New Aesthetics Regulations Explained: What We Actually Know (England vs Scotland)

Everyone is talking about the new aesthetics regulations…

and honestly? The level of panic right now is unreal 👀

Group chats are blowing up

People are rushing into courses

Training academies are telling you what you “need” to do

But the truth is… a lot of it isn’t actually confirmed yet

In this episode, I’m breaking down the new regulations in Scotland, what’s actually happening, and what this could mean for England and the wider UK

We’re cutting through the hysteria, the misinformation, and the fear-based messaging that’s spreading across the industry right now

I talk about:

• What’s been confirmed vs what’s still unknown

• Why everyone is panicking about qualifications in England

• The truth about what training you actually need (right now)

• How some academies are profiting from confusion

• Why proper, regulated education does matter - and always has

• What this could mean for non-medics going forward

If you’ve felt overwhelmed, confused, or like you need to “act fast” before it’s too late… this episode will bring you back to reality

Because right now, there’s a lot more noise than clarity

And you don’t need to make big decisions based on panic

You need to make them based on facts

Make sure you’re following us on Instagram @theskindustry_ and @foxieskinclinic

And if you’re listening, take a screenshot, share it to your stories and tag me - I love seeing who’s tuning in each week🤍

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:11

Welcome to the Skin Distry Podcast, the podcast where we talk about the real side of building a business in the skin and beauty industry. I'm Paige, the founder of Foxy Skin Clinic. I've been in the industry for over 12 years and a business owner for 10. I've grown my clinic from the ground up into a fully booked, results-driven skin business, and on this podcast I'm sharing everything. The highs, the lows, the mistakes, the wins, the lessons I've learned the hard way. So you don't have to. If you're a skin specialist, beauty business owner, or someone who's building something of your own and craving honest conversations about what it actually takes, you're in the right place. Make sure you're following us on Instagram at the skindustry underscore, and you can also follow my clinic page if you want to see what I get up to in work at Foxy Skin Clinic. And if you're listening or watching, tag us in your stories. I love to see you guys tuning in. Let's get into this week's episode.

SPEAKER_00 1:27

This is our fifth episode of this week. Can't go.

SPEAKER_01 1:34

I've also managed to set up the recording, which it's only taking me five weeks to work out how to actually do it. Sorry, my phone is going wild. Um, so today we're gonna talk about all things regulations. Because there's a lot going on at the minute, isn't there? There's a lot of people who are really stressed and really worrying about what is going to happen. Um, and this is the thing we don't know yet. We don't know what's gonna happen. So there's a lot of sort of like misinformation going on, fear-mongering that people are profiting off. So let's break it down. As always, tag us and share us on your story, share that you're listening. The more you share it, the more people we can reach and help and chat to and be involved with, and yeah, the bigger the community gets. Again, I want to say a huge thank you to everybody that supports every week. It's so nice to see like the same names in the same faces every single week, posting and messaging. I really, really appreciate it. So let's dive in. You will see me sort of like looking down to my laptop because I've got my notes. And if I don't have notes, who knows where we'll go?

SPEAKER_00 2:48

It could go literally anywhere. So bear with me. So yeah, everybody is panicking right now, but the truth is most of us don't really know what we're panicking about because there's nothing set in stone.

SPEAKER_01 3:06

Obviously, it's slightly different for Scotland, and I will touch on that in a little bit because obviously their bill has been passed and the rules are actually coming into place for them. But for England and Wales, we currently don't know anything, and this is where this sort of thing becomes more dangerous because fear spreads a lot faster than facts. People tend to lose their minds, and then the people that are losing their minds, everybody else sort of looks at them and goes, Why are they panicking? What's going on? What's going on? What do I need to know? Do I need to do something? And then they hear what they're what this person's saying, and then they go, Oh my god, will that affect me too? And then somebody else hears that person's panicking, and it's just like a domino effect. So I feel like I am gonna come and I'm gonna try and put as many of you at ease as possible with the very little bit of information we do have. Um I was gonna actually talk about something else on the podcast today, but my one of the group chats that I'm in absolutely went wild this morning because somebody brought up the regulations on doing your training for your levels, and every single time it gets brought up. Like I actually dread it being brought up at this point because every single time it does get brought up, the cycle sort of like begins again, it pops off. Everybody's in the chat, everybody's saying, Well, I'm doing this and I'm doing that, and is that wrong and what's right? And what about if I go here and what about if I go there? And what about this training center, and what levels do I need to do? And is this gonna be okay? And rah rah. But ultimately, no one knows. There's no answers right now, so no one can answer those questions. There is no answers to give, basically. There's also conflicting information everywhere, every different academy will give you a different answer because you know that's their livelihood. Like that's how they make money, is getting people to train so if they can draw you in by saying, Oh, you need to do this training because if you don't, you're not gonna be able to continue your business when these new regulations come in. That's not true. When the new regulations come in, there will be a grace period, uh, an amount of time which the government will give us to basically get up to standard, whatever the new standard will be. People panicking, thinking they're gonna lose their business, they've just invested all this money in their original training courses, which were probably only the CPD courses that they've done. What next? Well, I've just wasted all this money, I'm not gonna be able to do it anymore. I've got to spend thousands of pounds to do my levels. Let's just let's just all collectively take a breath. Have a little moment, have a little calm down, let's lower these central nervous systems, just bring it down a little bit. Just bring them down a little bit because it doesn't need to be this chaotic. It really doesn't. I say this loosely, but it truly isn't that deep. If you are serious about staying in the skin industry or the aesthetics industry, these are things that we should be doing anyway. Now I'll say this, this is just my opinion, but I feel that as an industry, we should all be trained to the same standard, and that is just not the case at the moment because there are that many different places offering that many different courses, and there's also no regulation on the course if it's a CPD. You've got your like awarded bodies like ABT or whatever else. Obviously, you have to get your manuals passed off, but outside of that, do what you want, basically. No one's checking, no one's seeing that these courses are actually being carried out the way that they're supposed to be done, or the way that your manuals are saying that they're supposed to be done. There's also no fact-checking of the actual information that's being taught. So, this is something I am going to cover in another episode because again, this is another thing I'm just like about hearing. But microneedling courses. I see so many people coming off the microneedling course and then offering steam in a microneedling session, offering all these different masks and serums and everything after you've done microneedling. No, wrong should not be happening, especially not steam. Like, we shouldn't be steaming with microneedling, but I'll cover that in another episode because I've got a whole whole lot to say about microneedling. Also, you're gonna be listening to this on a different day that it's actually come out. It's Wednesday, so we're talking last Wednesday. Tell me why it's snowing. Like, there is snow on the ground, it's white over. I mean, where I'm from is wild. Like the weather here is actually a joke, it's different to everywhere else ever. But there's actual snow and it's the what? 25th of March? It's supposed to be spring. The clocks go forward at the weekend. Like, why is it snowing?

