The skin analysis scan: what it sees that a mirror does not

Most people arrive with a feeling: dull, tired, uneven, older than they feel. A feeling is a fine reason to come in and a poor basis for choosing a treatment. The analysis turns the feeling into a set of measurements, and the measurements into a plan.

What it measures

• Hydration. How much water the outer layers are holding. Dehydrated skin looks lined and dull and responds to boosters; dry skin is a different problem with a different answer.
• Pigment. Sun damage and uneven colour, including what is forming below the surface and not yet visible.
• Pores and texture. Congestion, enlarged pores, the roughness that make-up catches on.
• Fine lines and elasticity. Where the skin has started to lose its spring, and how much.
• Redness and inflammation. Sensitivity, broken capillaries, the flush behind a lot of “my skin is just like that”.

Why it comes first

Two people with the same complaint often need opposite treatments. The scan tells the difference. It also stops money being spent on the wrong thing, which, over a year, is the biggest saving in the clinic.

The progress scan

A shorter scan, repeated during a course, measured against the first. It is how we show that a treatment is working, in numbers, in the same light, rather than asking you to remember. Where a course is not doing enough, it is how we know to change direction.

What to expect at the appointment

You sit in front of the analysis unit with your hair held back and your face clean, and a series of images is taken in different kinds of light in the space of a minute or two. The practitioner then goes through the readings with you on the screen, layer by layer, pointing out what is behind each number and what it means for your skin. There is nothing uncomfortable in it and nothing is injected or applied. Half an hour, most of it talking, and you leave with the report and a clearer idea of where to start.

Reading the report

• Each measure is shown against the range expected for your age, so a number has a context rather than sitting on its own.
• The readings that matter most are highlighted, and one or two are usually enough to shape a plan.
• The photographs are kept so that later scans can be compared in the same light and position.
• The report is yours, and it is written in plain words rather than clinic shorthand.

The scan and the seasons

Skin changes with the calendar, and so do the readings. Hydration falls in winter and pigment rises after summer; a scan in October reads differently from one in April even in the same skin. That is useful rather than confusing: it shows what the season has done and what to treat first. A scan once a year at the same time of year is the fairest comparison, and a progress scan partway through any course shows whether the treatment, and not the weather, made the difference.

Who the scan is for

Anyone who has never been to the clinic, because it is the first appointment and involves no treatment at all. Anyone who has been coming for years and wants a yearly measure of whether the plan is working. Anyone who has spent money elsewhere without seeing much for it, because the scan says plainly what the skin needs and what it does not. And anyone who is nervous, since half an hour of measurement and conversation is the gentlest way to meet a clinic.

• Book it alone, or with a facial in the same visit.
• Come with a clean face and the products you use.
• Leave with the report, and no obligation to book anything.

If you have never been to the clinic, this is the appointment to start with. Everything else follows from it.