Exclusive Professional Skin Treatment Excerpt From "The Skin Nerd" Book

The following excerpt about skin treatments is a Nerd Network exclusive from Jennifer's new book, The Skin Nerd: Your Straight-Talking Guide to Feeding, Protecting & Respecting Your Skin - can we get a big wehoo?! 

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Professional treatments push the skin to work harder. Alongside a consistent homecare routine, they can help you to get results a little bit faster, especially if your skin concerns are more severe. If you’re working to a deadline, like a graduation, your wedding day or just a goal you want to set for your own skin, a professional treatment can support your homecare in helping you to get where you want to be. These are a deeper workout and penetration of active ingredients.

Do you need salon treatments? Hell to the yes. But can you overdo it with salon treatments? Absolutely, especially with peels, and this is why a thorough consultation with a skincare professional that you trust is essential. My personal go tos for professional treatments are:

light therapy performed in a clinic in which there was a 77.9 per cent reduction by the end of an eight-week study, that time? I guess that is up to the individual. What I can say is that an at-home

HydraFacial MD (brand)

The HydraFacial is effectively a multi-step advanced treatment that is essentially suitable for all skin. It is a multi-modality treatment, meaning it is a cocktail of different treatments in one. It entails an exfoliation step that uses an AHA serum that is vacuum-blasted into the skin, a peel step with glycolic acid and salicylic acid, vacuum suction for extraction and

an infusion step where serums are infused into the skin. It’s a VIP, redcarpet treatment, and is more of a quick fix than a repairing treatment, in my opinion. It’s great because it dissolves sebaceous filaments, the little grey or white tips primarily found around the nose that are often confused with blackheads. It’s also fabulous when you need an injection of moisture, such as when your skin just feels a bit ‘meh’ and your makeup isn’t

sitting well. The exfoliation bit at the beginning is key as it sloughs off dead skin cells so that the following peel step can penetrate into the skin deeply and without any obstacles. The vacuum suction, as well as extracting debris from the pores, drains the lymphatic system to the relevant lymph nodes and increases blood circulation. It also releases oxygen onto the skin with a view to plumping the tissue and aiding in cell regeneration. The HydraFacial needs literally no downtime and your skin will feel ridiculously soft to the touch, have high hydration levels and any blackheads will be gone. I’d recommend this to people with sluggish, lethargic skin or someone

looking to start a new skincare routine with a bang. It is not for sensitive or sensitised skin as it can be a bit abrasive, nor is it for those with active acne because of the possible spread of bacteria.

Microneedling

This is a treatment that uses fine needles, ranging in diameter from 1mm to 1.5mm, to reach the dermis and cause microtrauma and micro tears which trigger a cascade of collagen production. This is something that neither skincare, nor massaging, nor nutrition will be able to do and so this is an ideal treatment for anyone who suffers with a condition relating to collagen or elastin, such as lax pores, slackened jowls, loose skin around the eye region, forehead lines, redness and broken capillaries. It is advisable to have it in a course because, as with all traumas to the skin, we can only do so much in one sitting. Usually you would go for three to six treatments, with a month or a month and a half between treatments.

However, recent studies by various companies suggest that having treatments within a fourteen day period is superior to spreading them further out as it allows growth factors to peak and then continuously build up over time. It is a treatment that has stood the test of time, but I do not trust all therapists to do well – and if it isn’t done well, no collagen is triggered.

Sometimes, therapists are heavy handed and trigger blood. Be aware of who you allow touch your face. Speak to friends who have had it done and talk about their result and where they went. Speak to your chosen therapist about their qualifications and the results that their clients have had with it. ITEC (globally recognised qualification) have a microneedling course and they are well-respected – however, usually therapists will learn to microneedle with the brand that their salon or clinic works with, for example, Dermapen or Nanopore. It comes down to technique, which is why hearing about others’ results, reading reviews and asking the salon if you can see previous results they’ve had it so important.

You can learn more about Jenn's favourite professional skincare treatments in her debut book, "The Skin Nerd: Your Straight-Talking Guide to Feeding, Protecting and Respecting Your Skin", available from Easons, Dubray Books and Amazon from the 13th of September.