SPEAKER_00 7:48

Either way, I digress.

SPEAKER_01 7:50

But yeah, I have had a lot of chat messages, all of that about this topic. So I thought, right, we're gonna cover it in an episode because it's honestly it's just getting out of hand now. I completely understand why people feel like this. I do get it because there is that obviously underlying worry of we don't know what's happening. And I think that's where a lot of the issue comes from, is we truly don't know what's going on. And I, for one, as a little bit of a self-confessed control freak, I hate not knowing what's going on. Like I love to know what's going on, but you also at some point just have to let go of the things that you can't control, and whatever happens, happens. And I know that when it is your own business and it's something that you built from the ground up and you've already invested a lot of money in, uncertainty like this feels massive, like it feels really big and it feels really scary, but it is gonna be fine. It truly is gonna be fine because these regulations aren't coming in to penalize the people that are doing it properly and want to do it properly. They're coming in to penalise the people that are cutting corners, doing things without insurance or training or any form of knowledge of what they're doing, is to stop things like these like cowboy, like rogue aesthetics practitioners that are just injecting whatever into people's faces or people that are doing chemical peels that really shouldn't be doing chemical peels and all of the things that can go wrong in our industry. Because I think we forget as well that especially as like skin specialists, we could do some serious harm to people and like genuinely disfigure people, like that's a really, really, really big amount of pressure and trust that our clients put in us is to not do that and have the knowledge to not do that, but not everybody cares, unfortunately. A lot of people are in this industry purely as a money grab, and especially now that it has become a really popular industry to get into, and every man and their dog is becoming a skin specialist. I think we need we need these regulations, we truly do, because it's only gonna get worse. The amount of courses that I'm seeing that are a one-day course that you're training in basic facials, derma plating, microneedling, chemical peels, this, that, the other in one day. You can't learn that in one day. You couldn't learn all of those in a week. Like that's that's too much, and then they're also charging 500 quid for the pleasure. Like, no, I'm sorry, and I'm sorry if you did one of those courses, but if you did the one of those courses and have done no training since then, I hate to tell you, you need to do a little bit more. That is wild to me. So let's look at what we actually know right now. So obviously in Scotland their bill has just been passed. Um, it's called the Non-Surgical Procedures Bill. So it's basically covering everything that's not surgery, because obviously surgery is covered, they have their own bill that's already very protected and very regulated. But the non-surgical procedures bill basically is going to regulate who can perform treatments, where they can be carried out, and license them for practitioners and premises. There'll also be like higher risk and lower risk categories for different treatments. So things like injectables will be higher risk, and then things like chemical peels and microneedling, as far as I'm aware, are in the lower risk treatment categories. So they're gonna need medical involvement required for there's gonna be, sorry, medical involvement required for higher risk procedures. So things like Botox, obviously that was prescription only already, and they obviously changed the rules surrounding that. Was it last year? I think it was last year, where you had to have a prescriber actually see the client rather than it being like a oh what's the word where you don't have to see them face to face, uh like an online one, not an online, whatever the word can't remember what the word is. But basically you prescribe didn't have to actually see the client, whereas now they do. And there's gonna also be some licensing and compliance requirements from the council. So if you're doing things like chemical peels, you're gonna need a license from your council to basically say that you're following strict like hygiene, safety, all of that sort of stuff. You've done the relevant training, all of that to basically make sure that you are covered and basically performing these treatments correctly and to like a good standard, which I don't think is a bad thing. Like I get that the medical involvement situation for people that are doing aesthetics for like injectables is a lot heavier. Like that is really, really hard because of a number of things that I am gonna cover later on, but the situation is like they're gonna have to be in a a his compliant or like regulated clinic, which is all fine and dandy, but then these clinics, the people own these clinics that are his registered and now able to monopolize on it. So the cost of being in one of these clinics is gonna go be so high that it's gonna be like unaffordable for these people, which I guess you can just say we'll put your prices up, but then you're also outpricing a lot of your client base. A lot of people don't go to medics and they go to non-medics because they're cheaper, which I don't necessarily think is a bad thing within reason. I think if you're offering three areas of Botox for 90 quid, run. Like, absolutely not. But I think like as long as you're charging a decent amount, but not an extortionate amount, like are your products safe, you're buying like regulated product, your Botox and stuff is not from Korea, it's from a pharmacy here. Everything that you're doing is safe, you're being clean, you're doing everything that you need to be doing, you've done your training, you're insured, charge what you want, you know, like within reason, obviously. Like I say, I think if you're charging less than what the actual product is supposed to cost for you to do, that's a red flag because you're losing money then, technically. So it means that you're not doing things how you should be doing, you're not getting the product that how you should be doing, you're not using the right product or the safe product, so you're then putting people at risk. But yeah, this whole situation in Scotland isn't fully implemented yet, and there's a phased rollout, so they're expecting to. I think the expected like date is September 2027. Got to basically get up to date with all of these new um rules. So you've got to if you need to do like higher levels of training, you've got until September next year to do it. If you need to move into a his registered clinic, you've got until September to find one, all of these things. You've basically got 18 months, yeah, around about 18 months to implement all that, which I think is a fair amount of time. I don't think that's like, oh my god, we've got to rush so much. Like, I think that's fair. But the really important thing is that's Scotland and not England. So England hasn't confirmed their final legislation yet. They're still in the consultation period, they're still discussing what's going on, discussing what is gonna be in what