Skinfluencer
I’ve been to many salons over the years – in fact, I first started having facials at the age of 16 – so I think its safe to say that I know the difference between a good one and not so good one. Over the years the idea of the facial has changed too, we now want results that “you can see”. In fact, I can’t remember the last time I had a facial where I actually felt pampered, most of the ones I have prod, prick and heat your skin to almost to the point of being unbearable…. Then I discovered Skinfluencer!
Going purely by first impressions this clinic is by far the best I have ever been to – Imagine what it would be like if your private members club did killer facials? Well, this place is it.
Founder Sharin Shafer
The brainchild of founder Sharin Shafer, who originally started her career on the business side of things serving as the Chief operating Officer for multinational companies. It was her concerns with her own skin and what was currently on the market and the advancement in energy based skincare technologies that made her want to start Skinfluencer. Thanks to her business knowledge and her desire to improve her own skin, her curated approach to Skinfluencer was born.
Skinfluencer reception
On arrival I’m introduced to my therapist SK who takes me into a kind of concierge room where we go through my current skincare regime and what my concerns are – there was a very “couture feeling” about the whole experience. You should also know that ALL Skinfluencer’s aestheticians are CIDESCO diplomats and hold a minimum of NVQ level 4 (SK and Ridah are currently sitting their exams for their Level 5). Both SK and Ridah are also ARAUK (Acne Rosacea Association UK) certified by Professor Tony Chu, which is almost unheard of in aestheticians (usually reserved for doctors). So, like their echnologies, they ensure that their clinic offers the very best in treatment options and that they are delivered by the most skilled hands in the industry - which I can not stress enough how important that is when trying out these kind of machines. Just go on Realself if you want to see what happens when you don’t! They even went the extra step to become Care Quality Commission (CQC) regulated, which means that they are scrutinised at the same level as hospitals on their health and safety and clinical governance standards. So, its safe to say you are in good hands at this place!
To fully see what was going on with my skin SK popped me under their observ360 machine which produces images at different layers of the skin… its great for seeing how bad/good pigmatation is, pores, redness, inflammation, wrinkles etc. It was after this that we decided we would target the underlining redness and inflammation (I suffer from Rosacea so this is a constant battle for me) my skin was also dry from the winter months and was in desperate need of some brightening.
So how was the treatment? Well, it was the perfect combination of relaxation (the odd face massage in there) with machines that actually made a difference to your skin tone and texture. SK was so knowledgeable and made me feel at ease – like I mentioned earlier I suffer with rosacea so can get a little nervous that a certain product will cause a flare up – but, SK is also a fellow sufferer of the dreaded Rosacea so she REALLY knows what she is doing. The facial started off by massaging the IS Clinical Honey cleaner onto my face, followed by a peel, extractions, the Fotona laser which felt like a light warm wave going across your face - it certainly wasn’t as painful as some lasers I’ve tried out. This really worked on calming down the redness and then with the same machine SK zapped away some red broken veins around my nose. All of this was followed by some LED therapy and a mask. Whats great about Skinfluencer is that all treatments are 100% bespoke, they look at your skin and assess what they can do to improve it and work from there. They pulled out all the stops to make sure I would leave the clinic with skin that didn’t need any make-up and really glowed. Did they achieve this? They most certainly did and I have to say that my skin hasn’t looked that great in a LONG time. Would I go back? 100%. I may have just found my go to facialist for life!
