Though the trend hasn’t completely caught on, there’s no doubt that medispas are on the rise. For instance, this Financial Review article (about how the trend has caught on in Australia) states that “Medispas are fast populating chic cities such as New York and London.” While it makes one wonder how this affects professional spa and salon products, let’s hold on that for a moment and ask this question instead: How is a medispa different from a regular spa?
What Exactly Is a Medispa?
For simplicity’s sake, we’ll start by defining a medispa as a spa that has a licensed physician or medical professional on staff. For example, Duquessa, one of the medispas mentioned in the Financial Review article, is owned by Katherine Millar-Shannon, a cosmetic nurse who has the ability to consult, prescribe, refer, and treat clients.
To dig a little deeper, let’s rely on this perfect description from an Orlando Sentinel article from earlier this year:
With trappings of luxury a must nonetheless, the hybrid medispa offers an ambience that's often more deluxe than a traditional spa where treatments are, well, less clinical (think mani/pedi and routine facials). Medispas, on the other hand, offer medical-grade esthetic services and the most recent advances in skin care. It's where a keen focus on smoothing wrinkles, erasing age spots and activating collagen reproduction are set to a backdrop of pastel shades and soft music.
Calling a medispa a “hybrid” makes sense; clients can still receive typical treatments—facials, massages, mani/pedis—but medical treatments that use lasers, microdermabrasion, and Botox are available, too.
Medical Grade Treatments Require Medical Grade Products
Now we can circle back to products. Because if you’re offering medical grade services, doesn’t it make sense to be using medical grade products to administer them? Estheticians might be surprised to learn that many of the standard Intrinsics products they’re using—such as our cotton balls, swabs, coils, and gauze products—are already medical grade. This should give you great confidence in the tools you’re using for your treatments, along with the gratifying knowledge that you’re enhancing the client experience, too.
For those who know the Intrinsics back story, the fact that many of our beauty offerings are medical grade won’t come as a surprise. Barnhardt Cotton Manufacturing Company is our parent company, and one of our sibling divisions is Richmond Dental & Medical, a maker of premium dental and medical products. This means Barnhardt Cotton provides medical grade products to some of the largest medical and pharmaceutical companies in the world.
Why Medical Grade Products Matter for Estheticians
Obviously, if you work in a medispa, you’ll need medical grade products to complete some of your treatments. However, even if you work in a traditional spa, medical grade products offer a degree of safety that doesn’t come with standard products. This will put your clients at ease, especially considering many treatments involve sensitive areas of the body.
Ultimately, medical grade matters. Sure, there are beauty applications where it’s not necessary, and could even be called overkill. But put yourself in the shoes of one of your clients. If you had the choice between a medical grade or a standard grade product, which would you choose?
We think the answer is pretty obvious.
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