BARE Face Podcast

It is terrible. It's very scary. The fact that people are doing this on consumers is terrifying. It can cause major damage, leave you with permanent scarring. We're gonna give a yes, no, maybe, and explain why you should or should not get that treatment. At home microneedling. Very dangerous. They're like cone shaped needles. They go in at an angle. Now you have a big wide open wound in your skin, and they're dirty. If you don't know how to pre and post treat your skin, you should not be just throwing a bunch holes in your face. Most salons and most med spas are buying them off of Amazon which is terrifying. We teach to at our med spa is consistency over intensity. If you don't use them consistently, they're not gonna do anything. Alright. For this episode, we're going to be talking about would you spend your money on it? So we're gonna go through a list of treatments that you may have heard of, maybe some that you haven't. And we're gonna give a yes, no, maybe and explain why you should or should not get that treatment. And I'm gonna answer both as somebody that gets a lot of these treatments done, but also as technician. I'm gonna kind of Perfect. HydraFacials. HydraFacials. Yep. As a consumer, I love them. They make your skin feel great. As a technician, I'm gonna say maybe because it's not meant for everybody for every skin concern. So it really just depends on what it is that you are trying to achieve with your HydraFacial. But they feel amazing, there's no downtime, and your skin looks afterwards. You glow for like six weeks. So it's also corrective, but it's just the fact that you get it done before a wedding or any kind of event. But it's not gonna tighten your skin and, you know, give you a face lift. Look. Right. Or get rid of all your pigment. So it's a maybe for me. Okay. Micro needling. Micronadling is a thumbs up. That's gonna cause some mechanical damage to the face and help with tightening texture, tone, soft lines. It does everything. Micro needling, I think everybody should get three to four of those a year for the rest of your life. Just maintain great skin. If you're younger, start doing it now. Younger being like late twenties, early thirties, start getting a couple of those a year now. If you are older, let's say you're in your sixties, you have a lot more laxity happening right now, we're gonna do something a little bit more aggressive to kinda get that under control and then we'll maintain your results with microneedling. But microneedling is amazing and everybody can do it on all skin types. So And there's no downtime. Minimal. Minimal. Pink You're a for a day. That's about it. Minimal downtime. But it is the everything product or treatment. HyalaPen? Oh, Hyalaipen? Hyalaipen. Yeah. So Hyalaipen is your needleless lip filler. It is terrible. It's very scary. The fact that people are doing this on consumers is terrifying. A real injector is not going to be offering this service, but we have seen it being performed by hairstylist, nail techs, your neighbor. But it can cause major damage, leave you with permanent scarring Well, you can get vascular occlusions. Occlusions pretty easily with it. You're forcing hyaluronic acid into the skin with more of like pressure. You're not actually injecting it where you want it to be, so it kind of goes wherever it wants to go. I have yet to see a a decent one performed. I don't see a lot of them done. But when they are at a real med spa with real RNs and they are trying to get you to do a needleless They wouldn't. Filler, run fast and far away. RF microneedling. That's a thumbs up. I'm gonna say maybe. Okay. It's always a maybe if depending on the skin type, the concern, and the goal, it's a great treatment. Mhmm. So what that one is similar to the traditional microneedling. This is RF microneedling. What that's gonna do RF stands for? Radio frequency. Radio frequency microneedling. So what it's doing is the needles, when they go into your skin, they're not just causing the damage that needs to be repaired Mhmm. To give you youthful skin. They're actually releasing the radio frequency energy and heating up those sub layers of skin in order to tighten them up. So it is more of a long term play when you're looking for tighter skin, and you have to make sure you have the right technician. Because the way the service is performed is more important than the service itself. Yeah. Depth, energy, and all of it. But if it's done right, it can actually have amazing benefits, but they are long term. You don't see an instant result. And I put that into the same category. If it's skin pen or just traditional microneedling or RF microneedling, again, three to four of those a year. RF is gonna offer you a lot more tightening Mhmm. Where traditional will give you more textural smoothness and pigment breaking up pigment. But not everybody is a candidate. And not every device is worth using. Very true. IPL. That's a thumbs up. Don't give me a maybe on that one. It's always a maybe. Okay. So you cannot get an IPL if you are a type like a high four to six that's more of a darker skin type because it will cause hypopigmentation, which is gonna cause some whitening or or kill off some of the melanin in the skin. So it's a dangerous treatment on those dark skin, do not let anybody do IPL on you. If you have melasma, don't let anyone do IPL on you if you have melasma. If you don't know you have melasma, they should be doing a skin analysis on you first to make sure you don't. But And there are I mean, I've I've seen I've run into MDs that I've run into MDs that will do these. I won't name names, but they'll do them on type fours and fives. Or I'm sorry. They'll do them on on melasma patients, but in my opinion, the risk is not worth the reward. There are several other treatments that are better, but when you're in lighter skin types, pigmentation, redness, the little veins you get on the side of the nose and in the cheeks, it's amazing. Amazing for those. I love IPL. It will give you really fast results if you have sun damage. It's just like the fastest way we can clear it up