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Foreign. Hi you guys, welcome back to the Treatment Room Podcast. I am your host, Tessa Zolli, licensed esthetician, acne specialist and NASM Certified Nutrition Coach. So I am so excited for today's episode because I want to get back to something that I used to do in the earlier days of the POD that I've missed so much and these are honestly always my favorite episodes to record which are answering your listener questions. So I would love your help in thinking of a name for this segment and I have decided I'm going to accept questions on an ongoing basis. So I will be posting about it on Stories but also just putting it out there that you can email me anytime@tessaskinconsultingmail.com and send me your questions. I think this will just be a great way to make sure I am recording content that directly benefits my listeners. Oh and I want to clarify, this could be for other estheticians or this could just be for a person who has a skin skin related question. So you can always email me your question on an ongoing basis and I want to dedicate a full episode to each question so that they don't get lost and so that I can really elaborate and give you a super thoughtful answer. Today I am answering a question from one of you that I absolutely loved and I think I remember this handle from meeting you at the Pomp Beauty panel in la. I think so. That's what I'm going off of girl that I met who's just so sweet and cute. So let's get into it. Hello there long time supporter and follower. I am an esthetician who is now moving into the holistic acne consulting space. I have been studying, learning, experience, experiencing and educating myself on acne for the past three years and I am just now feeling comfortable being open to holistic coaching on skin management. However, I am still very anxious that I am not good enough to do this. I have my holistic health coaching license and I have my aesthetic license. I have seen my skin heal with all that I have learned, but I still second guess my abilities. What is your biggest piece of advice for a newbie in this side of the industry? So to recap, this esthetician said she's been in the industry for a few years. She has studied acne very deeply. She has healed her own skin and she now wants to step into the coaching side, the holistic coaching side of the industry. But there's a big but. She is feeling like she's not good enough yet. And I just want to start by Acknowledging that statement is gonna resonate with so many other estheticians and just free so many other estheticians who are struggling with self confidence. And we have all been there as estheticians, and it's actually a really powerful place to be in, because where there is that feeling of lack, there's also such a hunger to learn and absorb more information. Then you will never have a hunger like that. Even as you're a seasoned esthetician, you won't have it because you feel equipped to. To do the job. So you just don't have that same need to go seek out seminars and classes and talk to other estheticians and learn. So just know this is a temporary space and it's actually, like, so magical. Oh, my gosh. I remember when I first got into the industry, and I still am so on fire for what I do. And. And my favorite part is giving back and educating and talking to you guys about all that I know can heal people, but I remember being exactly in these shoes. And I want to get into a lot of advice, but I just want to start by saying I want to help you actually understand acne as a whole, because that knowledge is power, and that's where real confidence is going to come from. Truly feeling confident and knowing what you are treating. So I think it is both. There's a mindset aspect and then I think clarity, and just putting your knowledge together and really having that expertise, I think that is going to take the confidence to a new level. So in this episode, I want to start by talking about what acne actually is. So let's zoom out for a second. I know we hear all the time from our clients, oh, it doesn't matter what I do. Like when you're doing your skin care, but your skin doesn't care and it feels so random. And your clients are going to tell you, yeah, I just started randomly breaking out, but it's not that random. It's actually wired into your DNA. You inherited a gene, and your pores have this predisposition to shed excess skin cells. And this process gets exacerbated by such a multitude of lifestyle factors. But the good news is it is controllable. It's controllable, but we really need to do a lot of rewiring and reset the system. But it's not your skin just freaking out. It is a chronic cyclical disease and process that we have to interrupt. And when you understand the process of acne and you stop guessing and you stop living in this way where you're just Riding the wave when it's clear. But you're waiting for the shoe to drop, and it eventually does, and things get bad again, and it's up and it's down. But because you see little glimpses of good, you don't really know if you have to change anything. So you just stay stuck in this vicious cycle. And that's really how acne tends to go. You're gonna have times it gets a little better, and then it gets a little bit worse, and then it gets really bad, but then it gets a little bit better. So because acne is not always happening like, in real time, you know, like, you use something that