![]() Rebecca Johnson, now an owner of a spa in Colorado Springs, first visited Ms. But that doesn’t stop clients from listening to the edicts of their facialists. No matter their training, facialists cannot match dermatologists’ years of medical school. Last summer, Atelier Esthétique Institute of Esthetics in Manhattan offered an additional 350-hour course, approved by New York state, for facialists who wanted an advanced diploma. “Now they are treating us like medical professionals.”Īestheticians in most states, including New York and California, must complete 600 hours of classes at an aesthetics school to get a license. Customers “used to treat us like maids,” said Aida Bicaj, an aesthetician whose skincare salon is on the Upper East Side. “A lot of these people also work in doctors’ offices dermatologists and plastic surgeons actually refer patients to them.” Pamela Peeke, an assistant clinical professor of medicine at the University of Maryland, and a former medical adviser to the International Spa Association. ![]() “There has been a shift of power,” said Dr. The number of so-called medi-spas nationwide has more than tripled, to 976 in 2007, up from 310 in 2006, according to the International Spa Association. ![]() That some aestheticians now work at “medi-spas,” where facials are performed under a doctor’s auspices, has also added to their credibility in the eyes of customers. ![]() These people are being venerated because the new technology has made them vehicles to maintaining the image of youth.” “She is becoming the arbiter of your life, a second mother who even tells you what to eat. “This is the time of the über-aesthetician,” said Anna L. That technological artillery is part of the reason that facialists, once considered subservient worker bees, have won the respect of clients. She makes it her business to berate clients who eat poorly, and decides whether to use light-emitting diodes, mild peels or blue, red and green light therapy. Now that professional skincare is rife with options, and the goal is often to take years, not simply pollutants from a face, the aesthetician has become the decider. The extent of their expertise was determining whether skin was oily, dry or sensitive. In the past, facialists basically cleaned pores, applied a mask and rubbed cream on your décolletage. “Julie gets away with talking to people like that because she makes your skin look amazing.” Dassinger, who has her skin stimulated with an ultrasound machine. “There is a nicer way she could deliver her comments, but you get used to it,” said Ms. Lindh monthly because she relies on her high-tech solutions and tell-it-like-it-is diagnoses. ![]() Dassinger returned for another appointment and now visits Ms. “At first I thought she was kidding,” she said. Dassinger, who runs a healing center in Montclair, N.J., was aghast. Lindh warned, “you will have saggy skin, jowls, and look like someone’s grandmother in a couple of years.” “If you don’t stay out of the sun and use the products I suggest,” Ms. Dassinger, 50, had relaxed under a heated blanket, the rebuke of her facialist, Julie Lindh, put her on edge. WHEN Isabel Dassinger arrived at Townhouse Spa with its mother-of-pearl walls and roaring fireplace, she was anticipating an afternoon of coddling. ![]()
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