Mapping facial skincare

Our skin defends our body against a whole range of envi­ron­men­tal attacks. It helps get rid of tox­ins and it con­tin­u­al­ly renews itself. So why do we treat its care as a cos­met­ic issue and not a health issue?

Though, of course, a cer­tain amount of our skin’s behav­iour is pre­de­ter­mined, day-to-day changes can affect our skin more than you think and recog­nis­ing that your skin is ever-chang­ing is cru­cial in devel­op­ing a skin­care rou­tine that real­ly works for you.

Dermalogica’s core belief is that edu­ca­tion is key to under­stand­ing skin. It edu­cates its ther­a­pists so they can pass the knowl­edge on to the cus­tomer to make an informed deci­sion. “Our prod­uct is sold by pro­fes­sion­al skin ther­a­pists, peo­ple who tru­ly under­stand skin his­tol­ogy and how ingre­di­ents affect your skin and, cru­cial­ly, how your lifestyle affects your skin,” Dermalogica’s edu­ca­tion direc­tor Sal­ly Pen­ford explains.

Dermalogica’s Face Map­ping® allows the cus­tomer to build a pic­ture of what’s going on with their skin past, present and future. A Der­ma­log­i­ca pro­fes­sion­al skin ther­a­pist uses Face Map­ping to assess every area of the facial land­scape. Through touch and sight they may ascer­tain con­di­tions such as con­ges­tion, break­outs, sen­si­tiv­i­ty, dehy­dra­tion, and/or hyper­pig­men­ta­tion.

By look­ing under a mag­ni­fy­ing lamp and observ­ing skin up close, along­side ask­ing you about your lifestyle, Der­ma­log­i­ca ther­a­pists will be able to advise on fac­tors such as pol­lu­tion, hor­mon­al changes or prod­uct usage and how they’re affect­ing your skin.

For exam­ple, a lot of make-up con­tains arti­fi­cial colour such as D&C reds that can cause black­heads. Cen­tral heat­ing and air con­di­tion­ing can cause dehy­dra­tion and con­tribute to crepe-like tex­ture on the skin.

“We play detec­tive real­ly,” Ms Pen­ford says. “You might, for exam­ple, be affect­ed by sea­son­al changes. When win­ter comes you may spend more time indoors with the cen­tral heat­ing on or you might play lots of sport out­side in the cold.” This in turn affects what prod­ucts you need to use and when, such as a light foam­ing cleans­ing wash in sum­mer or a win­ter bar­ri­er cream.

Face Map­ping is a cru­cial part of Dermalogica’s ded­i­ca­tion to edu­ca­tion. “We real­ly want every indi­vid­ual to be empow­ered with knowl­edge about their skin to make informed choic­es about the prod­ucts they use,” says Ms Pen­ford. “You might look at your face, but not realise what it’s telling you. By know­ing things like, for exam­ple, being preg­nant can affect the skin’s pig­men­ta­tion, you can find the right prod­uct solu­tions at the right time.”

Per­son­al­is­ing your skin­care regime doesn’t mean that hav­ing a core basic rou­tine is a bad thing. “A skin ther­a­pist will get you on a good sol­id dai­ly regime that fits your over­all skin type and your lifestyle,” says Ms Pen­ford. “But the inter­est­ing part is know­ing what your skin needs each day when you look in the mir­ror. This is where you can decide whether your skin needs a tar­get­ed prod­uct such as a serum, exfo­liant or mask. It’s about hav­ing a col­lec­tion of key prob­lem-solv­ing prod­ucts on hand to respond to what your skin needs that day.”

We pro­duce prod­ucts that work

These prob­lem-solv­ing prod­ucts are a result of years of care­ful research. Dermalogica’s prod­ucts are cre­at­ed in response to real con­sumer needs with­out being slave to the lat­est fads. “We pro­duce prod­ucts that work,” says Mr Pen­ford, sim­ply. The out­comes are based on clin­i­cal stud­ies and the work of thou­sands of ther­a­pists using Der­ma­log­i­ca prod­ucts around the world every day, rather than the result of a mar­ket­ing strat­e­gy or knee-jerk reac­tion to trends.

To this end, Der­ma­log­i­ca works at the cut­ting edge of skin tech­nol­o­gy, work­ing on inno­v­a­tive ways con­stant­ly to trans­form its prod­ucts. Dermalogica’s vision is for skin health over beau­ty and its prod­ucts, free from com­mon irri­tants and ingre­di­ents that can cause break­outs, reflect this. Der­ma­log­i­ca prod­ucts are researched and devel­oped by the Inter­na­tion­al Der­mal Insti­tute, which pro­vides post­grad­u­ate edu­ca­tion in skin ther­a­py. This ded­i­ca­tion to the sci­ence is also reflect­ed in the no-non­sense brand­ing, which focus­es on results and not how pret­ty the bot­tle might look on your bath­room shelf.

Hav­ing a trust­ed rela­tion­ship with a skin ther­a­pist means you are able to con­sult them when you have ques­tions about your skin’s changes or you need a more inten­sive treat­ment. For exam­ple, if you need dra­mat­ic results fast, Dermalogica’s ProSkin 30 treat­ment will tar­get your key skin goals from pig­men­ta­tion and scar­ring to uneven skin tone or acne, in just 30 min­utes. In 60 min­utes your skin ther­a­pist can take you and your skin on the ulti­mate treat­ment expe­ri­ence.

Devel­op­ing a good skin­care rou­tine comes back to know­ing that your skin is an ever-chang­ing sto­ry. What works for you now might be com­plete­ly dif­fer­ent in three months’ or a year’s time and what your skin needs might not be what you think it needs. Know­ing who to turn to for these answers is the first step.

For more infor­ma­tion please vis­it www.dermalogica.co.uk