Guest blog: how to make your facial treatments more bespoke

Jody Adele Taylor, owner of Skin Deep salon in Doncaster and winner of Professional Beauty’s Therapist of the Year 2017 Award, reveals how you can personalise treatments for every client. 

Consultations are not simply a process to collect a brief chronology of vague medical history and contact details for your salon data base. As a therapist, it’s the time to gain as much information from your client as possible to be able to exceed and manage their expectations.

Therefore, the consultation is the time to be informed and to educate, for both the client and the therapist. To be informed by the client you will need to ask as many leading questions as you can, as each reply will lead to another question. This way, you’ll gain the information you require to be able to devise a bespoke treatment for your client.

To leave a client filling out their own form is not personal and will tell you nothing. Your consultation form should be made up of leading questions around lifestyle, daily routine and skincare regimes, which you can use as pointers and make notes.

Also, skin consultations shouldn’t end once the paperwork is filled out; take the time to analyse your client’s skin to build a better picture for their treatment.

12 ways you can make your facial treatment more bespoke:

• Choose your products for the issues you can see on your client’s skin that day
  
  
• Adapt your massage techniques to help their skin condition or general wellbeing
  
  
• You can allow the client to choose what massage they would like, it is after all their treatment 
  
  
• Don’t limit the areas of massage to the face, neck and shoulder – remember the arms and scalp too
  
  
• Provide time options rather than a confusing list resembling a food menu
  
  
• Incorporate different techniques and technologies into the chosen time to achieve the desired result
  
  
• Don’t limit the client or yourself to the basic facial formula – cleanse, tone, exfoliate, massage and mask
  
  
• Use as many masks as necessary, don’t limit yourself to one
  
  
• Don’t use an exfoliator if you don’t think they need one
  
  
• If the client is concerned with acne, use pressure point rather than traditional massage techniques
  
  
• Educate your client by explaining your product and treatment choices
  
  
• Provide excellent homecare advice and explain your choices

Personalising every treatment shows your clients that you have the knowledge to change and adapt your services to suit their needs.

Image: Jody Adele Taylor (right) recieving her trophy at the Professional Beauty Awards 2017