within one to two treatments. So it's a Yeah. It's a quick fix, but it's only going to work on pigment. So don't expect it to also tighten your skin and help with fine lines and, you know, all of that. So it's a great treatment. Beef tallow. I have a hard time with beef tallow. Give it a little a little higher one. So beef tallow is one those things right four. That is like it's kind of an upcoming gimmicky type thing, but it's also been used for hundreds of thousands of years for skin. And so right now, it's coming out as, oh, let's jump on this trend, and then they're gonna add a bunch of stuff to a bottle and say it's beef tallow. You just really gotta watch for ingredients, making sure that it's appropriate for skin, where it's being sourced, how it's being filtered. It's gonna have Regular beef tallow is not what they're talking about. It's gonna have some food grade stuff in it, but suet. Now, that putting on your skin is highly moisturizing, but there are also some maybes because if you have acne prone skin, it could cause some clogging issues. So And it's not corrective. So it you just need to go into it knowing what it is that you're using it for. If it's for hydration, fine. It's not good for all skin types. Also, I just preface everything by saying anytime a skin care ingredient becomes trendy, it very rarely starts actually having that good ingredient in it. So it's like maybe five years ago, beef tallow when it was just organically sourced and people were truly getting it from like I don't know. What would you say? Like, I don't wanna say farms, but Well, yeah. They were. Like a a farm. Okay. Or getting it off the TikTok shop. Two very different types. Just because the label says the same thing, you really need to be looking at ingredients and understanding when you're getting into those more natural things what you're actually looking for. Retinol went through the same process. There are amazing retinols, but then marketing companies started putting retinol on every single bottle. And then peptide is the same thing. Allegedly. Correct. Peptide is the same now peptide's a buzzword. Everything is gonna be Vitamin C. With peptides. You just have to do your your own research on it. So take a picture of it, you know, put it into AI, whatever you have to do, or ask an expert, and you can know you're using the right thing. Also, beef tallow, you could just use moisturizer too and probably get a really similar result. At home microneedling. Hard pass. Yeah. Go ahead. At home microneedling, very dangerous. I'm seeing more of this because now they're saying that they have professional pens that you can buy. So there's a couple of ways that we can look at at home micro needling. You have your old, like like the rollers that people used to use. Even skin care companies were selling them. Very dangerous. They cannot be sterilized properly. So one, you're using it. I had a client tell me she used it on her face and then when she was done, she just set it down and used it the next day. That's disgusting. So one, I would be very careful with anything roller. Also, they're going to cause a lot more damage to the epidermis. They're going in so they're like cone shaped needles compared to true traditional micro needles are gonna be a smooth needle. So you have these cone shaped needles, they go in at an angle, they exit at an angle, now you have a big wide open wound in your skin. They're probably if they are going deep enough, they're going to cause more trauma to the skin and they're dirty. Your at home micro needling devices that replicate what you would see in a salon, Also, they're not FDA cleared needles, so they they are also going to cause a lot of inflammation. Your skin might look really good right afterwards because it's inflamed. But over time, I would be very concerned at what kind of scarring you're doing. Also, if you can't sterilize your skin properly, if you don't know how to pre and post treat your skin, you should not be just throwing a bunch of holes in your face and creating open wounds. Right. The intention is to create a small micro wound in the dermal layer, so that lower second layer. And when you're causing that much trauma to the top layer just to get to the lower layer, it's just completely unnecessary. If your at home pen even goes that deep, because most people don't even understand that there are depths that can be adjusted on your professional pens. And if they're not going deep enough, you're like barely nicking the skin and you're not gonna get Right. You're definitely not gonna help an acne scar or a wrinkle. Next one. Cool Peel. Peel. Yay. Cool Peel is one of my favorite treatments. Mhmm. Cool Peel is a c o two laser. It's actually a brand name for a setting on a c o two resurfacing laser. And Cool Peel puts you in the range of just a a day or two of downtime to where you have some kind of texture to the face like some sandpaper. But you can get this done on a weekend and go back to work, and your skin at that point is going to look fresh, new, glowing. It helps with fine lines, soft softening some wrinkles. It's more of a surface treatment, but as opposed to some other more aggressive type treatments Mhmm. Like chemical peels where your your skin is coming off, this comes off in more like a powder, and it does it very quickly. So you can get this done on a weekend and be good for, you know, six or more weeks, but it's also helping to stimulate collagen and elastin. It's one of Mhmm. My favorite treatments by far. For pigment also. Yeah. Mhmm. Yeah. Pigmentation and texture. C o two laser. That's a thumbs up just because, again, this is bouncing off the Cool Peel brand name piece. Cool. C o two laser in general, the functionality, the customization of a treatment that you can get with that laser can go all the way from complete resurfacing of someone to make them look twenty years younger, get rid of all of their lines, pigment, wrinkles, texture, tone, pore size, all of it. Face, neck, chest. Everything. It's it's the most amazing laser, which again, it does cool peels, which are very, very light. It