Skin rejuvenation treatment secrets, with Teresa Tarmey

How do you put together a personalised skin rejuvenation programme for a client?

"We obviously assess the client skin and see what the main concerns are. I always start with the worst concern first and work backwards," says celebrity facialist and skin expert Teresa Tarmey.

"Say, for example, someone's got lots of broken capillaries and pigmentation, I would focus on breaking the pigmentation up using product and lasers. I don't heavily treat with lasers, that's one thing I'm really firm on. Whether it's me or my therapists, we treat very slowly and carefully and that's not because we're not confident; we just like to treat very slowly to lift the pigment rather than aggressively taking it off and making the skin sensitised.

"So, I like to do a lot of courses of six treatments, where we get to know the client's skin. However, everyone always leaves with some sort of result so if they've come for a course of lasers we tend to get the laser on them in the first session after a little test patch at the beginning because we really focus on results, just slowly."

Which technologies are best for skin brightening and lifting?

"I use Venus Concept because it has lots of different applications on one system so you have a laser on there for pigmentation and broken capillaries but you also have radiofrequency, which I'm also huge fan of for my pre party, or ‘red carpet’ facials. Then you have the fractional radiofrequency, which again i'm a huge fan of for resurfacing and skin tightening and scarring," says Tarmey. "It's great to have everything on one platform so you're not having to buy several machines.

"We would never treat past a skin type three to four with a laser, though, we would leave that to topical creams or refer to a doctor or dermatologist, so i'm a huge fan of the fractional radiofrequency, simply because it's not a laser. Microneedling has a similar effect on skin rejuvenation and scarring, which is why I developed my own microneedling kit that is great for people to top up with."

What are the key active ingredients for skin rejuvenation? 

"I'm a huge fan of lactic acid, which is why I brought that into my home kit that I developed," says Tarmey. "Peptides are great for microneedling. Obviously the usual things like vitamin C, although I’m not a huge fan of vitamin C as a standalone product, I like it incorporated into a product because I find it can congest the skin. I like finding the ingredients together rather than one product for hyaluronic acid and another vitamin C, for example.

"Vitamin A and retinol – every client should have that in the bathroom. Niacinamide I’m a huge fan of, and obviously hyaluronic acid, depending on what molecule because it's hard to get a really good hyaluronic acid."

For more skincare advice, don't miss our webinars on How to retail home kits to salon clients during coronavirus and Treating skin of colour