Facial Treatments and Client Services
The service sequence
Every facial follows the same spine: consultation and consent, hand hygiene, cleanse and analyze, exfoliate, steam if indicated, extract, massage, mask, protect with SPF, then home care and documentation. Each step carries its own contraindication list, and exam items love to pair a client detail with the step that must be skipped.
Technique notes
- Steam: warm mist softens sebum before extractions; shorten or skip for rosacea, couperose, recent peels, asthma flare, or claustrophobia.
- Extractions: only softened, non-inflamed comedones; never squeeze pustules, cysts, or telangiectasia; lancet use only where rules and training allow.
- Massage: effleurage, petrissage, friction, tapotement, vibration. Avoid over active acne, sunburn, fever, recent injectables or surgery, and undiagnosed lesions; lighten pressure for sensitive skin.
- Masks: clay or kaolin for oiliness, gel or sheet for hydration, modeling masks for occlusion and firming.
- Products: remove with a spatula, never fingers from the jar; one linen set per client.
Worked example
A client arrives with visible capillaries across the cheeks and nose and asks for "really hot steam and a good scrub." Reasoning: heat and friction dilate vessels and can worsen couperose. Adjust: lukewarm water, no steam, no mechanical scrub, gentle cleansing, a calming mask, light massage, broad-spectrum SPF, and a note to see a dermatologist if the redness is new or spreading.
Traps
Treating over a cold sore or suspicious mole; extracting inflamed acne; skipping SPF; failing to document products and reactions; forgetting a patch test on a sensitive client.