clogs your skin, you eat some cheese. It's not like that actual moment the acne forms. And I think that's what can be very misleading. It is extremely, extremely complex. And it's not like anyone you know is inept for not knowing how to solve this. This is considered a incurable condition. But I have found we can actually have a lot of success controlling it when we understand acne. And that's when you start becoming a really effective coach. So at the most basic level, acne comes down to four things. It comes down to that abnormal skin cell turnover. You are producing a lot of excess keratin. Even up to a billion skin skin cells. You might be producing five to 10 times the normal amount of skin cells. So that's a lot of material that can clog the pores along with the three others. Oil bacteria, and then there's inflammation present. Every breakout that your client has is some combination of those four factors. And when my clients get a breakout, they always come to me and they say, well, I'm breaking out. I've been more stressed. I did eat this thing last week, and I might have dabbled with some new makeup. And I've been working out more in X, Y and Z. But which do you think it is? And this is where we have the great opportunity to educate on why acne is not just the result of one thing, but it is this multifactorial condition. And how I like to explain it is think of a bucket. You have a bucket that gets filled with one little raindrop from stress, one little raindrop from some comedogenic cosmetics. You have one raindrop from a hormone fluctuation, one raindrop from some bacteria, and so on and so forth until the bucket overflows. And when we're talking about the bucket or the pore, this is a really, really tiny tube about the size in diameter of a single Strand of hair. So it's very tiny and it doesn't take a lot, although there is a lot happening in that pore and if we put a microscope on it, you would see a lot of material. But since since it's such a tiny little cavern, it is quite easy for it to fill up and get clogged. And when that pore gets clogged, that is the start of the acne process. And it can take up to 90 days for acne to form. So this is where people get confused because we don't even remember everything we were doing in our lifestyle today, let alone yesterday or last week or last month or the month before that. So acne is very cumulative. And I always say I wish we could put a GPS on the breakout and know what exactly triggered it and where the source was. But in reality, it was probably many factors in addition to your genetic predisposition that led to that breakout. With my clients, I like to educate them in our first consultation about what retention hyperkeratosis is. This excess shedding of skin cells so that they understand why it feels like they are running in this uphill battle every single day of their life. And their best friend eats a grilled cheese, uses whatever makeup, never washes her face and she never gets a breakout. She didn't inherit that predisposition. Lucky you. If you're acne prone, you did inherit this uphill battle, this likelihood that you will break out, you will have pores that get clogged very easily. So the question becomes not how do I get rid of acne, how do I cure this? It's what part of the acne process is overactive in this person? There might be some aspects of acne we can't control, we can't undo that gene you've inherited. But there are lots of areas of the lifestyle that we can look at to reduce the burden of oil bacteria inflammation on the pore. And we can look at cell turnover, we can look at active ingredients and use products and treatments that actually penetrate the pore to alleviate that congestion, to clear that pore. And we want to do that in a preventative way, which we will get into. How do we interrupt the acne process? This is the most important question that you need to consider as an esthetician and you actually want your clients to understand this as well. Because it can't just be a one way street. It has to be both the client and the esthetician doing their jobs to interrupt that acne process. And that's where you have the Magic. And it does take time, but we can interrupt that process. So topically, we want to look at doing a few things as an esthetician, whether you are in the treatment room or you are recommending home care, which, by the way, guys, every esthetician should be making a recommendation for their clients for home care. Really, unless they're prefacing the session saying, do not talk to me about skin care. I do not want to hear about anything. I already have my routine, and I am dead set on it. Everyone else is somebody you should approach the topic of home care with. And we want to understand that we are doing our clients a disservice by not talking about home care. And I completely get it. We don't want to come across salesy. We remember how it feels to walk into a spa and you feel oversold and it feels icky, and you feel like they're trying to sell you on a million things. And that's the key. You feel like they're trying to sell you on product. There is a difference between wanting to sell a bunch of retail and truly caring about your client. If you care about your client, you understand that that home care routine is crucial. It is 80%, probably more of their success with you. And if you do not at least try to educate your client on the treatments they need to treat their skin