tiers, or if we're gonna have tiers, or just the whole thing. But we don't know anything, nothing has been confirmed, and the worry is now that obviously Scotland's bill and their like new legislation's come out, is that England are gonna follow suit and do the exact same. Personally, and this again is just my opinion, I have no more information than you do, but I personally don't think that's gonna be the case. Historically, England haven't really followed Scotland to a T with what they do. We'll do like similar things. Scotland tend to be a little bit more strict on things, I think. England, I think we think about things more and a bit more logical about things, and a bit more lenient, which in some ways is a good thing, but in some ways it's also a bad thing because leniency is how we've got to where we are now. So I think we will be similar to Scotland, but not quite as hard with it. I don't think for injectables you'll have to have a medical professional on site at all times, just because of the impact that that will have on our medical industry, if that was what you would call it. The NHS, basically. The impact that would have is I don't think it could sustain it because you'd have doctors and nurses and prescribers leaving left, right, and centre, because realistically, they will earn more money doing this rather than being paid by the NHS. They'll earn more money coming out of the NHS, working full-time, and just sitting in a clinic and signing off people's treatments. So, yeah. Again, I'm gonna cover that a little bit later on in the episode because I think that is a really big thing that we need to consider. So, what we don't know is what the part that people are skipping over is. We don't know yet what the exact qualification requirements are gonna be for England, we don't know the exact scope for non-medics, we don't know the exact treatment categories, so what treatments are gonna be legislated, what treatments are gonna be like only like medic-only, anything like that. And we don't know any exact rules around any sort of supervision that needs to be had. So, like in Scotland, when they've got to have the medic um present to be able to do the treatments, we don't know if we're gonna have that at all or what the rules around that will be. Like I said, we're still in the consultation process, which means things are still being decided. So a lot of what you are hearing and seeing online and in your group chats and everything right now is just assumption, it's not a fact. So I think we're all getting very, very, very worked up over rumours. And it really does remind me of what happened with the whole biorepeal saga last year, which again, I was just like, what is going on here? If any of you remember, basically biorepeal had its use changed or something along those lines, and then the company that owned Biorepeal, I can't remember their name off the top of my head now, did like bioesthetics or something, basically changed the way that they were importing into the UK and the company, the companies that they were stocking with. So prior to that, they were stocked with loads of different companies, and they were direct stockists from I think it's bioesthetics. I'm gonna keep saying bioesthetics, it might be wrong, but that's what I'm calling them right now. So what they then did was that they wanted one direct stockist, which was MedFX, and they only supplied to medics. So one of the stockists that was removed as a stockist made a little like Facebook status saying that Biorepeal was only going to be um accessible via MedFX, and if you're a non-medic, you're not gonna be able to buy it, basically. She was a really big name in the industry, she's a really big supplier, and I think she did like training and stuff as well. So a lot of people saw that status, and then one by one, these people that saw that then went away and thought, oh my god, I do buy a repeal. What am I gonna do? I'm not gonna be able to get it anymore. I'm gonna have to take it off my menu, I'm gonna have to replace it, this, that, and the other. Putting it in group chats, girls, what are you doing about this? This is happening, this is what the screenshot is, this is what's we it's gonna be medic only. And then everybody else, exactly the same as this, was like, Well, what do you mean? It's gonna be me. I do that, it's my most popular treatment. I'm gonna lose all this money, I'm gonna lose my business. This is gonna happen, that's gonna happen. So then everybody was ringing their insurance saying, Are we still covered for via repeal? Because apparently it's medic-only now. And the insurance was like, Yeah, as far as we're concerned, like we've not heard anything. And then that many people rang their insurance that the insurers went, actually, no, you're not covered anymore because it's medic only now. They didn't know that. They just assumed because they had that many different people calling them and saying, Are we still covered? Insurances were like, nope, no one's covered for the bio repeal anymore because you're non-medic, you can only be covered if you're a medic. And all of this came from one woman's Facebook status that she made because she was pissed off and it wasn't true. So then um a girl that is in one of the groups that I am in contacted bioesthetics directly and said, What's going on here? Because we're hearing all of this. Our insurers are now saying that we can't get insurance for it, and we've all got boxes of the stuff, and we're, you know, we've done qualifications and rah-r-rah to do it. And the CEO, the literal CEO of the company, was like, What are you on about? Like, that's not what's happened at all. Nothing's changed, it's not medic only. Where has this come from? So then they had to do damage control and basically had to contact the insurers and all of these people and say that this isn't this isn't true. Like, I don't know what's going on here, but this is all just misinformation that's been spread online and nothing's actually changed. Um, and it took months to resolve, and it took months for people to actually stop talking about it and seeing the like old information because the old information is what was getting people the engagement, so they were posting it. Oh, what's everybody doing, and this and that. And it was just wild, and it just really proves that fear does spread so much faster than fact. Like, if that can happen pretty much overnight because of a fake Facebook status, like what is crazy, like it's actually crazy. So, we do need to be really, really careful about the things that we are saying and spreading and posting and all of that sort of stuff, and just wait until we have actual answers and we know for definite what is going on. So, back to the misinformation and the panic sort of like combination. This is where I want to be like super honest with you because there's a lot of people in this industry right now monetizing your worries and your panic and your uncertainty. These people are selling courses, selling qualifications, telling you you need this now. Or you're not gonna be able to carry on what you're doing as soon as these regulations are in place, or you need to buy this right now, otherwise, as soon as these regulations come in, you're not gonna be able to get on a course because they're