At heart, I’ve always been a generalist. I love people, and I love the whole person, more than I love any single body system.

My years of training across two training specialities, both dealing in whole person preventive care at various life stages, taught me firsthand the importance of whole person, preventive care that is broken down into parts - short, medium and long term.

It is this training I also carry into my aesthetic and skin work when I first meet you. It is not simply a quick “hello” and “you want anti wrinkle treatment? Sure, let’s do it!” Rather, it is a meet and greet, and a proper, comprehensive consultation.

After all, if I don’t understand what your concerns are, what has brought you to me now, how can I possibly assess what your priorities are, and what you are hoping to get out of skin or aesthetic treatments? It may seem silly, but in order for us to accurately treat the “problem”, we need to have the correct diagnosis. 

When you Book the Initial Appointment 

So at Skin Essentials, we get you to prefill your information before we even meet, so I know exactly what your concerns are likely to be. Often, with skincare audits, I can already tell, based on what you’ve written, what is causing your skin stress before your appointment. 

In many cases, leading up to your appointment, I have an idea, and a plan, that I’ll hone once we meet and I get to assess your face in front of me, in animation before we move to the next steps. 

The Initial Consultation 

When we meet at the initial consultation, we go over your general medical history - past and current. Medication. Pregnancies if relevant, past, current and planned if relevant. Prior treatments including surgery. Allergies.

Then we get to your concerns. What bothers you, what you are hoping to get out of the consultation and treatment if we decide to work together.

We do photos of you, barefaced, and then I ask you for your consent to assess your face and explain to you, what bothers you, and WHY. I discuss with you, how and IF I can help you improve your concerns, a timeframe and associated cost if you decide to invest. 

If I can’t help you as happens occasionally, I refer you to a colleague who can eg plastic surgeon for a facelift, or dermatologist for lasers I do not offer.

If I can help you, and you understand the limitations of treatments, the timeframe and are willing and able to budget, we may proceed with something on the day, or not depending on how much time we have left and if you are keen to do so. There is zero expectation on my end that we must “do something” but many of my patients are time poor, busy professionals and often ask if they can get started with something on the day. 

If this is reasonable, then we can and do, and I plan next steps, including review if appropriate and when you’ll come back for the next session if you agree with the treatment plan suggested, until we hit maintenance. 

What do we not do at Skin Essentials? 

At Skin Essentials, we do not offer complimentary consultations - in my experience, complimentary consultations are designed by their nature to convert to treatment on the day - you invariably end up paying for the practitioner’s time by having treatment you may or may not be ready for, or need or to redeem the deposit paid.  

My own view is that this feels unethical and given aesthetic treatments are largely discretionary and expensive the longer you delay them, I do not want anyone to feel pressured to have treatment if they are unsuitable. I would rather you pay for an educational experience on what the ageing process looks like on your face, and what you can do about it, if you choose to, and proceed with as much knowledge and true consent as is reasonably possible. 

 At Skin Essentials, we also rarely do “just lips” or “just anti wrinkle” to an area. Our area of expertise is full face rejuvenation and helping you plan to age well, and necessarily involves a whole face approach because by the time I see someone, they’ve usually been dissatisfied with the way they look for some time, but often do not know how to explain it to someone else.

So we take the guesswork out of it for you, and put together a plan to follow to effect change over the coming 3-9 months, if you are willing to invest treating, with your consent, all three areas :

- skin, skincare and skin therapies including hydrating and biostimulating fillers and other collagen induction therapies

- injectables including anti wrinkle treatments and fillers if you are open to it (some are not, that is ok)

- “other” including minimally invasive options to address excess fat in areas such as the chin, around the jowls that may be amenable to treatment.  

The more restoration needed, the higher the cost is initially. I always assess for this and say to patients to allow for an amount similar to orthodontics. Maintenance thereafter is more manageable and I’d rather you understand what is involved so you can make an informed decision to proceed. Or not. There is absolutely no pressure and no upsell. 

For these reasons, and more, an initial consultation is necessary for all new as well as returning patients who’ve been lost to us for a significant amount of time between treatments when ageing has continued to change our faces and there may have been other medical developments meanwhile. 

Ready to begin? Let’s start here!