Aesthetics trends for 2019: trauma-free innovations

The advanced treatments sector saw huge growth in 2018, supported by RealSelf statistics released in November that revealed 62% of young Brits were planning on undergoing an aesthetic treatment in the next 12 months. 

The market is ripe for innovation in terms of safe and effective devices that will allow beauty therapists to achieve impressive results for clients within their remit and without veering into medical territory. It’s an area skin expert and director of Fusion Aesthetic Academy Andrew Hansford is confident will develop into an even more profitable one for skin therapists in 2019, with a shift in clients’ understanding of what it takes to achieve great skin coupled with technological innovations that completely do away with trauma and downtime. 

“Instant gratification has disappeared. Clients are starting to realise that skin health is number one,” says Hansford. “So with techniques like mesotherapy, which is non-invasive and can be done by beauty therapists, it takes a little bit of time but the body is regenerating itself naturally rather than that process being done by an aggressive piece of equipment that can have very negative responses.” 

Less aggressive treatments

Hansford believes that treatments such as mesotherapy, which he says is “massive in every country apart from here”, will begin to gain favour, with clients who don’t want an aggressive approach or downtime willing to put in the time. “A few years ago people didn’t care about causing a lot of trauma through the skin and if it meant they got the results they wanted instantly, but that’s completely changed now,” he says. 

Hansford is particularly interested in a new-to-the-UK device that is garnering attention for its ability to almost completely remove and re-pigment stretchmarks. It works by pumping sodium and potassium across the cell membranes, nourishing the cells and fibroblast, triggering collagen and elastin regeneration. This is combined with a vacuum-massage system to stimulate oxygen and nutrients in the blood and kick-start cellular metabolism to release toxins from the body. 

Treating scarring

Originally developed for stretchmarks, Italian machine Biodermogenesi also has applications for body firming, facial rejuvenation, hypertrophic scarring, keloids and vaginal rejuvenation. 

“We’ve always thought that to get rid of scars and stretchmarks we need to cause wounds and trauma,” says Hansford. “But with this it’s not causing the trauma and is instead getting the body to reactivate its natural processes. And the great thing about it is that because you’re not causing any trauma, therapists can do it, aside from the keloid and vaginal treatments.” 

The future of aesthetics

The future for advanced therapists in aesthetics looks bright. We may well expect to see further innovation in non-invasive technologies that allow the wound-healing response to be completely bypassed, increasing the opportunities for therapists. 

“This kind of device is a great thing to be able to offer clients; knowing that you can do a treatment in 15 to 20 minutes with no trauma and you can show clinical studies, data, white papers and case studies,” says Hansford, adding: “Clients in the UK increasingly want manufacturers to stand behind their equipment and prove the credentials rather than just giving them a sales pitch about how amazing the machine is.”