gonna be in such high demand and the prices are gonna skyrocket and this and that and the other. Again, nobody knows what the rules are. Nothing's been finalized. We don't know to what level we need to be qualified to. There's literally no other, like, there's nothing else to say. I'm not saying that you shouldn't invest in your education. Like, that's not what I'm saying. I personally am gonna do up to my level six because I want to. I want to be able to tell my clients I'm a level six skinned specialist. I want to be able to advertise that that is the level I am, a really high level in my education and in my knowledge and in my experience. All of that comes together and makes that something really credible to advertise and tell people, and it makes me look good in like the simplest way. So you don't need to not invest in your education, but I think a lot of people are are doing it in a way that like they have to do this, and that's not how we should look at it. We should look at it as in the we want to do this, we need to do this to support our businesses and make sure that we're all qualified to the same standards. I can hear music, and I don't know if the microphone's gonna pick it up, but I think it might be downstairs because there's a record shop underneath me, and they really do not care that I go down all the time and ask them to be quiet because I'm trying to do like some treatments up here and record a podcast. But hey home, hey ho, we move on. But yeah, I'm just saying I'm just telling you to be smart about why you're doing these courses and what you're doing them for and what you want from them. There's been a lot of chat in the group chats that I'm in about people trying to find the cheapest course to do that are gonna get them their level three or level four or level five or whatever. And I think we need to remember the things that we tell our clients of if it's too good to be true, it usually is, if something's really, really cheap or a lot cheaper than all the other ones, there's probably a reason this one's really cheap and the other ones aren't cheap. So I went to Derminude for some training last Monday, which when you're listening to this, it will be two Mondays ago. And I was sorry to hear about the whole like BTCT situation and like why they're so expensive, just out of interest and like just wanting to like understand what it is that makes them cost that much stuff. So it's a lot of time that they put into it. It's you know, like almost a week out of their week where they could have other courses, etc. etc. And she was telling me it actually costs them. I don't know why this camera keeps disconnected. Yeah, she was telling me that it actually costs them a thousand pounds to put somebody on the VTCT. So it costs them, they have to pay VCTC a thousand pounds to even put that person's accreditation through to even put them on the course. So instantly that's a big chunk of the money that you're paying on. Then they also have to have all the assessments and everything checked and all of that. Sometimes they have somebody, I can't remember what she called them, like an assessor from BCTC to come out and make sure that it's all been doing correctly and they keep their like BCTC accreditation. That costs money, I think she said it, that costs about 600 quid. And then obviously the time that it takes to put these courses together and actually run them and the stuff that's needed to like facilitate that. So again, we need to think about what we're telling our clients when they're complaining about oh god, it's so expensive to get skincare. Skincare is so expensive. Why would I buy this cleanser that's£40 when I can buy this one that's four pounds? Because the four pound one's shit. Respectfully, the four pound cleanser is shit. Yes, it might clean your skin, but it's not gonna do much else. And it also might take all of its like your barrier with it, kind of thing. We need to start being smarter and stop trying to skimp on our education. Like, this is our education, this is what we're learning, this is what's gonna push us through and make like show our authority and our difference from all the other skin therapists. Why do you want to skimp on that? Do you know what I mean? If a course is suddenly being marketed as essential for the new regulations, sorry, to take up for the new regulations, that to me is a bit of a red flag because we don't know what the regulations are. So how is it essential? How do you know it's essential? You're just trying to sell it as essential to fearmonger and grab that money, which I respect, you know. We've gotta we sometimes you have to do what you've gotta do, but this I just think is a fuel in the fire to this whole issue. I would be asking a lot of questions to whoever you're picking to go through your training for your levels with. If it's a company that you have never heard of, or nobody around you, or if you ask in a group has never heard of, why? Why has nobody ever heard of it? Because there are three main academies that I know of that spring to mind when I think about doing my levels, and that's Pretty Faces Academy, it's Derminude, and it's MSTA. Those are the three big ones I would say in the industry. I I can't think of any others that I can think off the top of my head that, oh yeah, they do the VDCTs or whatever. I personally have trained at Pretty Faces for mine. I did my level three in December and I'm doing my level four at the end of April. I like I said want to do my level five and six, and I'm gonna do it with pretty faces because that's where I've been already. I trust them, I know that I'm getting like great value for money. Gabby and Faye are so great when you're on the course, so supportive, even after the course and before the course, they've been really supportive. I messaged Gabby this morning to get her like input on something that was being discussed in the group chat regarding like these levels, and she was straight back to me and she we were having like a little chat about it. I might see if she wants to come on here actually, because I feel like she'd be a really good one to talk about this, um, because she's obviously directly connected with VTCT and the qualifications and stuff. Um, but yeah, I think if it's not a really reputable company and they're offering these courses that are essential because of the new regulations and they're a lot cheaper, why is that? Why is it that you can do it for 1800 pounds everywhere else it's three grand? Because that to me says that some corners are being cut. Maybe I'm wrong. Maybe I'm the problem. It's not often that happens, but you know, who knows? But yeah, how is that course gonna like guarantee to meet these essential regulations that haven't even been put in place yet? You know? This bit may rubble a few feathers, but my personal opinion is that doing a one-day course does not make you a skin specialist. It means you've been shown how to perform a treatment, it means that you can follow a protocol, but it doesn't make you a skin specialist. I had to pause the recording because my client turned up early and I didn't actually realise what time it was, but she was 15 minutes early, so I'm gonna carry on from where I was, but yeah, so you've done your one-day course. That doesn't make you a skin