at home, they will be purchasing their skin care somewhere else, and it may be to their detriment. So I think sometimes, of course, we are afraid of being salesy, but we use that as an excuse as to not even try. And one of the best jobs I ever had when I was working in the treatment room, I was working for a spa where really the rule was like, every client should be walking away with at least one skin care product to help treat their concern after each facial. And this is assuming they're not on the whole routine. And although this could kind of come across, you know, a certain way, it was actually really awesome because the product, products all worked well. And when clients followed the routine, it did interrupt this acne process. People got clear. So the great thing was I was so fortunate that I never really had to sell at this job. I never had to sell anything I didn't believe in. So it was more about providing the skin analysis and. And then providing a solution that would help to control the client's acne at home. And I think it's really good to get in the habit of trying to recommend skincare. And this is a skill you build up over time. We can assume that People don't want to hear about skincare because that's 50% of what people come to my consulting business for. And I recommend an entire regimen. So I just want you guys to understand there are people out there who are actively seeking out an expert to purchase skincare from. So we don't want to assume that people don't want to hear about skin care. We actually want to assume that they do. And we want to assume that we know how to recommend what is in the client's best interests. My mentor Jan Marini has always said people do not want another product, but they do want a solution. So if you truly have, and you should have treatments that actually address your clients concerns, you will never feel like you have to sell a product a day in your life. I never feel that way. Every day I feel like I am clocking in to provide people with solutions. And the beautiful thing is it works. So step one, you want to be retailing products that are effective and work. And step two, you want to give yourself permission to provide the solutions to your clients. So when we are recommending topicals for acne management, we are looking at a few key things. We are looking to regulate oil production, we are considering how we can normalize cell turnover, we are managing bacteria and we are calming inflammation while we are protecting and prioritizing the health of the skin barrier. Now I don't think you need to do all of these things at once. For example, you might not be focused on managing bacteria and cell turnover at the same time. I would say priority when I start with clients is considering that skin barrier, considering what state it has been in. I know for, for me, when I see new clients, usually there has to be some level of barrier rehabilitation. Their skin has been through a lot, maybe a lot of sunburns, a lot of just lack of treatment, lack of hydration, lack of proper care. They have probably abused their skin in some way with hot water or abrasive scrubs, or they've been given prescriptions and topicals that are way too harsh. And the other aspect of this is they have possibly never had the right expert managing their skin. So when the consumer is on their own, with access to unlimited resources and there is social media knowledge everywhere, they start playing chemists, they start trying a bunch of different things and this damage just piles and piles on until they have created a very dry, damaged barrier and a lot of inflammation. I know USDs have seen skin like this where it's so tight, it doesn't have that luminosity, it's dry, it's not reflecting light. The skin cells don't have hydration, there's a lot of redness and there might be prominent acne, inflamed lesions or a lot of blackheads, a lot of oil trapped underneath a dead, dry layer of skin. And so oftentimes, and I would say nine times out of 10, you need to look at that barrier condition first before you start regulating oil, working on cell turnover, managing bacteria, because typically those are going to be things that are associated with active ingredients like benzoyl peroxide, salicylic acid, glycolic acid, retinol, which are all beautiful things, but the client needs to be in the place to receive them. So we definitely want to spend a little bit of time just assessing that barrier before we go in with the heavy hitters. And now let's talk a little bit more about the internal side. I would say from a holistic lens, we want to look at what is driving that acne process internally. And I think for any holistic provider, you want to get really real about what that entails. Since so many people use that term, holistic practitioner and it can be very vague to the consumer and it might be vague to the professional. I think you really have to get clear on the core pillars of your practice and what you are a true expert in that you can guide your clients on internally.
