🌈 2025 Skin Trends - natural, holistic & collagen stimulating treatments are IN 🌈

As we settle in to 2025, I am just settling back into clinic life and getting ready to get your skin glowing. This involves a lot of meetings, review of clinical protocols, servicing of equipment and review of what’s working and whats not.

If I reflect on the theme for this year, it’s holistic, with more treatments aligned to collagen stimulation and skin health as opposed to traditional ‘cosmetic’ treatments. This focus on holistic medicine is now becoming mainstream, and I predict that we are going to see a lot more “natural treatments”, ablative lasers and “wellness” in the aesthetic sphere.

Basically, this means that our clinic will be in hot demand ! ( sigh, I hope) as I continue to develops my integrative skin protocols incorporating evidence based skin care, lasers and aesthetic treatments, with attention to underlying hormonal and metabolic health. I truly feel that this approach gives not only the best skin results, but also a healthy approach to living and ageing well.

2025 Predictions: 6 Things to Watch in the Aesthetic Space this Year

🌿 Skin Barrier Health & Bio Remodelling agents

🌿 Low Downtime Laser Facials

🌿 Platelet Rich Plasma

🌿 Biostimulators

🌿 Low Downtime Laser Facials

🌿Ablative Lasers

🌿 Hormonal and metabolic support for skin health

🌿 Skin Barrier Health & BioRemodelling Agents

I predict a trend towards supporting and nurturing the skin as opposed to nuking it with acids and exfoliants. Don’t get me wrong - i love retinols, peels and ablative lasers! But I think the jury is in when it comes to the effectiveness of reformulating traditional home care, peels and clinical treatments to nurture the skin and retain a healthy skin pH. Just look at the huge popularity and exceptional results of BioRepeel (the Thrive BioRevive)! I also am seeing more of literature supporting the importance of barrier health and Bioremodeling Agents to manage chronic inflammatory skin diseases such as rosacea, melasma acne and eczema. I certainly am continuing to incorporate them in my skin care protocols- especially for rosacea, perimenopausal and post menopausal women, as well as in my laser protocols to assist with repair and post inflammatory erythema.

This trend will increasingly extend into home skin care- my pick here is Synergie Skin’s Hylavive. Look out for the new Hydrinity brand landing soon to Australia.

🌿 Platelet Rich Plasma (PRP)

I am seeing more young patients in their 30s and 40s who seek out my advice in order to look at evidence based, and more natural options to prevent ageing. The trend of fake looking big lips and puffy faces is definitely diminishing, and many of these patients are asking me to dissolve their fillers. This trend is a huge hit with me!

As a medical doctor the message is - if you want to age well, you must start early, before you have significant changes in your skin. You can never truly reverse lines and wrinkles. The best intervention is prevention. I’m a huge advocate for younger patients to use Platelet Rich Plasma (PRP) to keep skin healthy and prevent age related skin decline along all the cell lines.The benefits of PRP are multiple - it is a natural treatment, sources from your own blood that can be used anywhere on the face, restoring and rejuvenating ALL the cells in your face, hence it results in global improvement to the skin including increased collagen production and skin strength, increased fat stores (supporting natural volume in the face), reduced inflammation (less redness and pigmentation) and improvements in skin texture. 

Under eye issues are mostly related to skin quality- I am in favour of using PRP in the under eye region INSTEAD of dermal filler , combined with Tixel or Ultraclear lasers, adding a small amount of volumising agent after these interventions if required. Surgical referral is also beneficial for some issues such as “eye bags” or fat pad hypertrophy. Of course, PRP is only as good as your growth factors, so supporting you to lead a healthy lifestyle and checking out your metabolic health is also part of my treatment plan.

🌿 Injectable Biostimulator Agents / Collagen Stimulators

The more I learn about ageing, the more confused I get about why people focus on HA fillers so much. While HA fillers have their place (restoring and maintaining facial volume) this is definitely not the whole story when it comes to natural facial rejuvenation! Instead of just focusing on volume, our focus should be on restoring collagen and elastin levels in the skin. Over the last 3 years I have started using injectable Biostimulators and hybrid volumising/collagen stimulator in my practice, to the point where 80% of my regular patients chose these types of treatment in place of traditional filling treatments. I can honesty say that my patients love the results of Biostimulating agents- I’ve never had so many word of mouth referrals from one treatment.

Injectable Biostimulators address age related skin concerns much better than typical volumising treatments and offer a host of other benefits- not only do they improve volume loss, they also improve skin quality, skin laxity, provide a natural and gradual improvement and last over two years. However, this type of treatment has risks, and is not suitable for everyone- make sure you have a consultation before we decide to treat. I'm very conservative and I prefer to be safe and slow rather than over treat. Hybrid Biostimulators are especially effective for mature patients with skin laxity or a “heavy“ lower face , who don’t want surgical referral. I’ve had great results combining ablative lasers and Ultraformer with Collagen Stimulators- combination treatments really do work better.