also can go all the way to almost surgical settings. It's best depending on the customization Yeah. Of what you're trying to Your CO two can be done at any depth. We can tell it how deep we want it to go into the skin. So your cool peel is gonna be a little bit more on the surface. Mhmm. Kinda like a baby c o two, but still an amazing treatment. Or we can go a little bit deeper into the skin, cause a little bit more downtime, dramatic results. When I treat clients with it, they'll come in for other concerns and I as I work on them, I know what I'm treating and they come back and they're like, you know, I had this one wrinkle. It wasn't even a huge concern of mine and now it's 50% less after one treatment. Mhmm. So it's just a it's an overall one of my favorite ones. It's amazing. Plasma pen. In the right hands, it's amazing. But I have seen more damage be done. I will say, in Derek's hands, yes. That's two thumbs up. It's he's amazing. I've seen more damage from other places with them. They are unregulated, which is terrifying because I don't think we own anything more dangerous in our office over a plasma pen. We do have one of I think there's only two FDA regulated devices. Most people in most salons and most med spas are buying them off of Amazon, which is Mhmm. Terrifying. So in the right hands, it is a great treatment. Yeah. There's a difference in they call them pens. I don't even like that term. We just it's this plasma. You're you're taking that quote unquote pen and you're basically have like a minute miniature c o two laser in your hands in a way, but you are causing minor third degree burns. But if you can control them properly, you're gonna get a great treatment. If it's in the hands of the wrong person and they think, oh, saw this online, I bought one on Amazon, super cheap, I'm gonna start providing these treatments because you can charge for them and that's what people see as the quick money. That's where we see the problems. I actually had a client about a year and a half ago come in. I told her no, she was not a candidate. Her skin type was too dark for this treatment. Literally, the next day she got it done somewhere else by an aesthetician and she came back to me maybe a month or two later and we've been working on her scars for almost a year. Mhmm. Because I told her no, She went and got it done anyway and now she's spending thousands and thousands of dollars just to treat the scar tissue that it that happened to her. You can always find somebody who will do something c o two, combine it with plasma in the right way. And What would you use a plasma pen for? For those that don't know. What do we use it? Mostly stretch marks, most eyelid tightening. That's gonna be in the number one. Non surgical eyelid tightening is amazing. C o two with plasma combination, it's amazing. I am not telling other people that they should go out and do this, like perform the treatment unless you know exactly what you're doing. And properly trained. Because I can get some amazing results for eyelid tightening out of it, but I've also seen some downsides in the wrong hands. Botox. Yeah. Okay. I was gonna say Yeah. No. No. We're good. I love Botox. I have been getting Botox since I was 23 for preventative wrinkles back back when I was a a baby. Getting them, I think It rules sometimes, but Stop. Botox is typically done in the upper part of the face around the crow's feet, your elevens, your lines across the forehead. It can be done in parts of the lower face as well. Botox is very versatile. Botox does not give you lips like the Kardashians. I hear this so often. You would never inject Botox into the lips. That's not what gives you fullness and volume in your skin. So Botox has just become this kind of like term that people use when they're like, oh, that person looks overdone or fake. I always tell people the best Botox is the one you can't really notice. You just see that their skin looks refreshed, smooth. It gives a nice glow to the skin. If you don't like it, cool. It'll wear off here in a few months and you don't have to get it again. Somebody asked me the other day, if I start getting Botox now and I decide not to keep it up later, are you going to notice? Like, is it going to look weird? And no. The answer is no. It just is going to slowly fade away. It gradually kicks in. So let's give it, like, seven to ten days. You're gonna start noticing the results. You're gonna have those results for three ish months, four ish months, and then it gradually declines. So it's not like you just wake up one morning and it's all gone. It's a slow decline. And some one thing that it's kind of a myth is that it's gonna freeze your face. You're not gonna be able to have, you know, the characteristics and emotions. Now, yeah, you can get to that point, especially if you have an injector that is just loading you up with tox. Which is not good. But the other part of it too is that once you get a few rounds of this, you're saying, oh, it's three or four months at a time, forever. It's not always that case. So what it actually will end up doing is causing you to lose some of the muscle memory in those areas as well. So if you haven't been able to make your scowl lines for a year, well, when it wears off after that point, you could take a break. You could eventually not get it for a while. Yeah. I haven't had it now. You're not squinting like you were. Yeah. Because you just haven't done it. And some people's muscle memory is so unbelievably strong, especially when I do eyebrows. They're lifting their brows so high and that you can just see Mhmm. The muscle contractions. That would be an amazing put some tox in that area, let it calm down, but not freeze. Yeah. So Softens lines. Great. Microdermabrasion. Yeah. Nailed it. Microdermabrasion is kind of old school. I used it for years. It it was great during its time. I think that if you have if you're just one of those that just love your microgerms, it's fine. There is just better technology now with less damage to the skin. HydraFacial is actually like the little sister to microdermabrasion. Same people made