Beauty Clinics, do you trust them?

[powerfullymoving]

I find it hard to trust of beauty clinics.

I think it cam about when 5 years ago or so, I had a 'consultation' in one of them thinking that they would look at my skin and recommend the best treatment but instead I sat opposite a sales person showing me before and after pics of former clients, telling me all about prices and packages and making no guarantees I would achieve results. All I wanted was a bit of hyperpigmentation fix. They pushed a lot of other treatments.

I ended up buying a package of microdermabrasion treatments but was getting only facials and when I raised it they told me I bought a pack of facials to prepare the skin for microdermabrasion...it was a new expensive clinic and weirdly there were no records or paperwork of what I actually bought! I managed to cancel and get a refund though.

Then I told this story to a acquaintance who unknown to me had worked in the beauty industry and she said that most of the clinics and products they sell are a kind of scam, overpriced and the treatments not fit for purpose.

Fast forward to today, I'm 46 and although I don't have break outs and I'm not worried about wrinkles, I'd love to get my skin tone evened out and treat that bit of hyperpigmentation and some new age spots.
I don't think I can fix this with only skincare products and routine.

What might I need? Laser? I just want to research before venturing in skin clinic again.

Was I just super unlucky with the clinic I tried and do you know a good clinics chain that you trust?
I'm in SW London if it helps and I'd rather somewhere close by.

Also please share your experiences with mature skin professional treatments that don't involve injections, fillers etc.

Thank you;)

There's definitely a lot of chancers about, it preys on insecurities and that can easily lead to exploitation and there's enough demand, so no incentive for change.

What mostly leaves me wary with my limited interaction with clinics is that I struggle to trust their judgement on aesthetics. There was some research conducted that aesthetic practitioners have a very high rate of dysmorphia, higher than is average in the normal population. I simply struggle to trust someone who can't recognise they've gone too far with their own face. I also feel the financial incentive often means they're not as honest as they can be about outcomes, long term safety, etc. unless you specifically probe them. If you factor in their own consumption of the treatments and tweakments it becomes even more diffuse.

Saying all that, Debbie Thomas in London is really highly regarded specifically for laser. Always been transparent about prices on the website which tends to be a good sign.

@botemp
Thank you so much, I was wondering if I was being paranoid and it is so great to have been validated

I was at a new place the other day where they have different rooms and businesess for nails, eyebrowns, lashes, fake tan, injections, massage etc, I went for a nail appt but the lady who does fillers and botox approached me to chat and sell which is okay but she then said ‘we will all need it at some point’…I don’t know how old she was but her whole face was so clearly full of work that she had done, I can see now she can’t see the other perspective of not getting anything done.

I will check Debbie Thomas, thank you.

Yes, it does seem that the beauty sphere is a bit of a bubble with a somewhat warped sense of reality and as a result I find they're often quite transgressive with boundaries of others. That underhanded ‘we will all need it at some point’ comment is a prime example.

I have a small kelloid scar on my face, it's never bothered me, it isn't noticeable or detracting, yet every beautician seems to comment on it, it's as if all they look for is flaws which comes off really weird when you don't view it as such. There was even one incident where I was having my nails done and one of the facialists that also worked there came to talk to me about it, surgical knife in hand, offering to just whip it off

Answering the second part of your post: I go to a great salon where I really trust the advice and have had good success with IPL for redness/thread veins on my mid-40 skin.

I think you have to be realistic about what is achievable. I have also had Botox and surgery so I’m probably at the more extreme end of the spectrum, but I live in a environment where everyone is tweaked and I’d be very much an outlier if I didn’t have the occasional “fix”.