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So I was talking with some of my girlfriends at a coffee shop the other weekend. They also happen to be estheticians and business owners. And the number one thing we are all struggling with right now is the the inability to grow our businesses and make more money because we get so bogged down with the day to day. I know I'm missing out on client inquiries, rebooking, reminders, upsell opportunities and so much more. This is even harder if you're piecing together booking, payments, customer service and a clunky EMR across a bunch of different tools. That's why I personally love Gloss Genius. The system that does the work for you to get you more revenue and free up your time. It fills your calendar, keeps your clients coming back, grows your average ticket size and puts your busy work on autopilot. They also have all the HIPAA compliant tools you need for charting consents and client records without the chaos. You guys are always asking how I take client notes and how I keep things organized. I can't recommend Gloss Genius enough. And now you can see for yourself. Use code treatment@glossgenius.com for 50% off your first two months of the gold or platinum plans. Gloss Genius. More revenue for your business, more time for everything else.
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So I think you want to determine your core pillars that might be looking at hormone imbalances, especially androgens, like testosterone. Being high can be a big driver of acne. Personally, I'm not a hormone expert, so I typically would refer out and if the client mentioned some sort of hormone related issue such as PCOS or irregular periods, maybe a pillar is blood sugar dysregulation. I know for me specializing in nutrition, this is a core pillar of my practice. Blood sugar dysregulation is very common amongst most acne sufferers. There is a reason that acne is often called diabetes of the skin and so regulating my clients. Blood sugar is something that we work on over time and it is incredible to see the difference that managing diet, managing stress, managing sleep, trying to improve insulin sensitivity, gaining muscle, all of these can really help your clients with managing their blood sugar and make acne more manageable long term. Maybe a core pillar for you is gut health and overall inflammation of the gut. Maybe it's looking at liver detox pathways, maybe it's looking at nervous system stress, maybe it's looking at endocrine disruptors. We know the skin is responding to signals that are happening inside the body, so if those signals aren't addressed, you can have the best skincare routine in the world and your client can still be stuck. Which is why I'm just so passionate about the work I do in my business, because I really feel that long term success comes from both the internal and the topical. And merging those together, I think can give somebody a lifetime of confidence in managing their skin. And so for you as the provider, you don't need to know everything, but I think you do need to know your pillars and you need to get really clear on what are the patterns that you understand what really well that you can be an expert on. When it comes to acne. When you start viewing your clients through these lenses, I think everything will become more clear and you won't have to be guessing. You are recognizing patterns and from that I think you can create systems for collecting data from your clients or for asking specific questions, whether on your intake form or in consultation. I think understanding your pillars is going to help you set up those systems so that you can be consistent with your clients in asking the questions that matter and advising on the areas for which you are a true expert. And this really comes down to how you work with clients. And, you know, I think every practitioner kind of has their certain pockets of expertise. They have their flow, they have their signature program, and that takes time to develop. You know, I think it is good to just be an observer of all the clients that are coming to you. Ask a lot of questions about their lifestyle, about their nutrition, and you will start to see certain patterns. And I think over time this information just compounds and you become more of an expert and in your craft when it comes to building your process. And I think my biggest advice to this listener is to spend more time building your process than questioning your worth. And then you want to think about, you know, your consultation. What are the questions you're going to be asking? When did the acne start? Where is it located? When do you notice your acne is better or worse? So a lot of this comes down to just how you work with clients and your client work. This is going to be unique to every practitioner and again, I think it should reflect the core pillars of your business and it's okay to have your own unique process. And that does take time to build. With my business, it is so successful now, six years later, because of the time I spent really deep diving with clients, learning as much as I could about them. And over time, all of these things help to inform your process. And I think the biggest advice I can give is to spend more time being a sponge, soaking up information from your clients and just building out your process. Spend more time on that than questioning your worth. A lot of this is going to be data driven. So you want to look at, you know, what data are you collecting from your clients? Whether it's from intake forms, symptom tracking, cycle tracking, digestion, lifestyle habits, product use? What questions are you asking? Like, when did the acne start? What products have you used in the past? Do you have any internal inflammation or imbalances that you know of? All of these questions are going to