the device. It gives you it helps with texture. I just think it kinda leaves the skin feeling a little, well, abraded. Lip filler. I love lip filler. Obviously, have lip filler. But I think that it could be a it just depends Maybe. On the right person in the right hands or the right injector's hands. I think that it's great. I don't think you need lip filler. I think it's a you know, if it's something that you just want to an enhancement, it's nothing that we would be like, oh, you have to have this or you're just not gonna look good. Like, no. But I like it. I think once you go down that road, you're probably gonna be addicted to it. So just be ready for that if you're gonna. My maybe around it is seeing that it's always, well, I don't want duck lips. I don't wanna be overfilled. And if your injector's overfilling you, they're not doing you a service because it's just not the way it's just not a natural procedure. And then once you get them overfilled to a certain point and that goes away, you actually become have some laxity in your lips Yeah. At that point. I think the old school way of doing lip filler is what turned a lot of people off to it now. And again, as long as it's done naturally and you have an injector that will be like, honey, we're not doing anymore. You've had enough. Expectation wise too is one of my concerns with it is that you have to set the right expectation for lip filler. If you think that Mhmm. Every injector is gonna be the same and that every time you get injected it's gonna be perfect, then you're gonna be disappointed. I've seen the most amazing injectors still cause small little lumps and little issues. It's just part of the anatomy. It's part of the person. It's very much an art. And even if you are the best artist, it's still expectation wise not going to be perfect every time. Right. And so just keeping that in mind as the client that, hey, this didn't go wrong. This was just potentially an anatomy issue or we can fix it. We just may have another visit to maybe dilute some of it or whatnot. Well, and just knowing that you need to yes. You have to come back for your follow-up and there is aftercare. Mhmm. And if you don't follow your aftercare, you probably won't get the desired results. So it is not one of those, like, I'm just gonna pop in real quick on my lunch break, get some lip filler, and not have any, like, recovery time or any homework. So I think that that's important. Obviously, your injector will go over all of that with you depending on what you've done because there's tons of products that you can use for filler. But yeah, I like it. Biostimulators. I love biostimulators. Oh, that's a plus. Yeah. Yes. So biostimulators are going to be like your radius, your Sculptra. Lasers. And lasers. I guess my mind went to injectables. Good. Yeah. Okay. Well, that's They're biostimulators. That's true. We could answer them differently. Injectable biostimulators are great. You can use them to biostimulators basically build collagen and elastin in the skin. You can use them to help smooth out fine lines. You can use them to help restructure like jaws, chins, cheeks, temples. Any area that's having bone density loss are great. The tops of your hands? Yeah. I guess, yes. Yeah. So what were you gonna say? Biostimulator is just it's anything that causes the biostimulation inside of your body. So anything that's going to wake up the the fibroblasts, which their job is to create collagen and elastin Such big words. Wakes them back have to explain what it is, but like, it wakes those back up. They went dormant ish in your thirties, and they need to be woken back up in order to cause more repairing in that dermal layer because your dermal layer will get thinner as you age. We wanna keep the collagen production going as long as we can, And anything biostimulating is going to do that. It's gonna keep a nice firm scaffolding type structure to your face, to your hands, anywhere you need it. Lasers will do the same thing. They cause that thermal damage. Some lasers. But, yeah. Some lasers will do the same thing. Sort It of. It just kinda depends. This is why consultations and expertise are important to say, well, which one is right for me? But biostimulators in general are a thumbs up. Chemical peels. Love chemical peels. Why don't you like them? Because you peel. One time, I did a treatment on him that was a little more aggressive than I meant to go. Just sheets. I was like, leprosy stay in my He was there was a new peel that a rep brought in. And I was like, Derek will do it. And so it was it was a spicy spicy peel. It's actually a peel that's not even on the market anymore. And mine. Yeah. For that reason. You can get a chemical peel every month for the rest of your life. Your skin will look amazing. They're very versatile. You can do them on teenagers with acne. You can do them on your clients in their sixties and seventies for anti aging. It gives a nice glow to the skin. It's a nice reset. You can't overdo them. Peels nowadays actually don't have as much downtime as they used to, so they're a lot more comfortable than even when I started doing peels twenty years ago. Minimal downtime. Yeah. You can use them on almost anything. I was I'm a maybe because of I don't like the downtime. But yeah, they have no peel peels now to where you just get them done. He doesn't know because he won't even try them anymore. Sends me peels. That's because I love You have a baby. I love lasers. So He's a baby. Just is what it is. Also Lip flip. Lip flip. Okay. I'm a hard pass on this. However, I know a lot of people do like it. And I'm talking a true lip flip, not like when they're putting tox to help with like a gummy smile, but lip flip is when you're getting Botox in the upper and or and or lower parts of the lip. It's just a few injections and all it does is just kind of pull that upper lip up a little bit to give you more of a fuller lip appearance. Personally, as a consumer, I hated it. I tried it before, I think a lot of people do, before I got filler just to see if I would like the results of it. And well, it did exactly