No before-and-after photographs, and no promised outcome. There are no before-and-after photographs on this website and there never will be. Every set you have seen somewhere else was chosen from a much larger pile, and the second picture is usually taken in different light, at a different angle, at a different time of day, often with makeup and frequently after retouching. Even an entirely honest pair shows you what happened to somebody else's face. What we publish instead is what a treatment typically changes, by roughly how much, how long it lasts, how many sessions it usually takes and how often people are disappointed. We do not guarantee an outcome, we cannot, and anybody who does is either guessing or selling.
Almost every aesthetic clinic you look at will show you a gallery, and it is the single most persuasive thing on their website. It is also close to worthless as a prediction of what will happen to you, and we would rather explain why than quietly do the same thing.
This is not an accusation of fraud. Most of those photographs were taken in good faith by people pleased with a result. The problem is structural: the second picture is taken by somebody who wants it to look good, on a different day, in different light, of a different face from yours. Four things go wrong before anybody has retouched anything.
Why a gallery misleads
Four things that go wrong before anybody retouches anything
The second photograph is usually better lit
Softer, more frontal light flatters skin enormously. Move a lamp thirty centimetres and a texture problem halves. This is the single most common difference between a before and an after, and it is very rarely deliberate deception — it is simply that the second photograph is taken by somebody pleased with the result.
The angle and the expression change
A few degrees of head tilt changes a jawline. A relaxed jaw changes a chin. A slight smile lifts a mid-face. None of these is a treatment, and all of them show up in an after.
Makeup, tan and the day itself
Skin looks different at nine in the morning and at four in the afternoon, on either side of a night's sleep, hydrated and dehydrated. A photograph pair samples two moments and presents the difference as the treatment.
You are looking at a selected result
Every published set was chosen from a much larger pile. Nobody publishes the case that did nothing, and nobody is obliged to. That is a selection effect rather than dishonesty, and it makes the gallery an unreliable guide to what will happen to you.
What we publish instead
Four numbers, on every treatment page
Less flattering than a photograph and considerably more useful. A clinic willing to print how often a treatment disappoints people is telling you something a gallery structurally cannot.
How many sessions it actually takes
Stated on every treatment page as a range, based on what people generally need rather than on the minimum somebody could theoretically get away with. Laser hair reduction is six to eight, not three. Tattoo removal is eight to twelve, not four.
How long it lasts
Also on every page, including the treatments where longevity is a mixed blessing. Under-eye filler commonly lasts twelve to eighteen months, which is excellent when the result is right and a long time when it is not.
What the recovery genuinely looks like
Written from what people actually report rather than from a brochure. Lips swell hard for forty-eight hours. Ablative resurfacing costs you three to seven days you will not want to be seen. Injectable fat reduction swells visibly for a week.
How often it does not work
Where we know, we print it. Roughly a third of appropriately selected people get little worthwhile change from platelet-rich plasma hair treatment. Somewhere around half the people who ask for under-eye filler here are advised against having it at all.
Your own photographs
We do take pictures. They stay in your record.
Clinical photography is genuinely useful — for you rather than for us. Nobody can remember accurately what their own face looked like six months ago, which is why a hair restoration course is assessed against standardised photographs taken in the same light at the same distance.
Those images are part of your record. They are not published on this website, they are not posted anywhere, and they are not used in any advertising. If you would rather we did not take them at all, say so and we will not — it makes assessing a long course harder and it is entirely your decision.
- Taken in fixed light, at a fixed distance, in a fixed position
- Kept in your record and shown to you at review appointments
- Never published, posted or used in advertising
- Deleted on request, along with the rest of your record
Questions
Results — the questions we are asked most
Do you have any photographs of your work?
No, and that is a deliberate policy rather than an oversight. Before-and-after photographs are not evidence: they are selected, the lighting and the angle usually differ between the two, and often the makeup does too. We do take clinical photographs of our own clients for their records, in standardised light, and those stay in the record.
How can I judge you without pictures?
By what we are willing to write down. Every treatment page on this site states how many sessions the treatment usually takes, how long it lasts, what the recovery is, what can go wrong and how often people are disappointed. A clinic that will publish its failure rate is telling you more than a gallery does.
Are the pictures at other clinics fake?
Mostly not fake, and mostly not useful either — which is a different criticism. The commonest distortions are honest ones: better lighting in the second photograph, a slightly different angle, makeup in one and not the other, and a selection effect that comes from choosing the best result out of many. Even a scrupulously taken pair shows you somebody else's face.
Will I get the result I want?
Nobody can promise that, here or anywhere, and anybody who does is either guessing or selling. What we can do is tell you honestly what the treatment typically changes, roughly by how much, and what proportion of people are not satisfied. Some treatments on this site have a genuine failure rate of around a third, and those pages say so.
What if I am not happy with the result?
Tell us, at the two-week review or afterwards. Injectables can usually be adjusted and, in the case of the fillers we use, dissolved entirely. Skin programmes can be changed. Sometimes the honest answer is that the treatment did what it does and it was not the right treatment, in which case we will say so rather than sell you more of it.
Do you guarantee anything?
We guarantee the price, the time, who will treat you, and that a complication we caused will be managed without charge. We do not guarantee an outcome, because outcomes in this field depend on tissue that belongs to you and behaves in ways nobody can fully predict.
Aesthetic treatment is elective medicine, and this page is not medical advice for you. Aesthetic treatment is elective, it is medicine wherever it breaks the skin, and nothing on this website is medical advice for you in particular. We do not diagnose disease. Every treatment here begins with a consultation and a medical history, because your health, your medication, your skin type and what you have had done before all change what is safe and what is sensible. Some people are told no. Being told no is a normal outcome of a consultation here rather than a failure of one, and it costs exactly the same as being told yes.
A written plan and a written price before anything is booked
Book a consultation
Pick a clinician and an hour from the calendar — it shows only the times each of them genuinely has free. A consultation is a full hour at a table with no treatment couch in the room, and it costs $85, or $120 with the medical director. If you go ahead, that comes off your first treatment. If we tell you the answer is nothing, or a dermatologist, it costs exactly the same.