A skin consultation is a diagnostic appointment, not a sales meeting with a face attached to it. This is what a thorough one contains, what to bring, and what you should be asked.
The skin is examined in consistent light, the finding is named, skin type and medical history are taken, and the routine you are already using is reviewed. Then a written plan: the treatment, the number of sessions, the interval, home care and cost. Patch testing where it is indicated, and a wait before a full treatment.
Come with your skin as it normally is. Do not stop your routine for a fortnight beforehand, because the routine is often the thing that needs changing and it is hard to assess what you have hidden.
You can judge a consultation by the questions you are asked, not only by the ones you are allowed to ask. These should come up without you raising them:
A practitioner who asks how your skin pigments after injury is thinking about the complication that matters most in skin of colour. One who only asks how many sessions you would like to buy is thinking about something else.
Every one of those questions should be welcomed. Our guidance on the standards to expect from a skin clinic works through verification in full, and how to read results covers the photographs you will be shown.
There is no price list here, because a number quoted before anyone has looked at your skin is a shopping prompt rather than information. A written quotation should name the treatment and the device or agent, state the number of sessions and the interval, say whether review and home care are included, and set out what managing a complication would cost. What skin treatment costs.
You should leave with the plan in writing, the aftercare in writing, and a clear route to reach someone if something changes in the weeks afterwards. Post-inflammatory pigmentation responds far better when it is treated early, so it is reported rather than waited out. Aftercare after skin treatment.
Expect thirty to forty-five minutes. Skin cannot be assessed properly in ten minutes, and a consultation that ends with a course of six before it has established your skin type and medical history has skipped the part that matters.
Sometimes, for low-risk treatment. Not for energy-based treatment in a higher Fitzpatrick type, where a patch test and a wait come first. Being sold a full laser treatment on a first visit without a test patch is a warning sign rather than good service.
Nothing, and that is deliberate. Come with your skin as it normally is, and bring the products you are actually using. Arriving having stopped everything for a fortnight hides the thing that most often needs changing.
No. Some findings need a single treatment and a change of routine. Where a course is genuinely indicated, the number of sessions and the interval should be stated in writing, and it should be reviewed on the skin rather than completed because it was paid for.
Then the first correct step is usually to do less. A damaged barrier treated with more exfoliation gets worse, and no device will fix it. Repair comes first, and it is free.
Then that is the answer you get, with the reason and the correct route, which is sometimes a GP or a dermatologist rather than a clinic. Being told no is not a failed consultation.
Tell us what you are seeing on your skin, how long it has been there and what you have already tried. You will get a considered reply setting out what an assessment would need to establish and which treatments are worth discussing.
hello@aestheticlaunchlab.comPlease do not send clinical photographs or medical records by email. If something has gone wrong after a treatment, contact the practitioner who treated you, or NHS 111, rather than waiting for a reply here.