specialist. Unfortunately, it shows that you understand how to perform a treatment, it doesn't show that you understand skin, it doesn't give you any experience in skin, it doesn't have you learning any lessons. You've literally got your basic knowledge of how to do a facial and how to do a treatment. And even then, a lot of them aren't right. You get a lot of information that is incorrect information being taught to you, so you then cannot go and expect to just be a skin specialist and not have to do any more than that. There's a difference between that and doing your levels. Your levels, you've got all of your theory beforehand, all of your anatomy and physiology, which for the level three was whoa, whoa. Like I really struggled with that. I'm not an academic person at all. I really, really struggle in that sort of setting, like revision, like an exam setting. The information just I struggled to keep it in there. I know it, but then having to like relay it and stuff, it really did take a lot. I had multiple breakdowns doing the revision for that, but I did it and I passed. And I got, I can't remember, it was like 90 something percent in my AMP exam, which sorry, that's sick. Like, what? I could be a doctor. But yeah, when I originally trained, which was 12 years ago now, I think. Yeah, it must be about 12 years ago, which oh my god, old. I did the classic route into the industry, which at the time was kind of the only route into the industry. There wasn't it was not like it is today. You would do your level two and beauty therapy and then potentially go on a G level three. I did my level two, I went to college and did it. I was there for a year. While, yes, you learnt everything because it was beauty therapy, not just aimed at skin. I did all of the AMP that we covered um in the level three, maybe not quite as in depth, because obviously level two and your level three are sort of different, but we did a lot of AMP in level two, and I had to sit exams and I had to do assessments and all of that stuff. And sorry, my hair's just getting caught on this stupid bush. Yeah, you it was just so different, like there was no such thing as a one-day course, not that I was aware of anyway. You had to do like your level two, and then I was going to do my level three, but it was spa-based, which just did not appeal to me at the time. I didn't want to do massage and all of that sort of stuff, which maybe now might have been more beneficial, but we move at the time it wasn't for me, it wasn't what I wanted to do, it wasn't where I was at. At the time, I was more interested in doing things like lashes and makeup and all of that. Like, I wanted to do everything where over the years I've really like niched down and found like what it is I actually love doing and I'm really really passionate about, and sort of try to just focus on that more than anything because I don't want to be like a jack of all trades, I want to be the best at my thing, and my thing is skin. So that's why I'm now investing all of my time and all of my money into progressing that and being the best that I can be, and that's why I feel like you should be consistently learning, you should be consistently like gaining more education, and that is what sort of separates you from being somebody that does facials and being a skin specialist. I feel like the industry has grown really, really fast, especially the skin industry, the beauty industry as a whole is a completely different ball game to what it was when I initially joined it 12 years ago. Back then, it was you got whatever you got done, done. You didn't expect to pay much for it, you didn't have to do all the social media and stuff, you'd just post a picture on Instagram or Facebook or whatever, and that would get your clients. There was reels weren't a thing, Instagram stories weren't a thing, TikTok didn't exist, and it was just the basic, like bare bones. Oh my god, life was easy then. There was no needing to be a full-time content creator on top of doing your full-time business as well. People are now flooding into this industry because there is a lot of money to be made. It's a very, very like fruitful industry. There's so much demand for it. Everybody wants something done and everybody wants a piece of that pie. Not everybody is coming into it in the correct way. And that isn't necessarily their fault. I think it's a lot of the academy's fault for putting on these really shitty, cheap one-day courses that promise them the world and then don't deliver it because you physically cannot deliver everything that you should be delivering in a one-day course for something like skin. It's just there's too much to learn to be able to do that in one day. Um, so that's why I feel like these regulations are a good thing because that structure is now going to come in. People are realizing that maybe they're not quite as qualified as they thought they were. And I'm not saying that to like put anybody down, I just think this is exactly why the regulations are being introduced so that everybody's being sort of brought back to that consistent standard and everybody's doing things in a specific way. I think that's really, really important for the industry because at the minute it is the wild, wild west. Like nobody knows the true answers on anything. Like I see it in the groups all the time. People are asking about microneedling and who steams with microneedling? What do you what products do you put on after microneedling? And some people are saying no steam, but I am one of those people, no steam, you shouldn't be doing that. And other people are like, Well, I got trained to use steam, so I use it. That's what's going on. Like, that shouldn't be happening. Everybody should be doing the same thing. Same with what's another thing that gets brought up a lot? Using products after microneedling. I am trained with skin pen. Skin pen don't, and I don't think ever have recommended using any products for 24 hours afterwards just because you've created all these microchannels in the skin if you're then gonna go and fill it with all these moisturizers and SPF and all of that sort of stuff, but it it increases the chance of granulomas. Whereas other brands or other like training academies teach to do these things afterwards, but the way that my brain works is right, okay, so if you can't inject moisturizer into the skin, you shouldn't be putting it on after microneedling. If it's not safe to inject in, it's not safe to put on after because you've got these holes in the skin and you're then flooding the skin with these products. But then if you've been trained something, surely you're gonna follow that training because what uh what other information do you have? So if you've been trained that way, why would you do any different unless you're doing that further research or unless you've taken on a device like Skin Pen, which isn't accessible to everybody immediately because it's an expensive device to take on. Like I wanted it for years and I couldn't afford it, and the B hadn't done my level three, which is a requirement for Skin Pen now, which again is a lot of brands now are requiring a minimum of a level three, which I agree with. I don't think that you should be able to get your hands on any product ever if you've not got specific training, you've