What is the difference between Beauty Salons and Aesthetic Clinics?
This is a question I am often asked…..
Most people have a skincare regime in place.
Whether it’s just washing your face in the morning or bedtime night creams, everyone has something in their daily routine that serves to maintain the health of their skin. For more professional treatments, like deep cleansing or problematic skin issues like acne, you might opt to go to a beauty salon or an aesthetic skin care clinic.
What is the difference between the two? And, which is better for you and your skin’s health in the long run?
To a large degree, a beauty salon and an aesthetic skin clinic will perform some similar procedures, but there are some critical variations. To understand the differences we can start by examining what each business does.
Beauty salons concentrate on treatments that serve to pamper your skin – manicures, pedicures and other grooming treatments such as facials, waxing, exfoliation, makeup advice, and massages. An aesthetic skin care clinic may also offer pampering treatments, but their primary focus is on anti-ageing treatment. They can offer treatments such as Botox & Fillers, skin rejuvenation therapies, facial and chemical skin peels, laser hair removal and other such services.
A trained therapist in an aesthetic skin care clinic will be able to offer a more comprehensive range of treatments. Generally in an aesthetic clinic, you will be under the supervision of a qualified technician who has specialised in specific skin issues. Perhaps you would start with a standard facial, and once your skin’s needs have been established, the therapist could recommend a course of treatment that would benefit your skin type. Such personalised treatments are not always available in a beauty salon which will have a more standardised approach to the services offered. At an aesthetic clinic, all treatments are carried out under the auspices of the same therapist/doctor, so there is no confusion as to what has been done and when.
More and more people are choosing to go the non-invasive route for skin and facial rejuvenation. Treatments such as Botox have become more established in the general public’s mind as the benefits are immediate and there is no lengthy recovery period. The subtle enhancement makes it more accessible for many people, and there is no major change in the way they look. The rejuvenation is gradual, and there is no glaring change, just a subtle freshening that is very appealing.
It is clear that both of these professions care for the skin, but it is also clear that aestheticians are trained to offer a more exhaustive range of treatments and can treat skin that has been damaged by environmental or other factors. The choice of which clinic or salon that you choose to attend should depend on your personal requirements. While those requirements may be simple at this point, they may require more advanced treatments as time goes by and it would be beneficial to have built up a history with an aesthetic skin care clinic that can offer more specialised and intensive treatments.