The health of the skin should be a primary priority for skin care professionals. How a skin care professional approach that priority can be multi-faceted. Clearly one of the first objectives is a thorough skin analysis to determine the best skin care treatments and homecare regimen, either for themselves or for clients.

Skin care professionals spend hours upon hours studying the physiology of the skin – how it functions and the influencing factors that determine its condition. Skin care professionals also spend hours analyzing and studying product ingredients to determine precisely how they impact skin cell activity, cell health, and cellular function.

In addition to professional treatments, always include and begin with a thorough consultation –at least you should be. It is here that I want to take a moment and focus. It is the consultation that determines the most influential impact on the overall health of the skin.

Skin health is a direct reflection of internal body health and lifestyle choices. Although, it is often sidelined in the bigger picture, what people see on the outside is a direct reflection of what is happening on the inside. This is all-inclusive. To determine a current skin condition and the steps to improve skin health, a full lifestyle analysis must be taken into account. These are factors that are all too often overlooked but are increasingly essential in skin health.

Consider a client’s eating habits and overall nutritional intake, sleeping habits, and exercise (or lack thereof.) Caffeine and alcohol consumption, smoking, water intake, and daily supplement consumption for a thorough consultation. Last, but not least stress levels are a critical aspect to talk with clients about. All the above factors impact the health of the skin by having a direct effect on free radical formation, inflammatory responses, cellular turnover, sebum production, skin sensitivity, lymphatic flow, and circulation.

Do your homework. Take the time to research these effects, so that you can be the skin health partner that clients have come to expect.