what it was supposed to do which is paralyze your upper lip. So you're using a straw, you're having soup. Was like drooling on myself because you can't like use your lips the same way. It wears off very quickly, so Botox in the forehead might last you four months. Botox around the lips are gonna last you like six to eight weeks. And I personally would rather just get lip filler and have full use of my mouth and not be drooling and I don't know. I didn't like it, but I know some Oh. I know some people do. It was not for me. Yeah. And you can do quote unquote lip flips with lasers and plasma too, but you have to understand expectation. It's very, very minimal result. You'd have to get several of them get done. A filler. So in that expectation, we might push you to a completely different treatment. Yeah. Medical grade skincare. Love medical grade skincare. I will say that if you have to choose between good at home skincare and and or like good treatments, I will always tell you to get good skincare. What you do at home will make a much bigger difference than what I can do in the office if you're going home and washing with a bar of soap. So if I can get you on some good products to use consistently that you're using twice a day, therefore you're treating your skin what 60 times a month. I might only get to see you once a month if you actually come in for that appointment. Good products and not all products are good for you. So just because they're medical grade and you're like, well, you said it didn't do anything. Well, maybe that's not what your skin needed. So really working with a technician who understands ingredients and what your specific skin needs. I don't think you solely have to use medical grade ingredients. Probably wasn't expecting me to say that. But if you have a cleanser that you like from Sephora and it makes you happy to go buy that cleanser and you're not having like major acne flare ups and you're not breaking your barrier and your skin's not raw and irritated, use it. I don't care. Your serums are going to make a bigger difference in your skin than anything and that's really where you need to invest your money. Honestly, even serums that aren't medical grade, you would you would pay you're you're paying almost the same in some cases. Mhmm. But what I tell clients is that it's actually better to get the medical grade because you're getting way more active ingredient as opposed to getting more filler. And so you're getting essentially some of the same ingredients. We can go into that part later. But you're getting a lot of filler with a regular treat a regular skin care as opposed to medical grade serum. When you say filler, you don't mean like filler. Mean like filler products. There's product in there. Like they might use a moisturizer or some kind of a base to fill the bottle and then a very, very little amount of active ingredient. Mhmm. And then they'll market it in a way where you don't understand that. Whereas medical grade, you're using very, very little each time, and so you're getting a longer duration out of one bottle. And so Yeah. Cost wise, you're almost looking at the same thing. You're just being marketed to differently to assume that you're paying less and getting the same result, but that's just not the case. And so we educate clients on that consistently and allow them to test out products as well just to see what works for them. At home LED lights. I actually really like at home LED lights. You might be neutral. I like at home LED lights if you're going to actually use them. If you're just late night shopping and you're like, oh, that looks cool and then it's gonna sit on your nightstand and you use it once a month, save your money. You could definitely do better things with the I mean, some of them are up of $500. So if you're going to be spending that kind of money, make sure you're actually dedicated to it. I don't have one because I know I'm not gonna use it. I have good intentions, but by the time I get home at night, I'm not going to do that. But I know I have several clients that use theirs every night or every other night. They're getting great results from it. So if you're going to do it, invest in a good one and just make sure that it's something that makes sense in your life. But the biggest thing with LEDs is consistency. And if you're not willing to use them, then it's just not gonna work if you use it once a month. That's mostly what we teach to at our med spa is consistency over intensity with almost everything. Because not all LEDs are the same, and I won't get into that. It's There's a lot of science, a lot of details into the power or megahertz and red light, blue light, amber light therapies. But if you're using just a basic red light therapy and you're using it every day, you'll see Mhmm. You know, some inflammation reduction, some better healing times Great for acne. Wrinkles, collagen induction. But you would literally have to use it every day, you have to wait three to six months before you even consider seeing some type of a result. Acne, you might see it a little bit faster, but it just depends on the person. Yeah. The treatment, the person, the expectation. Yeah. So they're not bad. They're just a if you don't use them consistently, they're not gonna do anything for you. If you know yourself and you know you're not going to do it, then just Mhmm. There's other things that would be better spent. Body contouring. I'm gonna give it a maybe. I'm gonna give it a Only I don't know. Because it works. But you have to be the right candidate, and not everyone is the right candidate. You also have to understand that it is a long term play. You're not going to get a bikini body in six weeks. And there are certain companies out there, I won't name them on here, but there are certain companies that tell you that, you know, how intense they are, the certain way that they deliver the laser or EMS energy is going to give you a better result. It's your body interacting with itself and the machine is just allowing your body to do that. So Body contouring needs to be done in addition to