🌿 Low Downtime Laser Facials

As you all know, I'm a huge fan of heat to stimulate collagen, and as my patients love low downtime interventions, I often recommend low energy level laser facials to promote healthy skin. Our laser facial protocol includes a customised laser (vascular “genesis” or low energy Q switch laser) coupled with a peel or mask and LED light. This multiple modality treatment target the both structural and functional skin concerns, and address multiple concerns in one visit. It just makes sense to combine things, especially as this also saves you time and money. Finally, the aesthetics industry is catching up! As you find more practices offering laser treatments, please review a providers qualifications , whether the device is TGA approved , how old the device is, and serviced regularly and how long they have been a laser technician. Some devices and technicians are better than others, and you should expect to pay for this! Check out my blog on IPL and Laser Safety here for more tips.

I have worked for years honing my protocols for ageing, redness, pigmentation, acne, scarring and impaired skin barrier, and I'm always changing and adapting my protocols with new treatments , combinations and devices. This year I’ve added in the Excel V vascular laser to our laser family as this will offer a faster, more comfortable and better outcomes for redness and rosacea.

Our clinic is just about to open up our new 12 Week Skin Programmes for skin concerns combining lasers and other modalities, along with home care and dermal clinician led education. These programmes are innovative, and offer the best dermatology devices and treatments available- I’m so excited to work with such experienced clinicians at Thrive who will be able to manage and control most skin conditions, with the option of referring to me if needed for more complex concerns. These programs will be particularly effective for rosacea and acne, 2 of the main skin complaints that we see in clinic.

🌿 Ablative Lasers

Patient demand for natural looking treatments has driven a huge growth in the laser market, and ablative lasers ( mostly CO2 and erbium) are currently very popular with celebritys and skin enthusiasts alike. Ablative lasers use intense heat energy to remove the upper layer of skin, and stimulate intense collagen production. This resurfaces the skin, improving lines, wrinkles, pigmentation and scarring - but not without risks and downtime. I have been using ablative lasers since 2016, and there has been a significant development in technology since that time. I’ve had my eye on the market over the last few years, and the one standout over this time has been the Ultraclear Laser, which has recently landed in Australia.

We are one of only a handful of clinics to offer the UltraClear laser, which uses a completely new “cold fibre” technology to produce very rapid pulses of heat, reducing patient downtime and discomfort and allowing us to treat all skin types. UltraClear also offers something no other laser can - Laser Coring - which removes small “cores” of the skin using powerful laser energy. The body then heals around the core, contracting the skin and improving skin laxity without surgery, and providing intense collagen stimulation to improve surgical and acne scars, and deeper lines and wrinkles. Coring is for patients wanting to avoid surgery, or do in combination with surgery to improve the skin itself. This modality is going to be very popular! I am extremely excited to be offering this advanced, doctor only treatment, and the results I’ve sen so far have been mind blowing, I can’t wait to share them with you.

I predict that there will be a lot more clinics using ablative lasers in the next 12 months- of note here is an important safety message- ablative lasers are not a beauty treatment. They have risks and should only be used by clinicians with adequate training and experience. It takes time to develop the skills necessary to use advanced lasers. Just because someone is a beauty therapist, nurse or a doctor does not mean they know how to use a laser safely, or to get good results. Make sure you book a consultation with the clinic before you commit to a procedure, ask about their qualifications and experience and go through important issues like how to prepare your skin, and look after it post treatment. Don’t be motivated by price alone- a cheap treatment can sometimes be the most expensive treatment you’ve had and leave you with long term issues, or no results.

🌿 Hormonal & metabolic support for skin health

One of the most exciting things to rise out of 2024 in our clinic, was the launch of our formal perimenopause and weight loss programs. We now have integrated protocols combining hormonal and metabolic health with dermal therapy, laser and injectable treatments - I am beyond excited to have the opportunity to integrate my love of science with skin and healthy ageing. Metabolic health is the new frontier in aesthetics and as a medical doctor with a science degree, this is my area of expertise and passion! There is no question that I would prefer to prevent disease and engage you all in living a healthy lifestyle now, rather than manage your diabetes, cancer or neurodegenerative disease in 20 years. The great news is that you will improve both your general health and longevity as a result.

A caveat to the above integrative trend is that you are going to see a lot of untrained people offer up advice and treatments in the “wellness” space, weight loss and hormone sphere. Just be mindful who you talk to, what advice you take, and who you believe. Contrary to popular belief, medicine needs to be practiced with restraint, nuance, a scientific basis and humble approach! Just because you can do something, does not mean you do it well, or that you should do it! I’m a fan of understanding the whole picture, slow, meaningful change and long term relationships that allow a patient and clinician to a shared decision model, that’s responsive to changes through the lifespan, new medical insights not rooted in medicine from 50 years ago.

With that in mind- I love to collaborate, so if you do work in the wellness sphere (naturopath, dietician, exercise physiologists, personal trainer or life coach, please reach out!