help give you clues. And I think what can be so tricky about acne is that every client truly has a unique story. There might be something really powerful that is driving their inflammation or, or a hormone imbalance, or it could come down to certain cosmetics and the skin care that they're using, or their diet habits, their glycemic load. Every client is unique, but I would say acne overall isn't that unique. Like it really comes down to a pore getting clogged. We just need to be detectives to, to try to figure out what is the biggest factor in a multifactorial equation that is affecting them and look at the ways in which we can make their equation more Balanced. So looking at the bacteria, looking at inflammation, looking at factors that are increasing oil like stress and diet, and trying to balance those things out and control the controllable, all of those things are going to give you the clues. And then the next part is how are you going to keep your clients accountable? This is the part that people overlook. It's not just about giving a perfect protocol. It's really about truly relating and coaching your client so that they follow through. And, and I think this does take lots of practice and I've learned so much over the years. Looking back, I think there were definitely times in coaching where I was just providing information. I think with time you learn that's not always enough. You really want to connect with your client and you want to understand like what are the roadblocks they're experiencing? What are the things that are coming up as you're giving them this information? Like I'm recommending a certain type of diet that's high in specific proteins, that's lower glycemic load, that has fiber, that is healthy fats. Like I can say all these things and then what are the actionable steps that is going to help my client actually make a list, go to the store, meal prep and set them up for success during their week. Like it really comes down to those micro steps. It's not enough to just give the information and expect people to put it into action because most people won't and they are coming to you as a coach to really anticipate those roadblocks and those challenges for them and provide them with the systems to start taking action. At the end of the day, we cannot make anyone do anything. We can only lead horse to water and hope that they drink. But we want to do as much as we can to really help our clients actually follow through. And I've noticed just everyone is going to be so different with their follow through. I have some clients that, that I can literally give them the information, give them the protocol and they are guns a blazing like ready to put everything into action. And quite quickly they can really create a fast turnaround and start changing their habits almost overnight. And some clients are going to be the opposite. They might have a really hard time with self discipline, with changing what has become comfortable and normal to them. A lot of people really rely on convenience or what is available to them in the moment. And it can be hard to break through and get this type of client to understand that they may have to be uncomfortable and that really nothing is going to change if nothing changes and Then a lot of clients are honestly going to fall in the middle. Like they might excel in certain areas and then just have other areas of weakness. And we always just want to be reminding our clients they're not expected to be perfect. Like we want our clients to be honest with us, be transparent with us about their struggles so that we can then coach and help them and try to provide the tools that they need to be successful. One aspect of coaching that you will learn with time is also just like having a relationship with your clients and being both relatable at times so that they can receive the information. It doesn't sound like it's coming from a robot, but you're also the authority and you're the coach. I think sometimes my clients might get thrown off because I will really go back and forth between authority and almost like a friend role, but I'm both in one. And I think ultimately that's what the girls who are coming to me, they want, like they want somebody who is an authority and an expert, but, but they also want to feel like they can talk to you about, you know, just things that come up through this process, just like a girlfriend. So I think that is really, really valuable in coaching and that is a sweet spot, like being personable as a coach and as an authority. I think it comes with time. But I would say your power as a coach is not just about what you know, it's how you guide somebody through that change. And I think I'm always learning too that your language is so powerful. We want to be encouraging and there's times you have to be firm with people. But we always want to be kind and we always want to create that safe space for them to come to us. And then the other aspect of coaching is being that accountability force for your clients. People don't always like it in the moment, but it's why they come to you. I've had clients who've done my program who've gotten clear, but they kind of just get loosey goosey over time. They get more flexible with time and a couple years later they come back and they say, tess, I almost am certain I know everything you're going to tell me, but I want that accountability again. I miss check ins, I miss tracking my