Do as I say – not as I do with tweakments

I’m well aware that I’m always giving you stern advice about tweakments, laying down the law on how you should approach aesthetic medicine and skincare… but that I don’t always follow my own advice. Occasionally, you guys even pull me up on it (thank you, I always welcome constructive comments!). What do I mean? And why do I do things the way I do them? I have my reasons. Here goes.

No doctor-hopping – stick with one practitioner

What I say: Find a great practitioner – one who listens to your concerns, as well as being well-trained and well-experienced in aesthetics – and stick with them, rather than going to one person for lips, another for toxin, etc.. (I know this sounds mad, but plenty of people do this).

Why this matters: Every practitioner treats faces slightly differently and if you go round getting different people to treat different aspects of your looks, you may end up looking like an oddly-put-together jigsaw. If you allow one person to be in charge of your whole tweakments-and-skincare journey, you’ll likely have a happier-looking result. What if you’re keen to have a treatment that your original practitioner doesn’t offer? Then, sure, fair enough, you will need to branch out. But having a steady relationship with one practitioner is really important.

What I do: I know that I am off seeing different practitioners all the time. But that is due to the demands of my job and to find the best experts to feature for The Tweakments Guide.

Go low and slow rather than hard and fast

What I say: if you’re thinking about energy-based treatments to resurface your face and regenerate your skin, you will usually get the same results from a course of low-intensity treatments with little downtime, spread out over time, as you would from a one-off, high-energy treatment that requires a lot of down downtime.

Why this matters: Social downtime is often difficult to manage. Unless people are used to you walking into your local coffee bar looking scalded, or popping up on Zoom meetings with half your face flaking off, they will very likely be appalled and worried for you. On top of that it’s exhausting, especially when you’re feeling shattered from a heavy-duty tweakment, to manage all the stares and keep explaining that it’s fine, it doesn’t hurt, it’s just a recovery process.

What I do: I know I don’t do this, and I know it really alarms you all when I pop up on Instagram looking bruised and battered after, say, a high-intensity energy treatment. In my defence, it’s usually in the interests of time and getting a quicker result to show you all what a treatment can do. But unless you have an appetite for a whole week of downtime, I’d strongly advise taking the low-road.

Don’t be a guinea-pig for new tweakments

What I say: Wait until a treatment is well-established before you jump in and try it. You really don’t want to be anyone’s guinea-pig for something they’re experimenting with.

Why it matters: New tweakments are popping up the whole time, and given the laxity of regulations around aesthetic procedures here, the UK is often seen as a handy testing-ground for treatments that have yet to gain accreditation in other markets. If it’s a new treatment that’s well known and well-accepted in, say, Korea or the rest of Europe, you may be keen to try it. There’s also the issue of how many treatments your practitioner has done using the new product or device. You certainly don’t want to be in the first 50.

What I do: In the past, I’ve been guilty of wanting to be among the first to try new treatments. Let’s just say I’ve learned from that. Now, even if a treatment is pretty new, I do my best to look into it properly, speak to the practitioners who are using it, and I make sure I’m not in their first batch of guinea-pigs. I don’t always get it right, but I do try.