not been trained to a specific level. These brands that are doing that, I have a lot of respect for because I feel like they're setting the tone. And if you can go online and just order a random product that's supposedly professional, and they're not even checking your qualifications, who's to say you're even qualified at all? Like anybody could be ordering that. Your clients could order that and just do it themselves at home. What's stopping them? Do you know what I mean? So, like these brands, like I know that Circadia asks for a level three, I know that Skin Pan asks for a level three, Hydrofacial asks for a level three. I'm not sure what else does at the minute. If you know of any other ones, let me know. But yeah, I just I think we all need to just be a consistent standard and all be doing the same thing. And then we can have our own twists on it in the way of like glass skin, for example, my glass skin and somebody else's glass skin might be a completely different technique. As long as it's safe and you're not impacting the barrier, you're not using oil afterwards or Bondi Sands SPF, you're using actual, you know, medical grade or professional products that aren't going to impact the skin in a negative way, and you're getting that glass skin result at the end. Who's to say that you're doing it wrong? You know, just because your way of doing it and my way and of doing it is different, doesn't mean that your yours is wrong or mine's wrong. It just means we have a different protocol. Yeah, we get the same end result, that's fine. But then when it does come to things like chemical peels, mariconeed, all of that sort of thing, I think the overall issue is that there's just a million different things being taught, and a lot of them are incorrect. Um, but what this means for the UK, so Scotland has sort of set the tone with this now. Like I said before, personally don't think we're we're gonna do the exact same. I would be very surprised if we did do the exact same as Scotland. But everybody's asking what happens now, how like how long is it gonna be? What where are we gonna be? What is the situation gonna be? We don't know. Nobody knows. The truth is it could go stricter. I don't know how they would do that. And honestly, if they did the same as Scotland or went even stricter than Scotland, I would be very, very, very shocked because the economy honestly cannot take it. Our industry is looked down on by a lot of people because you know, we're just silly girls that do facials and do nails and there's no real skill to it. Shut up. Our industry is a billion pound industry. The amount of money that it brings into the economy every year, it's one of the only economies that goes up every year, and it was the I think it was either the only or one of the only very few industries that the basic revenue actually increased in the last what's it called, recession. So in the last recession, was it 2007 or something? Um, our industry was one of the only industries where the revenue actually went up and we earned more money because in times like this, obviously things going on currently that are awful and horrible, but in times like this, and when even when people are struggling with money, when people are feeling a bit shit or feeling a bit depressed and like down because of everything that's in the news, and you know, everyone's tight on money, and rah-rah rah, people want to treat themselves and people want to make themselves feel better. And one way to make yourself feel better, especially as a woman, is gonna treat yourself, get some of it done, get your nails done, have a little facial, get your hair done, make yourself look nice, because if you look nice, you feel nice. So people will literally give up going out for a meal or going out for drinks or whatever, so that they can get their like self-care treatments done. Because why wouldn't you, you know? If you feel and look sexy and you've got nice glowing skin and your nails are all fresh and great, you're gonna feel at least a little bit better than if you've gone out on Saturday and you're hanging out your ass on Sunday and you've not had your nails on because you spent your nail money in the pub. No one's winning, then are they? I mean, obviously, maybe the pubs are, sorry to them, but that's not who we're talking about right now. So, yeah, I feel like England won't be as strict. I think if they did, they're gonna have a shop because I think it will really, really, really impact the economy. And the other thing I think it will impact is the NHS. And this is something I've seen a couple of people talk about, but it's not like a really big conversation, and I think it really should be. I think it should be that we should all really take into account. Because if now, say we do the same as Scotland and all of these clinics need that are doing aesthetics, injectables, whatever, need a prescriber on site at all time or need medical oversight, so whether that's doctor, a nurse, a prescriber, whatever it is, if that is the case, where are they coming from? Because those professionals are already a part of the NHS system. And if we then need them to be in clinic, where are they coming from? Because if they're gonna have to come from the NHS, surely. And realistically, for them to come in and sit in on clinics and like approve treatments and all of that sort of thing, they're gonna get paid for it. And I'm gonna assume they're gonna get paid more doing that than they are working for the NHS. So I think if they do that, a lot of these doctors, nurses, prescribers are gonna actually leave the NHS, which we're already struggling. The NHS is already I say we as if I'm in the NHS, I'm not. The NHS is already struggling. There's already a shortage of nurses and doctors and all of that sort of thing. It's already a bloody 20-week wait to get an appointment for anything minimum. They can't sustain that. They cannot sustain the effect that us needing to have this clinical oversight in every single clinic is gonna the effects that that's gonna have on the NHS is not sustainable. So I that is the sort of, I think that is the biggest part that I think they will have considered is okay, well, if we say that they're gonna have to do this, where are all these people coming from to do that? You know? I think that's a conversation that's worth thinking about, having and taking quite seriously because yeah, I think that is gonna be an issue. Logically, I don't claim to be an expert on any of this stuff. I'm just going off the information that I've seen, the information that I've read, TikToks that I've seen, like people talking about that are in Scotland, that obviously this is affecting them, and then trying to translate it into what England would potentially do. I don't have any information. I have as much information as you do. I've just sort of seeked it out so that I can do things like this. And when the conversations in the group chats are brought up or like I'm wanting to do a podcast about it, I've freely got that information to talk to people about, and all I want to do is just genuinely stop people from panicking so much. Like I think we're putting so much time and energy into worrying about this. when there's just no point. Like we can't control it right now. There is no answers.

