Sunscreen, or none of the rest of it matters
This is not a sales line and it is the single most useful sentence on this website. Every pigment treatment, every resurfacing course and every peel you pay for is undone by unprotected sun, and a great deal of what people come in wanting fixed was caused by it. Broad spectrum, at least SPF 30, every morning, all year, on the face, the neck and the backs of the hands. Reapply if you are outdoors.
Four products, not eleven
Most people arrive using a shelf and getting nothing from it, because the actives cancel one another out and the irritation caused by one gets blamed on another. A cleanser, a vitamin A derivative at night, a vitamin C in the morning and a sunscreen will do more than a routine three times that size. We will happily tell you to stop buying things.
Introduce one thing at a time, slowly
A new active goes on twice a week for a fortnight before it goes on nightly. Almost every case of somebody deciding a product does not agree with them is a case of starting it every day from the first day. If your skin stings, flakes and reddens, you are not purging, you have damaged your barrier.
Leave your skin alone between treatments
No picking, no squeezing, no home rolling devices, and no home peels on top of a course of professional ones. A good share of the marks people ask us to remove are marks they made themselves. If something needs extracting it can be extracted here without leaving anything behind.
Expect months, not weeks
Skin turns over roughly every four to six weeks and collagen remodels across three to six months. A course of peels or microneedling is judged at three months, not at the second session. The treatments that promise a visible difference by the weekend are the ones that do the least.
Tell us what you are actually doing
Not what you meant to do. If you have been using a strong acid nightly, have started an acne medication, are taking something that thins the blood, or spent last week in the Caribbean, that changes what is safe to do to your skin this week. Nobody here is going to be cross about it — we simply need to know.
The uncomfortable ranking
What we do here is the third most important thing
It is an odd sentence for a clinic to publish and it is true. The order that actually determines how skin looks in ten years is sun protection, then a routine you keep to, then whatever happens in this building.
That is why an appointment here often ends with a shorter shopping list than you arrived with, and why nobody is paid commission on a product. If your routine is eleven items and none of them is a sunscreen, the useful advice costs you nothing and we would rather give it than sell you a course of facials on top of it.
Questions
Skincare at home — the questions we are asked most
What is the one thing I should do?
Wear a broad-spectrum sunscreen of at least SPF 30 every morning, all year, on your face, neck and the backs of your hands. It is not a sales line — we do not sell it — and it is genuinely the single most useful thing on this website. A great deal of what people come in wanting fixed was caused by sun, and every pigment treatment you pay for is undone by it.
Do I need expensive products?
No. Price and effectiveness are only loosely related in skincare, and some of the best-evidenced ingredients are in inexpensive products. What matters is the active, the concentration, whether it is stable in that formulation, and whether you actually use it. We are happy to look at what you already own and tell you what to keep.
Should I be using a vitamin A derivative?
For most adults concerned with texture, fine lines and pigment, it is the ingredient with the best evidence available without a prescription. Start twice a week for a fortnight and build up — almost every case of somebody deciding one does not agree with them is a case of starting it nightly on the first night.
Is my skin purging or is it a reaction?
Purging is a brief increase in spots in the areas you normally break out, settling within four to six weeks, and it only happens with ingredients that speed up skin turnover. Stinging, flaking, burning and redness in places you do not normally break out is irritation and a damaged barrier. Stop, simplify, and tell us.
Do you sell skincare?
We stock a small number of things it is genuinely difficult to buy at the right strength elsewhere, and we make no attempt to be a shop. Nobody here earns commission on a product, and the honest advice a great many people get at a consultation is to stop buying things. Most people arrive using eleven products and leave using four.
Can home devices do what you do?
Not really, and one class of them causes harm. Home rollers cannot be sterilised, blunt quickly and tear rather than puncture, and some of the marks people ask us to treat were made by one. Home light devices are far weaker than clinic ones, which makes them safer and much less effective.
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.