you've changed your lifestyle Mhmm. Your lifestyle. You're already exercising. You're already eating properly. You're drinking enough water and you just have like some problem areas that you just can't kick. You got the little lower pooch. You're, you know, you're working out, your arms are built, but you just have a little bit of that fat pad still there. This is not something that you can come and get done and then lay there, get a nice little treatment a couple times a week or whatever and go home and eat cheeseburgers and, you know, drink a beer. So I will say the expectation and you have to do your part. If you're not willing to do your part at home, it's an expensive treatment. Like, save your money if you're not if you're not there yet in your journey. I've had clients get great results, but they are. They're already working out, eating right. Yeah. They're very conscious, and they just needed a little bit of some something. Yeah. And that's great. You can do some fat reduction, skin tightening, and some EMS for muscle toning. That's where and I've had other clients that get absolutely no results or worse results because they came into their next treatment saying, oh, I was at work and they just had this huge smorgasbord of food and I just came in all bloated and it's like, I I can't give you better expectations. This is just it's not really probably gonna work for you, but we're gonna continue because you wanna keep going. Bodybuilders get great results with it, with the EMS. EMS is great. That's my favorite part of it. That's like muscle building part of the treatment. Yeah. That's great. Yeah. So I think Lower back issues Mhmm. Start to strengthen some of the lower back because you can't some people just can't work out that area. They don't know how or maybe they're just their body won't allow them to do it because maybe of some other disabilities. But you can target pinpoint target those kind of like a tens unit. But this is more like a tens unit times a 100, and I can actually build muscle in those areas to help with certain lower back pain, knee pain, things like that as well. So it can be used for different things, but it's always a maybe just because of expectations. Laser hair removal. Love laser hair removal. Ding ding ding. Yeah. Laser hair removal is great, again, for the right candidate. Why do you wanna shave every day or wax? I listen, I do waxing. I built a pretty big business off of waxing, but I can just hop you over to the Laser Room. We can just get this over with and move on with our lives. Laser hair removal is great as long as you are a good candidate, which means you have dark hair. It will not work on blonde gray or red hair. But, yeah. No. Laser hair removal is like one of those treatments that you see quick results and I, like, within a couple treatments, clients are like, oh my gosh. I wish I would have done this sooner. I don't think I've ever had somebody say, wish I didn't get laser hair removal. Like, I wish I didn't have, you know I've heard I've what I hear a lot of times, especially a new client comes in or we talk about laser hair removal, and they're like, oh, I've had it done, didn't work. And like, it worked. Mhmm. I mean, it does work. It's just that you didn't have the right technician or you didn't have the right laser. Or expectations of understanding you have to have touch ups. Forget that part. It's not laser. It's not permanent removal. It's permanent reduction. As long as you have hormones, you're going to grow some amount of hair. So what we do is we get you from growing a thousand hairs to to growing a dozen in that same area. And so about every six months, you come in and get another treatment. The lasers have come even less than that. But lasers for this have come so far in such a short amount of time. Mhmm. That also if someone's using an older laser, it's gonna be more painful, so people don't wanna get it done because they've heard so much about the pain. Do tell my clients that I worked on twenty years ago. I'm like, I am so sorry Yeah. For torturing you because Twenty years ago. My answers are so much better now. So I'm so sorry for what I put you through. I got you good results, but you paid for it in pain. But Yeah. They're far far less painful if not painless completely with certain faster. Certain settings Yes. Certain skin types. Mhmm. But, yeah. Laser hair removal is absolutely a must. Yeah. And just a little side note, if you have PCOS, so girls who have PCOS, it's a hormonal imbalance basically, and you are growing facial hair because of it and you feel that there is no fix to that, come talk to me. We have so many clients that have PCOS. They come in with almost full beards and we are getting that under control for them within one to two treatments. We are going to have a much different Timeline. Timeline. Yeah. But please don't feel like you have to just live that way or accept it if that's something that really bothers you. There are so many women who have PCOS. It's way more common than girls think. And, yeah, it's an easy fix. Like, most of them are like crying afterwards. Like, I had no idea. I just thought this was my life and it is literally life changing for them and gained so much confidence. So it's more than just, oh, I don't wanna shave my bikini line. Like, it it truly does change people's lives. Yeah. So Permanent browse. Oh, I'm just kidding. No. Permanent browser, unbelievably a thumbs up as long as you have an experienced technician. I do permanent browse, all permanent makeup, and about 60% of what I do is correction because it's just not done correctly. And so we're fixing things, but I hear all the time, I mean, almost all the time that, oh, I wish I would have done this sooner. Mhmm. That's the main thing I see. They have we're not gonna shave your brows off. We're gonna give you a good shape, and we're gonna make it look as natural as possible so that nobody notices. That's my goal. So As a consumer, it's fantastic. You don't have to put your face on every day. You go in the pool, you still have brows. You You save all your drawing time and