habits and I just feel like I totally fell off because I didn't feel like, you know, anyone was really holding me accountable. And that is such a important aspect of coaching, guiding somebody through the process and setting up those systems to help them succeed. Okay, so in closing, just to bring it Back to the original question, feeling like you're not good enough. That feeling is not going to just magically go away before you start doing what you are called to do. Confidence is really going to come from going through this process yourself and almost just trusting that Annette is going to catch you. Like, you are going to have moments. You don't know something. You can always tell somebody, you know, I don't know the answer, but I'm going to go figure it out. And through this process of not knowing and then finding the answer and doing that over and over and over again, you start to learn a lot more and you start to have more answers to the questions that people are asking. And over time, you are going to create a framework that you trust, and then you're just going to keep refining it through that real time experience. And here's the thing, you don't need to know everything. So I want you to just free yourself of that right now. New estheticians, you do not need to know everything. You do not need to be the best. You actually just need to be a few steps ahead of the person that you are helping. You just need to know more than they do. And you already do. So if you are in this phase where you're still learning, you're still building, you're still slightly uncomfortable, that's okay. You're actually exactly where you're supposed to be. And every successful esthetician that you look up to was in the same boat. And looking back on my early days as an esthetician in the treatment room, there were times out the gate that I was amazing. I definitely had hard days. I had some days that I just felt like I sucked, I dropped the ball, somebody was disappointed in me, they didn't like their treatment or something backfired. And at the end of the day, it was all okay. All of those experiences formed me to the esthetician that I am now. And I would say I wouldn't be the esthetician that I am now had I not gone through some of those uncomfortable moments of somebody complaining to my boss super loudly in the lobby. Like, those things really sharpened me. And out of embarrassment or shame or whatever it was, it drove me to be better because I didn't want to let somebody down. I took it very seriously from the get go that I wanted to provide somebody with solutions. And I just allowed that to drive me to be better and better and to be more prepared. And because I experienced, honestly, some shame in not having the answers or messing up at times, it just sharpened me to be better. So every experience that you have, whether it's positive, whether it's a client raving about you and telling you how much they helped you, like I would let that carry me and give me more confidence that I could do that for the next person. I would just keep striving to deliver that high caliber of experience. And from the negative ones, I would say, okay, this is what I learned. I never want to repeat that again. So what are the steps that I can take to avoid being put in that experience and delivering a negative outcome? What are the steps I can take to avoid that? And I would say usually it comes down to communication. The times where there were mishaps or somebody didn't get the result they wanted, typically there was a lack of communication somewhere on something that should have been communicated. So I think ultimately, if your heart is in the right place, if you want to help people, and if you remain determined to find those answers and you just deliver high quality customer service through the experience, you will be successful. You will be successful if you continue to seek out acne as your expertise and you provide the necessary information for the client to understand how the acne is happening and what they need to do on their end when both topically and internally, to interrupt that acne process. So again, you are exactly where you're supposed to be. And I think you can be successful with your clients at all stages. I somehow was able to help clients even when I was in my first week of training at a new job. I was able to help them two months into that job. I was able to help them two years into that job. And I'm still able to help my acne clients six, seven years into treating acne, almost 10 years as an esthetician. So you have something to contribute at every stage of your journey, and that is such an awesome place to be. So I just want you to relax into your expertise and trust the process and know that you're going to continue to grow and get better with time. You don't need all of the answers, but I think you just want to refine the areas of your business in which you are an expert. So I hope this episode reached the person who was asking, and I hope you're able to put this advice into practice so that you can have success with your clients and then come back and email me all about it. Guys, this was such a fun, fun episode for me. I really love answering your questions. So please send them my way. You can send them to me via email. Oh, and of course you can DM me as well at my sdtessa on Instagram. I will link my email and Instagram in the show notes and I will talk to you guys in the next episode.