SPEAKER_00 44:06

Let's just sort of chill out, you know?

SPEAKER_01 44:10

How bad could it be? Watch this. I've done it all done said all of this and they'll bring it out and they'll say actually no, you can't even do a bloody facial without a prescriber being present. I'll give up at that point. I think I'll just go, do you know what? I'll go back to doing eyebrows. Thank you. It was nice while it lasted. But yeah, I think what to do right now is not rush out and just spend thousands of pounds on doing all of these courses because someone on Instagram told you that you need to. I think you need to stay informed, keep up with what's going on, keep your eyes out for anything that does come out. Obviously it'll be a big announcement when they do it. You will hear about it all over socials. Everybody will be talking about it. And make your decisions based on facts and not fear. I think like I've said there's a lot of fear mongering going on and I think a lot of that is coming from academies that are wanting to sell you these courses. If an academy is an ethical one they will not be pushing them as these are absolutely essential for you to do right now because of these new regulations. Obviously that is a reason to do them but it's not the be all and end all you could just do it because you want to do it and you want to expand your education you know focus on the reputable education building the real knowledge so building your knowledge on what you're already doing building your knowledge around the regulations do some research find out what we already do know what is going on when you know the I'm sure the consultation period for England runs out in I want to say September. So if they've not decided this might not be true I'm sure I've seen this but if they've not decided by this September what is going on the consultation period ends and they basically have to redo this whole thing so they have to basically reapply if that's the word I don't claim to be a politics girly but they basically have to reapply for this like legislation and start again I think I probably need to double check that but I think that is the case. So yeah staying up to date with the official information and then just continue into practice safely doing your research on things my recommendation right would be do your level three at a minimum and probably your level four because with Scotland chemical peels and micro needling are the like lower risk categories but if we do our level fours then I would hazard a guess and say that we will be covered for doing them. You can then do your level five and six so you can do deeper depths with your needling and your peels which is what I want to do and like I said I'm doing mine I've done my three and doing my four in April at Pretty Faces couldn't recommend them enough if you want some like more information from them just give them a message message on Instagram they'll get back to you they'll give you all the info you could tell them that I sent you maybe they'll give me a little you know a little discount on my next one for sending you all that who knows gals gotta ask you know but yeah I think what we're gonna see from this and what we're already seeing in Scotland is a clear divide between the medics and the non-medics. I think the whole point of this was to try and stop that from happening and sort of put us all into one section. But the non-medics I think because they in Scotland anyway have got this sort of like higher level and they can just carry on and they don't need the medical oversight and rah they have that like advantage so now they're respectfully kind of on their pedestals about it. I have had some run-ins with medics in this industry some have been great some are lovely I would chat to some of them all day every day there's some girls in the groups that I'm in that are medics lovely. The others not so great. I recently had and if you're in any of the skin groups that I'm in you will remember me talking about this but I had a girl that was claiming to be don't know if she actually was which you'll understand after I've told this story that's claiming to be a nurse that was now in the skin industry based not too far from me I'm not going to say where she was because obviously I'm not gonna give it like that time of day now but she stole mine and a couple of other skin specialists that I know she stole our like client photos off our Instagrams and was using them on her Instagram and her TikTok promoting them to be her results which is fraud and which I actually since found out that if I had reported her to the I don't know what the nurse committee it's not committee the nurse committee the nurse like overseeing body is called I can't remember what it's called but if I basically reported her to that she could actually lose her pin for it because she's like that is fraud. She's using other people's results and claiming them to be her own and she's also actually breaking GDPR because my clients and Shannon's and Haley's clients whose photos she stole as well and then there's a couple of other girls our clients did not consent to her sharing their photos they consented to us sharing their photos. So by her taking them and using them without consent that is actually illegal that is breaking GDPR so I being the kind of girl that I am messaged her. She blocked me on Instagram instantly within seconds blocked. I think she must have literally seen my name or my name like my clinic name come up on Instagram thought shit block. So I thought that's not gonna fly I can't sit with that because I don't now know if you've actually taken them down or not. So I posted her posts in all of the skin groups and asked people to report it because she was claiming to you know be somebody that she's not basically and then I also googled her and found her number on Google and WhatsApped her. I sent her this long message and I was really I feel nice and understanding and just said you know I get if you're new to the industry but this isn't like how to go about it and I said I even offered her a one-to-one and said look if you you know if you need help capturing content and stuff or you're like unsure of like how what to do and like how to do that I offer one-to-ones I'd be more than happy to do one with you and she responded and was just an arsehole. She said something along the lines of I don't know why you're all making such a big deal out of this it's not that deep that's interesting because everybody else seems to think it's pretty deep the only person that thinks it's not that deep is actually you. So I think you're you're the problem here. And as a nurse as