting the skin and how to get clients on board with a bespoke treatment programme

The skin is the largest organ in the body and it’s incredibly clever. If we don’t treat it with the respect it deserves, then it’s going to come back and bite you in a big way.

Any treatment you do that’s too dramatic may look great for the next couple of weeks, but a year down the road when the body’s come back from the wound-healing cascade and you get fibrosis, you won’t be able to fix it. That’s the skin’s reaction to you doing something wrong.

When you’re looking at the skin as an organ itself, the size of your tiny little fingernail has 70cm of blood vessels, 55cm of nerves, 100 sweat glands, 15 oil glands, 230 sensory preceptors, and approximately half a million cells that are constantly dying and being replaced. That’s the size of your tiny fingernail. Can you imagine that over your whole body?

Every skin condition I’ve ever seen relates to one of these constituent parts. rosacea, pigmentation, active acne – they all relate to sweat glands, nerve glands, blood vessels. So, understanding the skin is really the most important thing.

Because skin is on the outside we take it for granted. It could be screaming what’s wrong with it: dehydration, pigmentation, acne; but nothing you put on top of it is going to make any real difference.

There’s a reason why tretinoin and steroids are the only two drugs that can turn the ageing process around, because they’re prescription, but they’re also made of us: vitamin A and cholesterol.

Reading the skin

Consultation is mandatory, and that consultation is about you telling them what they need, not the other way around. For example, if I have a client saying to me: “I’m old, I want Botox” it’s white noise if what I’m looking at – what the skin’s showing me – is complete dehydration, a compromised skin barrier and pigmentation. I would set them on a course to treat that.

Have I treated their ageing? Absolutely not. Have I given them products for ageing? Absolutely not. Have I fixed their problem? Absolutely. So, take a step back, diagnose, write down all the things you think could be going on with that person and have an open dialogue.

Explain the timeline. Nothing has instant gratification. If you’re honest with them and they believe you, then you’ve got them for life. You can’t say it will take two weeks or four weeks. You’re dealing with a living organ.

If you’ve got pigmentation, for example, it’s going to be months and months and it’s going to get worse before it gets better. But you tell your clients this and they’re going to be prepared for it, then they’ll own it and move forward with it and move foreard with you, which is the most important thing.

Protecting the skin

Homecare, of course, is very important. If my patients don’t leave with the products I choose for them, I don’t treat them. The preventative angle is one of the most important things we can do, so they need to know that the maintenance, what they take home, is as important as what you do to them.

You always want an SPF and an active, whether that’s retinoids, vitamin C or hyaluronic acid. SPF is number one for homecare, and if they refuse to use it, do not treat them. It’s happened to me. I’d do these amazing treatments and really turn their skin around then they’d come back six months later and they’d been to Barbados for two weeks with factor five and reversed everything.

In short, you’re looking at the underlying cause. It’s an internal problem with an external visual, so always remember that.

Andrew Hansford is a trainer, treatment development specialist with over 15 years’ experience in the aesthetics industry. He is the director of ACH Aesthetics Training Academy, where he delivers training at Level 3+.