Spent 8 months doing extractions wrong in my Chicago studio

I only realized last Tuesday that I was applying too much pressure with my extractor tool on cystic acne. It took a client named Maria telling me her skin felt worse after our sessions for me to stop and rethink my whole method. I watched three YouTube videos from a dermatologist in Miami and it clicked - gentle rolling not jabbing. Any other estheticians out there stuck in a bad habit for way too long before catching it?

3 comments

3 Comments

wyatt_ross279d ago

Maria speaking up probably saved you months more of frustration. Ive seen estheticians stick with a bad technique for years because that's how they were taught in school or by a mentor who was also doing it wrong. The YouTube dermatologist tip makes total sense though, gentle rolling instead of jabbing basically lets the extractor do the work without bruising the tissue around the cyst. Its wild how one client saying something can break you out of that muscle memory loop.

johnson.ryan9d ago

That whole idea of doing something wrong for way too long before somebody points it out, it happens everywhere, not just at work. Like I had a friend who was convinced he was folding his laundry the most efficient way possible, then his roommate showed him the KonMari method and his whole closet changed in like a weekend. Or my dad used to put salt in the pasta water way too late, just dumping it in after the water boiled, and never questioned it until my mom asked why his pasta was always bland. It's like our brains just lock in a routine and we stop checking if it's actually working until someone from outside says something, which is a weirdly humbling part of being human.

webb.val7d ago

Right, because who needs to question a decades-old pasta salting technique when you can just blame the water quality instead lol. It's almost like our brains have a default setting of "this is fine" until someone pops the bubble with a KonMari video or a dermatologist YouTube clip. Honestly, a little outside perspective is just the universe's way of saying "your grandma was wrong about that one thing, and that's okay.