Estheticians: Snake Oil Salesmen, or Legitimate Skin Care Professionals?

In My Humble Opinion
1

If the answer is “Legitimate Skin Care Professional”, then you’ll probably wonder why I would so jerkishly suggest otherwise.
Let me answer that first:

First of all, I’m not suggesting that they’re not legitimate I’m just wondering. I’m wondering based on the sample that I have known personally, and I state up front right here and now that I am looking at a small, and therefore possibly not representative, sample size. If any of my assumptions are offensive, I apologize. I’m here to get better information.

The sample that have ingrained my possibly unfair preconceptions:[ul]
[li]“Lost” or not really having their life together upon entering their early 30s.[/li][li]Always looking for a way to get out of working for “The Man”.[/li][li]Decision to become an esthetician is announced in a very “I’ve figured life out now- and I did it without playing the game- and my whole life is going to change now!” kind of a way.[/li][li]Maybe gets a job in a salon where the owner is “so amazing” and “we’re like sisters” until about six weeks into the job when everyone at the salon “hates me” and “they talk about me behind my back”.[/li][li]Ultimately never end up working more than a few hours a week (if that) and they still have to depend upon their parents and/or boyfriend to support them.[/li][/ul]
Everything from the above list would apply to about 5 different estheticians that I have known.
So, not a very good sample size at all but since my personal experience has been so consistent perhaps you can see how some manner of prejudice may have arisen.
To expound upon the “Snake Oil Salesmen” suggestion:
I have skin problems- psoriasis- that I have been dealing with for a long time. Damn do some people love to offer unsolicited advice when you have skin problems. Not all of the people who try to offer me advice have been estheticians, but many of them have an esthetician whom they deeply trust, some of them fancy themselves amateur estheticians, and, yes, some of them have actually been estheticians.

While I have been dealing with my skin problems over the years, there have been times when I have had insurance and have been seeing a dermatologist, and there have been times when I have been without insurance and with no dermatologist. Currently, I am happily insured. The dermatologists I have seen have tried me on a few different prescriptions and we’ve found some success. With my current dermatologist, we are doing very well indeed.

To quote Tim Minchin: “There’s a word for ‘Alternative Medicine that Has Been Proven to Work’: it is called medicine.”

I trust a dermatologist who prescribes medicine.

Given my description above of the estheticians I have known, I hope you’ll forgive me if I do not trust them to offer me a scientific explanation of why extract-of-tumtum-tree will alleviate my skin problems. If extract-of-tumtum-tree would help, I would expect my doctor to have prescribed it. When I explain what my doctor has recommended, some of the well-meaning advice givers will accept that I have found what works for me while others will warn me of “toxins” and insist that extract-of-tumtum-tree doesn’t have toxins because it is natural.
I understand that this OP really looks like I have already made up my mind. But, really, I’m interested in hearing from anyone who may know better. For example, I was surprised to see from the Wiki page that some estheticians work with dermatologists, and the page doesn’t have a “Controversy” section like the page for chiropractors. So, it seems it’s a profession that runs a range from flakes to experts.

Who can tell me more?

2

The only esthetician I know is a perfectly nice woman who does a bunch of optional, pretty stuff I don’t want to pay for, but some of my friends do. She knows I have rosacea and has never presumed to try to give me any advice about it. I have no idea how long she has been doing it–years, at any rate–and she probably works 20 hours a week. The rest of the time she has a family and home and other stuff to care for.

3

The only place I’ve ever encountered the word esthetician has been in late-night infomercials I have been forced to sit through in the lunchroom at work. In my estimation, the products being hawked in these infomercials have ALL been snake oil. The infomercials usually specify that their esthetician is a certified esthetician (apparently to distinguish her from all those fly-by-night ad hoc estheticians who do so much to make the entire profession look bad). :dubious:

In my fantasy life, I am in the audience and during the Q & A session I ask the esthetician where she got her certification and what was required of her to obtain it. For extra implausibility points, the infomercial actually airs with my question included.

Hey, I said it was my fantasy life.

4

My only experience is similar to that described by dangermom. I never went to an esthetician for medical advice though, it was more of a cosmetic thing.

5

How about both…

Most of the time when I get a facial, I get a good cleansing and moisterizing facial. It feels wonderful and I glow for days. Perfect for a special occasion. My blackheads get squeezed out. i.e. skin care professional.

Most of the time I also get sold snake oil to make my wrinkles less noticable or “lift” my face, or something else. Most of that is snake oil.

However, I have good skin, there isn’t anything that I need to see a dermatologist for.

6

In all fairness (yeah, I am the guy who started an OP that in its entirety may not be fair to estheticians), the Wiki page does confirm that they have to be licensed by the state:

Dangerosa, some good points. Thanks!

7

A close friend of mine is an esthetician. Has been for years, as long as I’ve known her.

She changed jobs once during that time, moved out of state.

Even though she would love to be full time, the quantity of customers just isn’t there for her. She’s at a spa that does all sorts of stuff - she does the facial stuff (and whatever is typical of an esthetician I suppose) plus hair removal/waxing (which I don’t know if that’s typical of her field or not). She does cleaning on the side. But her primary gig is usually at least 20-30 hours per week, with the occasional lean week here and there.

And that’s the thing, she tells me, those lean weeks. It’s not a high demand service and she can’t count on a certain income per week. It’s mostly commission, so if she doesn’t have many customers scheduled for a given week she’s kinda screwed.

Otherwise she’s a smart, got her shit together kind of person. Loves what she does. Isn’t the alternative/hippie medicine type. And her move to AZ wasn’t that long ago so she’s still building her customer base.

8

I love cosmetics. I have figured out how to do my own beauty stuff that really makes a difference, like shaping brows, dying brows and eyelashes, scrubbing skin. Most of the other stuff estheticians seem to do, IMHO, is putting stuff on my face, only to remove it ten minutes later and dirtying a lot of little white towels in the process. I just don’t see the point of going there again.

9

My wife became a (certified/licensed) esthetician about a year ago, and encountered a similar issue. She pretty much exclusively does waxing, for which there is apparently a steady stream of customers. Not so much for the facial stuff. We set up a spa room in our house, including some rather expensive microdermabrasion equipment that sits virtually unused.

As to whether it’s snake oil, I think there’s definitely an element of woo in some of the treatments and claims about the products. Skin care products (especially those marketed to women) have come with dubious claims since time immemorial, however, whether you buy them from an esthetician or from Walmart. Even dermatologists aren’t completely blameless, in my opinion— my wife saw one recently for facial blemishes and was prescribed a bunch of expensive creams that had to be custom-mixed in their own pharmacy, and which insurance didn’t cover. It’s hard not to think that it’s all a big racket.

10

It might not have been cool of me to include the personal life critiques in the OP.
I was just trying to illustrate that the people I have known haven’t been the kind of people to inspire confidence that they could legitimately claim expertise in much of anything at all.