frustrations and pencils. Age and your hairs get thinner and you start losing that natural or you over plucked in the nineties like we did. Yeah. I love it. Yeah. That's a thumbs up. Yeah. For sure. Microblading. Microblading is say as a consumer, for me, I did not like it. But If it's done correctly and the expectation is here's what microblading is, then it's a great treatment. But you have to understand that microblading is meant to be temporary. Six to eighteen months and that ink should be gone from your face entirely. It does have more maintenance. You will get a thinner hair stroke out of it as long as it's done by the right technician. But what I see with microblading more often than not is your brows stick around for three to five years, but now they're in muddy brownish gray tone, maybe sometimes even pink because they've gone too deep with that microblade, and they've actually caused scar tissue. So because you're cutting into the face with what looks like a scalpel, if they go too deep because they haven't been trained, then you will get scars. And then we have to work the scars first with micro needling or c o two laser for several months, then we can actually put the new brows on you the right way. So I have done a lot of microblading the correct way. I haven't done a microblade in all over I was gonna say, you talked two almost two years. You talked a a lot. Now we have NanoBrows, which is equivalent and safer, and your brows will last longer. So I would say it's a maybe on microblading as long as you understand that it's temporary. As a consumer for me, it was the maintenance. Like, why would I get it done when I could just get it done with a needle? We can make it last longer. I'm all about like be high maintenance to be low maintenance. So whatever I can do a couple times like permanent makeup or whatever and I don't have to do it daily, I'm all about that. Permanent eyeliner. That's another one that's like a double thumbs up. I love mine. That was my first tattoo. Eyes. Was my eyeliner. I think I got it at 18. Love it. Permanent eyeliner, that one I do here all the time is I wish I would have done this earlier because it has so many other benefits. Now, the eyeliner doesn't have to be big and bold. It can be just a lash enhancement. So it makes it look like your lashes are fuller. And then you can always add to it later. You can do a small little wedge design, wing design. But the best part about it is that you can rub your eyes, cry, swim, sweat, all of it and it's gonna be perfect eyeliner all the time. It's not And as your aesthetician, I would say it's great too because you're not removing it every day. You're not tugging on that delicate skin. Sorry. Did I take that for you? Yeah. So, yeah. It doesn't break down the soft tissue around the eye either. Very sensitive skin and when you're wiping constantly to take your makeup off every day. You know, like lining to Lining, stretching that skin, you are pulling those collagen fibers and those elastin fibers. And the consistency of doing that over years and years is going to cause that droopiness of that skin and the laxity in the lids. Also, if you're somebody that likes to play around with makeup and you're like, well, I don't wanna be like married to one look forever, like you can just draw over it. So you can get something a little bit more natural looking, like you were saying a lash enhancement, whatever. And then if you're gonna go out one night and you wanna lay it up a little bit, make it a little bit more Skin. You can draw right over it. Put a pencil right over it. So you can still have it without having to have like that full glam makeup every day. Mhmm. Yeah. Yeah. Lip blushing. I know what Derek's gonna say but I It's amazing. It's just very very labor intensive. It's it's not an I have most women that get it done fall asleep while I'm working. It's not like it's super painful, but it's it takes about four hours to get one done. And it's not good on all candidates. I know that that's hard finding there's a lot that goes into it from a technician standpoint, finding that right person. There's a lot of, like, prep work that needs to be done. If you don't do the prep work, I have to turn you away for the day. You have to come back in a week. And what is lip lip is made to take your natural lip and make it more enhanced. It's not a lipstick look. It's supposed to take it and say, I my Vermillion border, that outer edge of your lip is fading away. Mhmm. It's getting more sheer, or it just has some some dips and valleys in it. We give you that back entirely so you have a really nice lip line all the time. And then the blushing is more of the internal lip to where your color is just enhanced and it looks like you have nice, full, natural lips. Not, again, not a lipstick look. There we can do that, just not lip blushing. So it's it's intended to be a natural lip tone. So you can use a straw and you're not losing all of your color or Right. You can go kiss a baby and not leave lipstick all over. Smear it, the whole thing doesn't matter. You're not gonna leave it on anyone's collar. Mhmm. Love it. Don't know. So Yeah. Okay. I have a question. So med spa myth of the week. Okay. I don't know if you hear it a lot, but I swear at least twice a week that people can't get laser hair removal if their skin is dark. Not true. It's you have to be very careful. It's more risky. There are lasers made for dark skin. We have them and I think most clinics have them. I mean, you have you you kinda have to at this point. But it is more risky. You have to know the settings. You have to understand their skin. So there's a lot more questions involved in a consultation. There's some test spots that need to be done depending on how dark the skin is. But it doesn't matter how dark it is, we can accommodate. You may need a couple extra treatments at the end, typically when someone would be would be quote unquote done with their treatment series. Yeah. You may need an extra couple of them down the road on light versus lighter skin types, but it helps so tremendously with ingrowns. And