Beauty news: Prescription Skin Care and SkinBetter Science

I’m embarrassed to say that I’d never set foot in Prescription Skin Care’s super chic clinic at 197 Ponsonby Road until earlier this year, when I was lucky enough to be invited there for the launch of the SkinBetter Science skincare brand into the local market. I was hugely impressed - both by the research behind the beautiful, high performance new brand and by the work of the team at Prescription.

Prescription Skin Care has actually been helping people “look younger and feel confident about their skin” since it was founded in Remuera back in 1993. The Ponsonby location opened in December 2016, offering a state of the art clinic with the same technologically advanced equipment, facilities and highly trained personnel as Remuera, but for clients over this side of town. Both utilise the knowledge of Dr. Stephen Gilbert as Medical Director, a man who comes with a wealth of experience under his belt. He is experienced in all kinds of plastic surgery including facial enhancements such as rhinoplasty, breast surgery and liposuction, and was a founding co-director of the New Zealand Institute of Plastic and Cosmetic Surgery. Stephen’s daughter Georgina Robertson co-owns the Prescription Skin Care clinics with her mother Margaret Gilbert, so the passion for great skin solutions definitely runs in the family. 

The Ponsonby clinic is known for its proficiency in less invasive procedures like IPL, Laser Genesis and Laser Vein Treatments, as well as its stellar results with injectables. Angela Frazer (above) is the Senior Skin Care Nurse Consultant and Clinic Co-ordinator at Ponsonby and Remuera, and is largely responsible for the clinic’s fantastic reputation as a highly respected location for non-invasive work and skincare advice. She is also one of the most knowledgeable people in the beauty field that I have been lucky enough to meet in quite some time, and I could seriously listen to her talk for hours! And clearly I’m not the only one, as over the years Angela has contributed to health and fashion publications and spoken at a number of industry seminars, including the Australasian Plastic Surgical training weekend for doctors and the national Plastic Surgical Nurses Symposium. After qualifying as a Registered Nurse in New Zealand, Angela moved to London and worked for two years in the world-renowned dermatology unit at St Thomas’s hospital. During this time she not only gained extensive specialised knowledge in the field of dermatology but also developed a keen interest in the skin and associated treatments.

This was followed by seven years in the Plastic Surgery and Burns Unit at Auckland’s Middlemore hospital, before she was able to combine her experience in Dermatology and Plastic Surgical Nursing in private practice. She started at Prescription Skin Care in 1997 and has never looked back. Initially training and qualifying as a specialist collagen injector, Angela is now an expert in the areas of new generation dermal fillers and Botox, and she attends seminars, advanced workshops and conferences all over the world.

I returned to Prescription Skin Care a few weeks after the launch to meet with Angela one-on-one to learn more about the SkinBetter Science brand, which set out in 2016 to create a “new paradigm in skincare”, not only for patients, but for the physicians, nurses, aestheticians and surgeons who help patients achieve great skin. I was pleased to find out that the products are so well formulated that they don’t require a tedious multi-step process of application in the morning and evening, something that has turned me off so many brands. They say that one SkinBetter Science product can deliver remarkable results; and just two to three can change how you feel about your skin. I love that, and so does my bank account.

The one product that I’m excited to be playing with first is SkinBetter Science Alto Defense Serum, which is being applauded all over the world for its work on free radical damage. Free radicals are unstable, electron-stealing molecules that harm our cells as we age. The resultant damage, if unaddressed or repaired imperfectly, accumulates over time giving rise to wrinkles, brown spots, and even skin cancers. There are a myriad of antioxidants to counter free radicals, but individual ones generally do not protect against all free radicals — some only impact one type. And while both our bodies and our skin are smartly outfitted with innate antioxidant networks, they can easily get overwhelmed by the barrage of environmental assaults most of us suffer every day purely as a consequence of modern living. And when the hits start stacking up, we begin to look older than our years.

Which brings me back to Alto Defense Serum. What makes it remarkable, setting it apart from even the gold standards dermatologists have long lauded, is its impressive medley of antioxidants - vitamins C and E, coenzyme Q10, grape seed extract, cocoa, tumeric, green tea, coffee, superoxide dismutase, and more — that work in synergy to provide skin with a sort of blanket protection. What also stood out during recent testing was the apparent reduction in redness and wrinkles in subjects’ skin after just four weeks’ of use. There was also continued improvement over time, and the serum’ is highly tolerable even for those with rosacea like me. I generally can’t use products containing multiple actives, but thus far, this beauty is seriously performing.

If you want to learn more then I highly recommend a trip to Prescription Skin Care, a great local resource if ever there was one.

www.prescriptionskincare.co.nz/