a medic you should know better than that. You have got like your code of ethics and you should know that that's not acceptable at all. Falsely representing your skills or basically using other people's results and claiming that they're your own because there was so she said like oh I wasn't claiming that they were my well you didn't say anywhere that they weren't yours. You didn't tag anybody and say oh this is actually so and so's picture just using it to show you know what can be achieved just looking for models for my own currently there was no like acknowledgement that these weren't your photos. You were playing them off as if they were your own and yeah breaking GDPR. You're a medic tell me how non-medics are worse than medics if that's the sort of thing a medic is doing. I have an aesthetics practitioner that comes and works in my clinic once a month he has been coming here for about seven years now. He's been coming for so long he's great he's a non-medic and the amount of cases that we've had come here of people that have had treatments done with medics and he's either had to say you're gonna have to go back and ask them to dissolve it because that's horrendous like injecting into the wet lumps migration just all sorts of stuff bad stuff done by a medic and he's the one that's fixing that and saying actually no you need to go back and say get that fixed or he will do it himself obviously for a a fee but he's a non-medic and he's turning away medic's work and now this is not me saying every medic is bad because they're not there's always bad medics and there's always going to be bad non-medics there's that's just people there's always bad people and there's always good people and it again it basically comes down to the fact of like why you're in this industry if you're in this industry because you love it, you're passionate about it you want to help people you want to make people feel confident you'll do well you'll do good things you will do everything by the book and do everything that's you're supposed to if you're in this industry for money and purely money alone and like clout for whatever reason people think you get clout in this industry you'll not do well. You'll not do good work you'll do things half-arched you'll cut corners and you'll just end up just not having a good name the basically view is that all non-medics are that second option which isn't the case. I would say probably 80% of the injectors that I know are non-medics and they're all great. They all do things exactly about the book exactly how they're supposed to everything like that. I um I don't know them but I know of two medic injectors in my area. One of them had their pin taken off them for Dodgy Botox and one of them we have had countless people come to my aesthetics clinic so with my aesthetics practitioner here that we've had to turn away or say you need to go back and ask for dissolving because that's like not okay. So in my opinion medics have this whole than now attitude but you know there are some of you they just aren't really doing the right thing. But it's the same for non-medics there are a lot of non-medics that are just in the industry because they think it's like great you get paid loads they'll do things as cheap as humanly possible buy things as cheap as humanly possible earn as much product on them as possible and then ride around in their little g-wagons and going on holiday every other month and buying Chanel bags. It just is what it is and that's what these regulations are hopefully going to even out or it's going to weed out the ones that don't care that much can't be our spending the money to actually get up to regulation so they'll dip out and go and harass somebody else's industry and the people that do genuinely care and do want to stay in it and do want to do well and be you know at the like regulation at the proper standard will do that. And again like Scotland it's not gonna come in overnight we're gonna have time they're not gonna announce this and expect within a month you have to be level fucking seven to be able to do appeal like it's just not gonna be like that. We all just need to chill out. Take whatever steps you can take currently like I say maybe do you level three and four there's no rush because they've not even been announced yet and when they are announced there will be a grace period there will be a period of time like in Scotland I am sure Scotland is 18 months. We will probably have something similar maybe even longer because England's so much bigger and there's more people so they might give us longer because there's obviously going to be an influx of people trying to get in for the courses. The academies can only do so many of them so we might need a little bit longer. So yeah I think we just need to calm down a little bit stop freaking out stop panicking stop oh my god oh my god I don't know what to do just chill the regulation isn't the problem the confusion is you hearing me the regulation isn't the problem the confusion and the misinformation and everything else that's being spread online is the problem. Right now there's a lot more confusion than there is clarity. And until we have any definitive answers there will be no more clarity so we all just need to take a moment and just work it out. Or just don't think about it until it actually happens. If you genuinely are that stressed about it that you think I don't know what to do I'm like losing control then let's just take a moment and chill and just put it on the back burner for now. Maybe book your level three as your bare minimum that's your basic facials and your AMP you'll probably need that at a minimum. So do that and then wait for the regulations and if they say you're gonna need to be level four you can book your level four. If you want to get it done in advance because the prices will probably go up just due to demand then get it done in advance. If you're a nurse or a doctor or any sort of medicine because you're a medic and you've already got that training could be wrong. Double check that non-medics you are probably gonna need to do a little bit of something so yeah I hope this has helped you and not made it worse. That is the absolute opposite of what I want to do with this I'm really wanting to try and just bring down the amount of like chaos going on at the minute around this. So yeah let me know if it's helped or let me know if I've made you feel even worse. Tag us um at the skinistry underscore and you can also tag me in my clinic at Foxy Skin Clinic which is F O X I E Skin Clinic and yeah you have a gorgeous week. Stop panicking and I will see you next week. Bye