What actually happens at a consultation

A consultation is the appointment people are most uncertain about booking, largely because nobody explains what it is. Some expect to be sold to for half an hour. Others expect to be treated on the day and are disappointed when they are not.

Here is the actual shape of it.

Before you arrive

Two things make a consultation considerably more useful:

• Come without makeup, or expect to remove it. Skin cannot be assessed through foundation, and the assessment is what you are paying for.
• Know your medical history. Current medications including supplements, previous aesthetic treatments and roughly when, allergies, and any skin conditions. If you have had injectables elsewhere, knowing what and when genuinely matters.

It also helps to have thought about what actually bothers you, in your own words. "I want to look less tired" is a more useful starting point than a treatment name you have read about.

The appointment

Listening (about ten minutes)

You describe what you have noticed and what you would like to change. A good practitioner mostly listens here and asks what specifically prompted you to book now — the answer is often more revealing than the initial complaint.

Assessment (about ten minutes)

Your face is examined in good light: at rest, in movement, and from angles you do not usually see yourself from. Skin quality, volume distribution, symmetry, muscle activity and how the areas relate to each other.

This is where a complaint about one thing often turns out to be about another. Someone convinced their eyes are the problem frequently has a mid-face issue casting the shadow.

The honest bit (about ten minutes)

What is causing what you have noticed, what can be improved, what cannot, and in what order. Including — and this matters — anything you have asked for that would be the wrong treatment.

You should leave able to explain the plan in your own words. If you cannot, ask again before you leave.

The £30 deposit

The consultation takes a £30 deposit at booking. It is redeemable against whatever you go on to book — treatment, a course, or a package.

It exists for one reason: a paid appointment is a kept appointment. It also means the consultation is not a sales meeting dressed up as a free service, which changes the incentives in a way you can feel in the room.

Why you are usually not treated the same day

Two reasons, one legal and one practical.

• Legal: any prescription-only medicine, including botulinum toxin, requires a consultation with a prescriber before it can be supplied. Same-day treatment without that consultation is not permitted.
• Practical: decisions made immediately after being told what is possible are worse decisions. A few days between the plan and the treatment consistently improves both satisfaction and outcomes.

Some treatments — facials, and treatments not involving prescription medicines — can be booked directly online without a consultation.

Questions worth asking

• "What would you do if you were me?"
• "What is the alternative to this, and why is this better for me specifically?"
• "What does it look like if this does not work?"
• "How many of these do you do a month?"
• "What would make you refuse to treat me?"
• "When would you want to see me again?"

"Not yet" is a real outcome

A consultation can reasonably end with a recommendation to do nothing, or nothing yet. Reasons include a skin condition that should settle first, a treatment done elsewhere that has not fully resorbed, a plan that should start somewhere cheaper, or simply that what is bothering you is not going to be improved by what is available.

Afterwards

You leave with a plan, prices for each part of it, and no obligation. There is no expiry pressure on the deposit and no follow-up calls. If you decide to go ahead, the deposit comes off the first booking.