Laser hair removal has walked out of the specialist clinic and onto the high street. Package pricing, celebrity endorsement and a wave of at-home IPL devices have turned what was once a considered medical purchase into something clients discuss casually over a coffee. For salons that have relied on waxing as a repeat-booking staple, the question is difficult to avoid. If laser is faster to results in the long run and clients no longer flinch at the price, is the waxing room being quietly left behind?

Whether you love or hate the heatwaves, either way you will be facing the same issue - how should you safely store your stock and products you work on? Heat does more than make products uncomfortable to use. In professional environments, high temperatures can alter viscosity, accelerate oxidation, affect preservatives, destabilise active ingredients and increase the risk around flammable liquids. As a general rule, cosmetics and professional products should be stored in a cool, dry, dark place, ideally at a stable room temperature between 15°C to 25°C which is the preferred range for cosmetics, gel polish and UV gels, with heat and temperature fluctuations being key causes of formula degradation.

The scandal that began with a single failed SPF test in Australia has left consumers questioning the bottle on their bathroom shelf. We asked Frances van der Velden, founder of Australian brand Airyday, how a sunscreen brand earns that confidence back, and why the country with the world's strictest sunscreen rules is where the lessons are being learned.

Lymphatic drainage gets sold short. It tends to sit in the same mental box as a relaxation massage, only gentler, and that framing does the treatment no favours with clients who equate pressure with value. Walk a client through what is actually happening under their skin, though, and the picture changes. The reason a good drainage treatment works has almost nothing to do with how hard you push. It has everything to do with where you push, in what direction, and at what rhythm.

For the best part of a decade, the interesting conversations in British skincare came out of Seoul. Sheet masks, ten-step routines, glass skin, essences nobody had heard of until everyone wanted three of them. K-beauty taught the UK market to experiment, and it changed what people expected a skincare shelf to look like. The next geographic wave is arriving from somewhere colder and stranger. Icelandic skincare speaks of provenance rather than novelty. Geothermal seawater, marine bioactives, mineral-rich waters, a national reputation for clean energy.

First there were ‘Sephora Kids”, now there’s a new word that has started circulating in dermatology journals; Cosmeticorexia. Cosmeticorexia describes a culturally reinforced, compulsive pursuit of flawless skin through excessive use of active ingredients, cosmetic products, tweakments and procedures. An open-access editorial published this year in Dermatology and Therapy frames it as a preoccupation with perfect skin that can lead to excessive, age-inappropriate or compulsive product use, and it draws a direct line to cosmeceuticals, social media routine culture, influencer marketing and the steady medicalisation of beauty.

A new dryer will make a stylist faster. It will not make them better. That distinction gets lost in most of the marketing around premium tools, and it costs salons money in the wrong direction. Premium brands have spent a long time selling speed, which is fair enough, because speed is worth selling. A well-engineered dryer with strong, even airflow does shorten the time a stylist spends on each head, and it does lower the cumulative heat a client's hair takes across a full column. Both of those matter, commercially and for condition. Somewhere along the line, though, the pitch slid from "this will help you work faster" to "this will make your blow dry better," and those are not the same promise. A blow dry that holds is built from sectioning, tension, cuticle control and the cool shot, and none of that lives in the handle of a dryer.

It’s important to remember that skin treatments are never one-size-fits-all. Dr Tego Kirnon-Jackman has created SKINMENU around a far more thoughtful approach, where every treatment is tailored to the individual, with protocols designed to adapt to your skin rather than forcing it into a standardised plan.

Traditionally, consumers have been encouraged to find “their scent” and remain loyal to it for years, sometimes decades. Anna Dobbie explains how the modern fragrance customer's behaviour is shifting to become more bespoke.

I recently experienced the 60-minute Katherine Daniels Skin Resurrection Treatment at Iris Avenue, and it was one of the most relaxing and hydrating  facials I’ve had in a long time.

SKINVITY moved into Selfridges' Smartech space last month, the latest beauty tech brand to graduate from selling direct online to a spot on the prestige retail floor, clinical claims and all and for salons, this means that another wellness tech company is cranking the dial up and putting professional-grade kit, LED, radiofrequency and pressotherapy, into the hands of the same clients who book your treatments.

The shortest, sheerest manicure in years is having its moment, and nobody can agree on what it means. To one camp, the bare nail is the new quiet-luxury flex. To another, it's a recession indicator hiding in plain sight. The frustrating part for anyone working on the floor is that both camps may be right at once, and you cannot tell which client is sitting in front of you by looking at her hands.

Menopausal hair thinning is becoming a major concern in aesthetic clinics and salons alike. Together with Kam Dogan, founder and clinical director of The PRP Lab, we look at why practitioners are under growing pressure to provide informed advice, successful treatments, and realistic expectations.

A laser burn complaint comes in. The clinic pulls the device file to send to the insurer. That is when a growing number of UK practitioners are finding out that the device they have been using is not what they thought they bought. By the time the insurer's coverage decision arrives, the practitioner is already exposed personally, and the protection they thought was in place turns out to be conditional on paperwork that does not actually exist.

Constant clock-checking tells a client you would rather be elsewhere. Here is how experienced practitioners stay on schedule without ever appearing to watch the time.

With Consultant Plastic and Reconstructive Surgeon Mr Paul Tulley, we explore how the operation shifts between younger and older candidates, and what that means for the choice of technique and the longevity of the result.

The phrase "facelift slipping" has moved from niche surgical forums into mainstream feeds. After Kris Jenner's reportedly $300,000 facelift became the subject of tabloid claims that her results were already fading and that she was unhappy and looking at a revision, the conversation cracked open across TikTok, Instagram and the gossip press. Search behaviour picked up the change the press release pack flagged this month. People have stopped asking whether a celebrity has had work done. They want to know why the work looks different a few months later.

If you spend any time on the business side of TikTok, you'll have seen the videos. A creator wandering through a Guangzhou showroom, sweeping the camera across rows of laser machines, hydrafacial trolleys and cryolipolysis units. Prices flashed up that are a fifth, sometimes a tenth, of what you'd pay a UK distributor. It's good content but for any practitioner who acts on it, it is also some of the most expensive advice on the platform.

There is no complaint that ruins a working week faster than a returning client whose enhancements are peeling away at the cuticle. Lifting is one of the industry's most stubborn problems, and one of its most misunderstood. It is rarely caused by a single failure. Far more often, it is the cumulative effect of small oversights that compound across prep, application, and aftercare.

Our editor spoke with Janna Ronert, founder of IMAGE Skincare, licensed esthetician and chairwoman of the board, whose brand says it is used by more than 60,000 licensed estheticians across over 60 countries. Together we explored what has really changed in clinic demand, why sensitive skin is still so often misread, how professional skincare should work alongside in-clinic procedures, and what clinics need to focus on now to keep their skincare offering strong going into 2026.