that's what we see with a lot of darker skin types, especially when we're doing the neck area, chin area. A lot of them get those ingrown hairs because the hair does come out curly. Mhmm. The follicles are more horizontal, and that's why the hairs come out curly. And sometimes they don't leave the skin, so they end up with all these kinda scabby areas. When we start I've had so many clients. We start lasering that area, give it a couple of times, and just, you know, be careful with that area. It'll clear up and you won't have it any Sheenies are the same way. A lot of coarser hairs, they just like to grow under the skin and they leave nasty scars and it's such an easy fix. So again, life changing. Yeah. Think if you're you're a dark skin type and you have been told you cannot get laser hair removal, please come see us. We'll take care of you. Britney, would you spend your money on c o two laser? Absolutely. Okay. I think that if you could only afford one type of treatment, c o two would probably be kind of that one stop shop for most skin concerns. I think that other than a very few, c o two is gold standard for really all skin types and all skin concerns. And everybody who has skin should have a c o two. That's my stamp of approval. I agree. Okay. Why would somebody's skin get worse after an IPL? A lot of times their skin gets worse after an IPL because they Skin getting worse, sorry, as in pigment. Their pigmentation so the pigmentation of someone's skin can get worse after an IPL typically because they weren't a candidate in the first place and or that technician used a setting that potentially burned them. You know, working over tans, things that you just there's things you have to watch out for. A big one is when they have Melasma. I wanna say melanotan. When they have melasma in that area and you do an IPL, your pigmentation will get worse. It just may not happen right away, but it give it a few days, weeks, months, it will come back with a vengeance most of the time, And now, they've caused a problem that wasn't there before. Yeah. So you have to make sure you have right happens far too the right settings, someone experienced, especially if you're not just dealing with basic normal sun damage. And you may not know that, so that's why again, consultation expectations is all completely necessary. Okay. If you had somebody call and they said I'm completely new to all of these treatments, I know that there are things out there that could help, but I have no idea where to start. What would be your process for, you know, bringing them in and Where we start always, and this is the best case, is you come in for a Visia. So it's our biometric skin analysis device. Basically, we put you in there, it scans your whole face, it puts you in the computer, puts you up against some kind of different metrics as to where is your pigment, you know, in this scale and where is your redness, your UV damage, your wrinkles, your spots, your fine lines. It gives us every single parameter and then it compares you against thousands of other people that are your skin type and your age. So it actually gives driven data points as well as visual data points. And we can look at both of those side by side. So we would go through that piece. It would tell me the age of you versus your skin's age in that comparison. And then we would go into a conversation at that point Mhmm. Of saying, hey, this really opens up the things that you've told me that you're concerned about. Here's what we can do for that and we can work with any budget, any timeline. Well, most timelines, if you need to be twenty years younger for a wedding next weekend, then Yeah. Please don't do realistic. But we're gonna set realistic expectations again for your budget, for your timeline as to what we can do, what we can't do. And really an entire entire treatment plan Yeah. That then you get to we get to kinda go back and forth and decide what's best for you. There is something for everybody. So if you're like worried that it's going to be over your budget or it's going to be painful or there's going to be downtime and you don't have downtime, Whatever. Those are like the big three that I kind of hear during most of our consults. We have options. There are there are alternatives to everything. So don't don't rule yourself out until you actually come in and and speak to somebody because you may not know what you don't know. When you're we run into a lot is is especially in Arizona, there's a lot of of solo injectors and no I'm not throwing shade at anybody, but like you may only have the ability to do an injectable. So you're going to take what you know, and you're gonna guide the client based on what you can perform. Mhmm. And sometimes that's not the best case scenario. You're gonna have a med spa that only has an IPL laser and maybe an Alexandrite laser and that's all they can work with. And so they're going to fit you in that box and say, well, here's what you need because this is what I can do for you. Whereas, where we're at, and there's there's others that are the same, but we have every single option available to you, all of them. And so if you come to me, don't have to put you in a box and say, well, here's what we can do because I'm gonna inject because I'm an injector. But I'm gonna say, well, I can offer three different things that we can do based on, again, budget and timeline, and what results do you want to see, what I think is gonna be the best. We can do something, we will let you know. If we can't, we'll let you know. And if we shouldn't, we'll let you know. And if you shouldn't, we'll let you know. But it's up to you to decide if you're gonna go somewhere else and get it done anyway. But that's up to you. Alright. That's all we got. So that's Derek and Brittany signing off again, answering med spa myths and treatment questions. If you have any questions, can submit those as well and we'll try to get those answered. Thanks for spending time with us today. Make sure to check us out on social media, check out our website, and we can't wait to see you again for our next episode.